Almost half of all individual donations to the ACT Greens in the 2013-14 financial year came from outside the territory, as Greens supporters across the country rallied to stop Zed Seselja getting elected.
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In the past financial year, the party received $149,310.95 from individuals in the form of gifts of money and receipts – out of that, $64,000 came from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
Greens convener Sophie Trevitt said the money had been part of a campaign to stop Liberal Senate candidate Zed Seselja being elected, stopping the Abbott government from capturing balance of power in the Senate.
"People were concerned that the Liberals would win balance of power and Tony Abbott would be able to ram legislation through the Senate with no checks and balances," she said.
"With the possibility here in the ACT of the Greens taking the second Senate seat from the Liberals, Greens supporters from all over the country recognised the importance of this Senate campaign."
But Senator Seselja said the large amount of outside funding showed the ACT Greens had lost touch with the Canberra community.
All of the money went to the ACT Greens' federal account, which under political funding legislation can only be spend on federal elections or on administration.
The amount of money received by the Greens from out-of-state donors in 2013-14 was nearly as much as all individual donations given to the ACT Labor Party in the past five years.
The largest single donations were given by reclusive Queensland mathematician and GetUp donor Duncan Turpie, who donated $30,000 in several payments, and Melbourne resident Kevin Whyte, who gave $10,000.
The large number of interstate donations comes two years after the ACT Greens successfully lobbied to ban the use of out of territory donations for ACT elections.
Their submission became law in 2012 as part of a raft of electoral reforms brought in by the Labor government.
Ms Trevitt said although these new laws allowed for more transparency and reduced the risk of undue influence in ACT politics, rules for federal elections were different.
"While the ACT Greens support electoral finance reform, we are not going to refuse donations in absence of a fairer system for all political parties," she said.
"The ACT Greens have a process of checking every donation we receive to ensure that donations are not accepted from organisations with principles and ethics that conflict with [ours]."
ACT Senator Seselja, the alleged target of the Greens' interstate fund-raising, said the large number of donations from outside the territory showed the party was out of touch.
"The fact that the ACT Greens received a significant proportion of their donations from people and organisations outside the ACT to support a candidate that was parachuted in from interstate shows just how removed the Greens organisation is from Canberra," he said.
"The Greens relying predominantly on support from the national CFMEU and from outside the ACT may have been a major factor in the massive decline in the Greens vote at the 2013 election."
