Teals exploit donations gap in campaign to unseat Jess Wilson
May 9, 2026 — 5:50am
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson will face a cashed-up independent challenger in her marginal seat of Kew for the first time after the funder of the teal movement, Climate 200, exploited a temporary gap in Victoria’s donation laws.
Climate 200 co-convenor Simon Holmes à Court revealed to this masthead his organisation had tipped $40,000 into the campaign of independent candidate Sophie Torney, who is seeking to topple Wilson, and made a matching donation to Shima Ibuki, an independent running against former Liberal leader John Pesutto in Hawthorn.
The donations would have been illegal – and punishable by up to 10 years in jail – had they been made before April 15, when the High Court struck out Victoria’s campaign finance laws as unconstitutional. Under the previous regime, the maximum that any individual or organisation could donate to a candidate was $4970.
There are currently no limits on the size of private donations to political candidates in Victoria, or any requirement for those donations to be disclosed.