It’s no secret drug firms donate to political parties. But it’s still a secret exactly how much, and why

alfexe/Getty Drug companies gave at least A$7.7 million over ten years to Australia’s major political parties, our new study shows .

But weaknesses in federal disclosure laws mean nobody knows the true figure.

We also show there are discrepancies in what drug companies say they’ve given and what parties say they’ve received, adding to the confusion.

Our findings matter because donations to political parties are a key strategy many companies and industries use to seek favourable decisions about policy and regulations.

Our findings, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health , come at a time when the federal government is facing considerable pressure from the Trump administration and international drug companies about drug pricing.

What we did The pharmaceutical industry spends large amounts on election campaigns and lobbying in the United States.

But no-one has analysed this industry’s donations to Australian political parties until now.

So we analysed data from the Australian Electoral Commission’s Transparency Register that covered donations to major Australian federal political parties from 2015 to 2024.

The register required both political parties and donors to disclose donations of $12,800 or more at the start of our study, but this increased gradually to $16,300 by 2024.

We looked at contributions from the industry group Medicines Australia and its 37 core pharmaceutical company members during the period we studied, mainly local subsidiaries of international pharmaceutical companies.

We didn’t look at donations from all member groups or non-member pharmaceutical companies.

We downloaded both Donor Returns (what companies disclosed they’d donated) and Party Returns (what parties reported they’d received).

We then adjusted annual totals for inflation to the equivalent of 2024 values.

Minor parties were excluded and Liberal and National Parties’ totals were combined as the Coalition.