Diversity and multiculturalism advocacy groups were given at least $1.04 billion by Labor and Coalition governments between 2020 and 2025, a bombshell report has found.
The report, titled Stacking The Deck: How Government Lobbies Itself And Funds The Distortion Of Democracy, was released last week by conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), and found that a total of $2.24 billion went to progressive NGOs over the five-year period.
In addition to the $1.04 billion for diversity and multiculturalism advocacy, $622.2 million went to “public health and nanny state” groups, “welfare state advocacy and lawfare” organisations got $309.6 million, NGOs engaged in “green advocacy” were given $169.8 million, and another $96.7 million went to “indigenous co-governance advocacy” groups.
The report found that in the 2020-21 financial year, Scott Morrison’s Coalition government gave diversity and multiculturalism lobby groups $159.1 million, which increased to $182.6 million in 2021-22.
Then under Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, funding increased again to $211.9 million in the 2022-23 financial year, rose to $224.6 million in 2023-24, and jumped to $261 million in 2024-25.
The report noted that funding was delivered either via the establishment of advocacy structures, as direct support to organisations such as the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, or through government membership of peak advocacy organisations such as the Diversity Council of Australia.
Recipients included organisations associated with the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, including the Multicultural Communities Council Gold Coast, which raked in $60.8 million, the Multicultural Communities Council of Illawarra ($52.6 million), and the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Queensland ($35.9 million).
Controversial homosexual advocacy group ACON got $99 million, Thorne Harbour Health (previously the Victorian AIDS Council) was given $70 million, LGBTIQ+ Health Australia received $34.3 million, and the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health got $37.2 million.
Transgender Victoria was given $4 million in funding, and far-left LGBT youth organisation Minus18 got $1.9 million. Transcend Australia, which last year lobbied the Queensland government to reinstate dangerous and irreversible puberty blocker treatments for minors, was handed $2.2 million.
The far-left Asylum Seeker Resource Centre was given $19.5 million, while refugee and immigrant settlement provider Multicultural Australia got $178 million. Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman was Chair of the organisation between 2021 and 2024.
Jordan Abou-Zeid, Research Assistant and Deputy Manager of Generation Liberty at the IPA, said taxpayers were giving hundreds of millions of dollars a year to a left-leaning progressive advocacy network that was “crowding them out of public debate”.
“Democracy means nothing if not the ability to have a free and fair debate, but bureaucrats are blatantly distorting this debate by giving their weight and billions of taxpayer dollars to favour one side,” Mr Abou-Zeid said.
“When governments provide extraordinary financial support lobbying itself on diversity, nanny state, co-governance, and green policies, it generates a false perception that debate on these issues is settled.
“Australians who hold mainstream views are made to feel they are more fringe or marginal than they really are.”
The report also found no examples of government funding for right-leaning advocacy groups, which Mr Abou-Zeid said was “deliberate and intended to achieve a particular objective of stacking the deck of public debate”.
“Mainstream Australians who feel that the political system and political class does not represent them can hardly be blamed given they are routinely locked out of equal participation in the debates that concern them,” he said.
Header image: Left, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pandering to immigrants. Right, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison doing the same (PMO).
