Independent Senate candidate David Pocock has revealed he has knocked back corporate donations and put his own money into his campaign, as his fellow environmental "lock-on" protester of eight years ago, farmer Rick Laird, arrived in Canberra to insist the action was not "extreme".
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In an interview with The Canberra Times, Mr Pocock has also pledged to back political donations reform if he wins office and revealed he had 12 donors over the threshold of $14,500, including political fundraising body Climate 200, and himself with his wife. These large donations will be declared next year in line with current rules, he said.
It comes after Climate 200-commissioned polling on the ACT Senate race showed the former Wallabies captain had passed the Greens to poll in the third position at 21 per cent just behind Liberal rival Senator Zed Seselja at 25 per cent, leaving the incumbent in peril of losing on preferences.
Amid a surge of support for independents, including from former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, and attacks from incumbent Scott Morrison that they were a "vote for chaos", "fake" and should be questioned about their funding, Mr Pocock has declared: "Bring it on."
"I welcome this scrutiny about political donations. I'm glad it's finally being talked about," he said.
"And as an independent, this is something I want to push should be in the Senate. We do need to have this conversation around political donations and I think push for more transparency. Faster declarations.
"I think it's corrosive to our democracy."
But addressing interest in the slick nature of the Pocock campaign, the candidate said he had received 12 campaign donations over the threshold of $14,500, including one in the past day. Of the 12, one was from himself and his wife Emma Pocock: "You have to back yourself."
"It's not certainly not Malcolm Turnbull money," he said.
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One of the other donors is, as expected, the Simon Holmes a Court-founded Climate 200 fundraising vehicle. Mr Pocock would only say it was "less than half of the total" of his current campaign. The Canberra Times understands Climate 200 is supporting 22 candidates with up to $500,000 each, but the amount varies. It is also supporting the campaign of ACT independent candidate Kim Rubenstein in this election.
"I'll be making all the declarations to comply with the current AEC rules and I have been very open that I'm taking money from Climate 200," he said.
"There's no strings attached. No one there will be telling me what to do should I become a senator.
"It does seem pretty one-sided at the moment, the amount of scrutiny the independents are getting, given the major parties are pulling in way, way more money. And we know that fossil fuels, big tobacco, big business are putting a lot of money into them."
He said he had knocked back corporate donations, as "I personally just didn't feel comfortable with taking money from businesses" and he had received more than 500 individual donations.
"We've got some people who've been donating seven or eight bucks a month, up to people doing thousands [of dollars]," he revealed.
Someone also backing him is Mr Laird, the fifth-generation farmer who "locked-on" and got arrested with him at an environmental protest eight years ago in northern NSW.
The ultimately failed action to stop the Maules Creek coal mine in the Leard State Forest has been used by Senator Seselja and others as the prime example of being an Extinction Rebellion-type extreme Green.
Mr Laird, a former Nationals voter, has travelled to Canberra to enter the campaign to say his land was in trouble and he had to act.
"I did lock-on as a farmer. But the reality was I was worried about other things like water, which we've had a lot of trouble with since mining began," Mr Laird said.
"Well, we've been down here on plenty of occasions talking about the water and we kept getting broken promises. But no one listened to us. That's for sure. No politicians, particularly the National Party. They just, you know, they wiped us, basically."
He said he was not a "Greenie", but "mind you, I don't like people polluting the environment, either".
"I just didn't feel it was right and I still don't think it's right to be mining our food bowl," Mr Pocock said.
"Wanting to care for our environment and our farmers shouldn't be extreme.
"We shouldn't allow politicians to try and paint farmers who actually care about their land as extreme. It's not helpful. It's not. It's not true. And ultimately, I think it's gonna lead to poor outcomes where we're losing some of our best farmland for short-term gain."
Critics have also pointed to Mr Pocock's wife Emma Pocock having worked for Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Mr Pocock said it was not a secret.
"I'm guessing maybe it's men asking that?" he said.
"If you think you can somehow control your wife or tell her where she can or can't work? Yeah, I mean, this is the thing, I've been so open about getting arrested and Emma working for a year for Sarah Hanson-Young. Sure. I don't see how that somehow makes me a Green. We have pretty different backgrounds."
Mr Pocock also has people on his campaign team who have worked for Labor and Liberal ministers.