Mav’s cash splash on campaign trail

HIGH- PROFILE i ndependent Steve Mav spent more than $157,000 on his failed campaign to win a Senate seat in Tasmania.

It was the biggest individual campaign cash splash of any candidate in the state.

Popular independent Andrew Wilkie was the next biggest spender, putting almost $100,000 towards his re-election campaign for Clark.

Pauline Hanson’s candidates splashed out more than $32,300 in unsuccessful bids to pick up a seat in Tasmania.

Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party’s Tasmanian candidates collectively spent $8000 of the $18,000 they received in donations.

Mr Palmer’s spokesman would not comment on whether the billionaire had financially backed each candidate, but said the party’s goal of keeping Labor out of power had been achieved “with the collective effort from United Australia Party”.

Mr Mav had no regrets about spending thousands of dollars and 12 months campaigning but has not yet decided whether he’ll run again in 2022. “I made the decision that I wasn’t going to accept any donations given the antiEstablishment campaign I was running,” he told the Mercury.

Mr Mav said his internal polling was stronger than the vote he received but attributed the result to being put below the line on the Senate ballot paper. He still gained more than 3500 votes, the most of any ungrouped Senate candidate in Australia.

Mr Wilkie raised about $23,200 in donations but did not have to commit any of his own funds.

The rest of his costs were covered by the Australian Electoral Commission reimbursing his election expenses, which it does for candidates that win more than 4 per cent of the vote.

Mr Wilkie has called for reform around political donation reporting, and has self-declared all donations above $1000 in real time on his website.

A string of other Tasmanian independents also spent thousands on their campaigns, including Craig Garland, who spent $21,000.

Most of his war chest came from nine donations totalling more than $17,000. The donors weren’t named.

Candidates are only required to declare donations above the $13,500 threshold.

Braddon was one of the state’s most hotly contested seats, with One Nation candidate Graham Gallaher spending $21,291 on his campaign, Labor’s Justine Keay spending $54,866 with $34,300 from donations, and independent Craig Brakey spending $45,936.

The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union donated $15,509 to independent Brett Smith for his campaign in Braddon, and gave $28,209 to independent Todd Lambert’s campaign in Bass.

One Nation’s Senate candidate Adam Lambert spent $11,071 on his campaign in total, with $2000 from a donation.

Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie’s party has published donations above $500 on her website since 2017 but under AEC rules, it did not have to publish a return yesterday.

The full list of major and minor parties’ donations will be publicly disclosed in February when the AEC publishes annual party donations returns on its website.