Money and power in Australia
Last financial year, businesses, unions and people paid the five main parties . Every disclosed dollar sits on a free public register. Integrity bodies have shown how the rules can be bent. Here's what the record shows, and what it doesn't.
| Paid to the five main parties | |
| Givers who paid Labor and the Coalition | |
| Share not filed as a "donation" | |
| Payments to one branch over $50,000 | |
| Rows in the public file |
Source: AEC Transparency Register, Detailed Receipts, FY . Public funding and party-to-party transfers left out.
How it works
All four are legal. Each one makes the money harder to follow in its own way.
Threshold
Gifts under the disclosure threshold don't have to be reported: $16,900 in 2024-25, $17,300 in 2025-26.
Gifts from the same giver to the same party are added up over the year, so splitting a gift doesn't avoid disclosure. From 1 January 2027 the threshold drops to $5,000. AEC ↗
Labels
In FY , of what parties reported from private sources was filed as something other than a donation.
"Other receipts" include fundraising-event tickets, memberships, loans, rent and investment income. They're disclosed, but they read differently from gifts.
Both sides
In FY , givers paid both Labor and the Coalition.
Giving to more than one party is legal and common. The register records who paid whom, never why.
Associated entities
Party fundraising companies, clubs and investment vehicles give to parties under their own name.
Where their money came from appears only in their own return. From 2027, donations from a party's "nominated entity" to that party won't count toward the new cap. Parliamentary Library ↗
Real cases
The first four are cases where a political donor was on the other side of a government decision: a land sale, a water deal, a port project, rezonings. Then four more findings on how money and decisions mix. Each card says what was found, what the AEC data shows, and what wasn't found.
Who paid
Real names and real amounts from the AEC register. Commonwealth contracts and grants will be shown beside each one once that data is added.
These are disclosures, not findings. Nothing here suggests that any of these payers received anything in return. Every row is on Follow the Money →
The consultants
The four biggest consulting firms pay political parties and also win federal contracts. Here are both sides for FY 2022-23, the year the PwC tax leak became public.
Contracts are awarded by public servants in agencies, often through standing panels, and no inquiry has found that these firms' payments to parties affected any contract. Contract values: AusTender, as analysed by The Canberra Times (10 July 2023); they may have risen as agencies published more notices. Payments to parties: AEC Detailed Receipts, political party returns only (business-group memberships excluded).
Grants & tenders
Organisations in the AEC donation data matched by name to AusTender contracts and GrantConnect grants. Being on both lists doesn't show that one caused the other.
Check an amount
Pick an amount to see how the current rules and the 2027 rules treat it, and how many real payments that size were made last year.
Why it's easy to miss
Everything here is published. These are the reasons most people never see it.
Annual returns go live each February. The 2024-25 returns were published on 2 February 2026, seven months after that financial year ended.
Source: AEC media releaseEvery disclosed receipt since is in a single file, with spellings that vary from row to row.
Source: AEC Detailed Receipts downloadThe register says which financial year money moved, not which day, so it can't be lined up with decisions made that year.
Faster reporting during elections starts in 2027.Money that passes through an associated entity appears under the entity's name on the party's return. The original sources are in a separate return.
Follow the Money joins them upWhat's changing
New federal funding and disclosure laws take effect on 1 January 2027.
Gifts over $5,000 (in total, per giver, per recipient, per calendar year) must be disclosed.
About $50,000 per giver per recipient per year. Each registered party branch counts separately, so one party can receive up to nine caps from one giver.
During election periods, gifts must be disclosed as soon as within 24 hours.
A party's nominated entity can give to that party without it counting toward the cap.
Sources: AEC: Explaining the changes · Parliamentary Library: Electoral finance (2025-26). Caps are indexed; check the AEC for current amounts.
FAQ
Yes, within the disclosure rules. Some states add their own limits, such as NSW's ban on donations from property developers. This site is about the federal register.
The register can't answer that. It shows who paid whom and how much, not meetings, decisions or what anyone got back. The real cases above are the ones where an integrity body examined the facts and published findings.
Gifts over the threshold must be disclosed by both giver and recipient. Money that passes through an associated entity appears under the entity's name on the party's return; the original sources appear in the entity's own return.
The people behind Follow the Money, a free site that turns AEC returns into something you can read and check line by line.