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Australian Christian Lobby

Three volunteers working at a desk in a campaign office, with a laptop and orange party signs behind them.
BC NDP CC BY 2.0

Where the money comes from2024-25 return

2024-25 annual return $6.75m $6.75m in receipts named source category the Australian Christian Lobby’s Heather MacCulloch $70k Colleen Reid $20k Below threshold $6.66m Named donors $90k1.3% Not itemised $6.66m99%

Australian Christian Lobby, source by source. Each named payer is on the left; the kind of money it is sits in the middle; the vehicle on the right.

Two names cover the whole of what the register can see. The ACL itemised $90,000 of $6.75m in receipts — 1.3%, the lowest of any significant third party in the export — and both donors, Heather and John MacCulloch and Colleen Reid, also gave to Advance Australia and to Family First. The other $6.66m arrives below the threshold and is reported only as a total.

  • Itemised and named
  • Not itemised, or named and unverifiable
2024-25 annual return $6.75m $6.75m in receipts named source category the Australian Christian Lobby’s Heather MacCulloch $70k Colleen Reid $20k Below threshold $6.66m Named donors $90k1.3% Not itemised $6.66m99%

Australian Christian Lobby, source by source. Each named payer is on the left; the kind of money it is sits in the middle; the vehicle on the right.

Two names cover the whole of what the register can see. The ACL itemised $90,000 of $6.75m in receipts — 1.3%, the lowest of any significant third party in the export — and both donors, Heather and John MacCulloch and Colleen Reid, also gave to Advance Australia and to Family First. The other $6.66m arrives below the threshold and is reported only as a total.

  • Itemised and named
  • Not itemised, or named and unverifiable

What it is

A Christian advocacy organisation formed in 1995, and also a registered charity ANU Press . It campaigns on religious freedom, education, abortion and what it calls the sexualisation of society, and at the 2022 federal election those were its four issues ANU Press . It had about $9m of revenue that year, on the same measure where GetUp! raised $10.1m from 44,000 donors ANU Press .

The money and the spending split

Its 2024-25 return reports $6.75m in receipts and $556,132 of electoral expenditure — 8% of what it took in AEC . That split has been lopsided for years: $6.23m in receipts against zero electoral expenditure in 2023-24, $8.44m against zero in 2022-23, $10.64m against $692,018 in 2021-22 AEC . Most of its money goes to the organisation, not to election communication, which is what a registered charity with political objects looks like in the returns.

Where the money comes from

It itemises $90,000 of $6.75m — 1.3%, the lowest of any significant third party in the export AEC . The declared gifts are $100,000 from two donors: Heather and John MacCulloch gave $70,000 and Colleen Reid $30,000. Both also gave to Advance Australia and to Family First AEC . Beyond two names, the return is a single number.

In Victoria

It appears in the state register 13 times since 2020 for $22,161, three of them in the current cycle for $6,500 — including $2,000 from Life Christian Church Roma, in Queensland, and $1,500 from Reach Community Church in Northcote VEC . The Victorian cap applies to it as a third-party campaigner, so its state money is small by construction.

Getting involved

It recruits members and donors through its own site, and describes itself as a movement of more than 250,000 people Australian Christian Lobby .

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