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.
Political parties were only required to declare the source of donations and other payments that were above a certain threshold, which in 2022-23 was $15,200.
They also are required to declare the total amount of money they received. 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.
This amounted to $56.7m – or a quarter of the total given – to Labor, the Greens, the Nationals and the Liberals. The proportion was smaller for party branches which chose to declare amounts under the threshold.
Labor received $84.4m in donations and other receipts, of which 26.6% ($22.4m) came from unknown sources.
The Greens declared $19.4m of its donations and receipts, while the origin of a further $6.2m, or 24%, in funds remained hidden.
While the Liberal party recorded $25.2m in dark money – around $3m more than Labor – the percentage of its undeclared funds was slightly lower, at 22.4%.
The Nationals had the lowest percentage of dark money – 21.6% – after declaring $10.6m of its $13.6m in total receipts.
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.
An interim report from the joint standing committee on electoral matters, chaired by a Labor MP, backed legislating changes to cap political donations, lower the disclosure threshold for donations to $1,000 and offer real-time donation disclosures in June.
It was not supported by the opposition, who accused the government of attempting to “financially gerrymander” an advantage for Labor and unions.
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 Greens senator Larissa Waters warned the Albanese government against doing a “dirty deal” with the opposition. Waters said there was still “zero detail” on how the government would move forward on the reforms two months after the inquiry’s final report.
“Labor’s promises for electoral reform to deal with misinformation [and] dark money and improve transparency are all hollow, while we see no proposed reforms and hear rumours they are stitching up rules with the Liberal party which would prop up the flagging two-party system,” she said on Thursday.
“It’s time for Labor to come to the table and work with us to ensure politicians work in the public interest, not the interest of their donor mates.”
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.
Catherine Williams, the centre’s research director, said they were necessary changes to improve public trust and confidence.
“For the public to be able to trust in our political system, we need to know how parties and candidates are being funded. That allows us to understand who might be seeking to have access to them and potentially influence the exercise of public power,” she told Guardian Australia.
“At the moment, we don’t have sufficient visibility of that.”
An analysis conducted by the OurDemocracy campaign group found similar results to Guardian Australia’s analysis, showing the source of 23% of the major parties’ receipts in the 2022-23 financial year was unknown.
