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10 FIGHTING FOR COAL: PUBLIC RELATIONS … 125

mining industry to Australia’s democratic process (Orr 2007), federal
donations are disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission and show
that the mining and energy sectors have increased their political donations
to federal politicians in recent years (Ting and Begley 2015).
As can be seen in Fig. 10.1, contributions from the mining and energy
companies have favoured the two major conservative parties, the Liberals
and Nationals, which together form the parliamentary alliance, the
Coalition. The sums in Fig. 10.1 do not, however, include all political
donations made by the mining sector. Organizations can donate funds to
party affiliated organizations, which can make it difficult to easily identify
how much money has been donated by an entire industry to the respective
political parties. For instance, donations by two of the biggest mining
conglomerates, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, are not included in Fig. 10.1
and yet in the 2014–2015 financial year these corporations collectively gave
over $200,000 to the Liberal party-linked Cormack Foundation (Holmes
2016). While not an exhaustive list, Fig. 10.1 captures most of the federal
donations provided by the mining and energy companies operating in
Australia and provides broader insights into the direction of their political
donations in recent years, with the figures showing the industry’s

2,500,000.00

2,000,000.00

Australian dollars 1,500,000.00 Labor Party

National Party
1,000,000.00
Liberal Party
500,000.00

-
2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015
Financial Year
Federal political donations made by mining and energy sector. Source
Fig. 10.1
Compiled from Australian Electoral Commission reports.Acknowledgment Eugenia
Lee, Research Assistant, University of Sydney. For a breakdown of the individual
companies included on this list see Ting and Begley (2015).