We often hear from the Greens and teals about how big corporate interests are driving policy outcomes through donations. And they are right. Recent Australian Electoral Commission donor disclosures show just how much in tax-free donations the big green lobby groups have been receiving, often from environmental trust funds and some of Australia’s richest families. But why does it take a regional publication like the Weekly Times to bring this to our attention? Where is the mainstream media? For example, the Australian Conservation Foundation, who lobbies actively to rip water out of the Murray Darling Basin, raked in more than $59 million over three years. GetUp! Got over $56 million, and Animals Australia raked in a massive $79 million over the same period that they now use to run campaigns and court cases against legitimate business like wild dog control, kangaroo culling, live exports, feedlots, poultry farming and abattoir gassing of pigs. Environmental and animal rights organisations rake in tens of millions of dollars, often by making emotive and dubious claims, and then lobby governments. You just have to look at this government’s current policy on live exports to see it that it worked. Farming organisations cannot compete against these cartels. The rise of billionaire trust funds that feed into green lobby groups and lawfare campaigns as well as politicians’ election campaigns should be looked at more closely. We need to know whether the piper is being paid and for what. It is not loose change. It is powerful multimillions of dollars, and that sort of money brings influence.
