‘Dark money’: $57m of donations to major Australian parties in 2022-23 of unknown origin

Is anyone surprised Australia is corrupt as fuck

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The origin of at least $57m – amounting to about a quarter of all funding to major political parties – is unknown, according to an analysis by Guardian Australia.

The analysis of annual political returns, released by the Australian Electoral Commission on Thursday, show between 21% and 27% of donations and other receipts to Labor, the Coalition and the Greens were from unnamed sources.

The difference between the sum of the donations declared and the total amount is so-called “dark money” – essentially funds for which the source is not publicly known.

Meanwhile, spending and donation caps, and a lowering of the disclosure threshold, are on the table as part of a suite of electoral reforms promised by the Albanese government.

The special minister of state, Don Farrell, later confirmed he was still trying to “get some consensus” with the parties about increasing transparency and accountability into the federal electoral system.

The Centre for Public Integrity, which has been tracking the amount of dark money in Australia’s political system for years, said implementing the changes would make “substantial inroads” toward improving the issues.

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