High-Spending Candidates Fall Short in Federal Election: Who Spent Big and Lost

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The Climate 200 political action group spent almost $11 million to fund independent candidates that backed climate action at the last federal election, according to the latest disclosures from the Australian Electoral Commission.

The organisation received just over $9 million at the 2025 election campaign from donors, financial disclosures for the 2025 federal election published on Monday reveal.

For the 2025 federal election, the threshold for disclosing donations was set at $16,900, marking a significant benchmark for transparency in campaign financing.

Ben Smith, who campaigned as an independent candidate for the Flinders seat in Victoria but did not win, managed to amass a substantial $1.78 million in donations, highlighting considerable financial backing for his bid.

One of the biggest independent spenders at the last election was Climate 200-backed Carolyn Heise, who unsuccessfully ran for the regional NSW seat of Cowper. She spent $1,994,969 on the campaign and received $2,141,655 in donations.

In Sydney, Independent MP Zali Steggall successfully defended her position in the Warringah seat. Notably, she secured $789,000 in donations without the support of the influential Climate 200 group, demonstrating her strong individual appeal.

Former Triple J presenter Alex Dyson, who lost to Liberal incumbent Dan Tehan in the seat of Wannon, Victoria, received $2.1 million in donations and poured $1,086,054 into his campaign.

Meanwhile, Monique Ryan, representing the Melbourne constituency of Kooyong as an independent, received an impressive $1.9 million in contributions, underscoring the financial support and confidence of her constituents.

Of the other Climate 200-backed independents who won their seats — Monique Ryan received $1.9 million in donations, Kate Chaney received $1.4 million, Sophie Scamps $1.7 million and Allegra Spender $1.74 million.

Independent MP Zali Steggall, who retained the Sydney seat of Warringah and who was not backed by Climate 200, received $789,000.

A middle-aged woman in a black T-shirt, gesturing with her left hand as she speaks.

Independent member for the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, Monique Ryan, received $1.9 million in donations. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas

Of the available data for the major parties, Labor senator Katy Gallagher received almost $50,000 in donations and spent $80,000 campaigning.

The snapshot shows information from candidates, Senate groups and donors, but major party candidates often can put “zero” in their return forms, rolling their reporting into the annual political party returns, which will be published in February 2026.

Bill Browne, director of the Democracy & Accountability Program at the Australia Institute, said this can give an “unfair comparison” of the independent candidates against major party candidates.

He said at the 2022 election, there was a lot of confusion that independent spending seemed higher because it was disclosed earlier, but when the major party spending figures came out later, it became clear that, on the whole, independent candidates “spent less per seat than did the major parties”.

“Unfortunately, the data is not directly comparable. We can’t say decisively that in terms of electoral campaign spending, the major parties outspend community independents, but when we look at proxies like just spending on social media, there’s no clear trend that community independents outspent their major party rivals,” Browne said.

Climate 200 said its donations were far smaller than the “massive amounts of money raised and spent by the major parties”.

Byron Fay, the group’s executive director, said in a statement: “While the exact party expenditure figures won’t be published for several months, the fact they spent close to half a billion dollars in the lead up to the 2022 election is indicative of what they would have spent in 2025.”

‘Independents face uphill battle’

Browne said it can be costly to run a campaign against the major party candidates.

“Independent candidates face an uphill battle given the advantages that the major parties receive,” he said.

“An independent candidate who’s going to challenge an incumbent has a degree of spending that they need to do just to catch up to where the incumbent is.

“We also see from the major parties that they can pile in their spending to target seats. So, whereas there might be safe seats where a major party spends very little, we do see million-dollar campaigns from parties in target seats.”

The threshold above which donations must be disclosed will be $5,000 instead of $1,000. The current disclosure threshold is $16,900.