Prominent independent “teal” MP Zoe Daniel has been referred to the National Anti Corruption Commission over allegations she lobbied a media outlet on behalf of one of her wealthy supporters, billionaire renewables campaigner Simon Holmes à Court.
The complaint was laid by former Liberal MP and New South Wales (NSW) party president Jason Falinski, who alleges that staff working for Daniel asked the Australian Financial Review (AFR) to delete Holmes à Court’s name from the “covert” section of its annual list of influential Australians.
The listing was based on the newspaper’s editorial judgement and its coverage of his political activities.
If the allegation against Daniel are proven, “then there has been a misuse of taxpayer-funded resources, specifically involving Ms. Daniel’s staff, who are alleged to have been engaged in lobbying efforts on behalf of her donors,” Falsinki’s letter to the Commission said.
The letter quoted an AFR article, which alleged another independent MP, Allegra Spender, had also lobbied on behalf of Holmes à Court.
“About two weeks after the Australian Financial Review Magazine’s Power list panel met to finalise the 2024 lists, teal independent Allegra Spender walked into the paper’s Canberra bureau seeking a favour,” the article said.
“She was not on either the covert or overt lists and, technically, she should not have known who was … Spender was visiting the Financial Review’s press gallery office on behalf of Simon Holmes à Court.
MP Denies Allegation
A spokesperson for Spender said the article was incorrect but didn’t specify how.Daniel’s spokesman said the MP was unaware of the complaint and would wait for any notification from the Commission before responding publicly.
In the lead-up to the 2019 federal election, Holmes à Court’s environmental lobbying group Climate 200 raised over $12 million from 11,500 donors and used it to back 23 independent candidates in 2019, including Zali Steggall, Helen Haines, and Rebekha Sharkie.
Many of those who gained his backing in 2022—including Daniel, Spender, Monique Ryan, and Kylea Tink—also won their seats in 2022. They became known as “teal” MPs because their promotional material and official colours were a uniform shade of teal.
Daniel, like all the candidates who gained Climate 200 backing, promised as part of her platform to root out corruption in Canberra, and earlier this year told the Politics with Michelle Grattan podcast that she thought “there’s a strong case for getting big money out of politics … But I think that the danger is that it ends up, either deliberately or as an unintended consequence, preventing new players from getting into politics.”
Alongside this, Climate 200 paid for advertising on Facebook that “eclipsed the Liberals in terms of reach (potential audience) and impressions (times an advert was seen).”
Wealthy Backers
Climate 200 is also backed by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, businessman Nick Fairfax and his wife Sandra, and tech entrepreneur Simon Hackett.Holmes à Court has always maintained that Climate 200 isn’t a party and the candidates which receive its backing are “strictly independent.” The funding comes with “no strings attached,” and they can make their own decisions in Parliament.
Holmes à Court wasn’t always a staunch opponent of the Liberal Party, however.
He was originally a financial supporter and member of federal Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg’s Kooyong 200 fundraising operation. But he was expelled by Frydenberg after he wrote a newspaper opinion piece in 2018 supporting the closure of AGL’s coal-fired Liddell Power Station.
Nor is this the first time Falsinki has criticised Holmes à Court.
Holmes à Court’s father, Robert, a South African-born Australian lawyer-turned-businessman, was Australia’s first billionaire. When he died in 1990 at age 53 with an estimated $800 million in assets, his son was a beneficiary of much of that estate.
