Zali Steggall says political donations follow AEC guidelines

“Although the donation consisted of eight individual pledges, a check for $100,000 was presented to Warringah Independent Ltd by The Kinghorn Family Trust. Under election law, details of individual receipts over the threshold must be disclosed in the annual disclosure report,” the audit report concluded.

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In an earlier response to questions from Sydney morning Herald and age, Ms Steggall said in a statement: ‘These are donations from a number of members of a large family who almost all live in Warringah. If you exclude receiving donations from anyone who has invested in coal at one time or another, you exclude just about everyone, as most people did through their retirement pension.

Ms Steggall has been one of the loudest voices in the Federal Parliament calling for political donation reform, saying in December last year that ‘for too long the money has been hidden in plain sight and sight. public scrutiny. Our democracy is for sale.

Victorian Liberal MP Tim Wilson, whose seat is among those targeted by an independent candidate backed by the climate-focused ‘Voices of’ campaign, told Sky News on Monday morning: ‘On the face of it, this is the kind conduct that is deeply unacceptable, raising serious issues of integrity and, frankly, utter hypocrisy.

‘Ms Steggall ran around saying she was against coal donations,’ he said.

On Monday morning, Tasmanian Crusader MP Andrew Wilkie introduced a bill to tighten campaign finance rules, including requiring real-time disclosure of donations, lowering the disclosure threshold and putting in place caps on donations and election expenses.

It would also ban donations from particular industries, including fossil fuel companies, gambling companies, alcohol companies and the tobacco industry.

“Australia’s political donation laws remain downright laughable, designed to make it easy for big donors to fly under the radar as they seek to secure the influence of politicians,” he said.

“This opaque arrangement is a real danger to democracy.”

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