Malcolm Turnbull has finally confirmed that he donated $1.75 million to the Liberal Party during the 2016 election campaign, and an analysis of the Electoral Commission's donation records suggests he needed the money.
"I contributed $1.75 million, that was the contribution I made," he revealed on the ABC 7.30 program on Tuesday night.
"It has been talked about and speculated about but there it is."
Speculation about his donations escalated on Tuesday when a peculiarity of Australia’s disclosure system meant it would have been more than 18 months before Australians discovered how much the Prime Minister pledged, following media reports of his donations during the election campaign.
The donation disclosure rules themselves - including inconsistencies between party and donor obligations, a reporting threshold that allows five figure donations to go undisclosed, and a lack of punishment for non-compliance make analysis of donations records challenging.
Then there are problems relating to the paper-based reporting system, which mean searching, sorting and filtering the records is slow.
Despite these issues, there are some things the Electoral Commission's information can reveal - like how much money companies and individuals disclosed donating to the major parties in the past two elections, and the dates those donations were disclosed.
Although the timing of the 2016 election two days after the 2015-16 reporting period ended will undermine some of the latest information, it is clear that donations slowed under Malcolm Turnbull approximately 200 days out from the poll - at the start of 2016.
By the last week of their respective campaigns, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott had attracted approximately double the donations during his 2013 competition against Kevin Rudd as Mr Turnbull had last year.
This information doesn't include money from organisations that have so far failed to report, and it doesn't include union funding.
The information shows that donations accelerate during the final weeks of election campaigns, and factors in the campaign appear to have some impact. In 2013, the early weeks of Kevin Rudd's campaign seemed to trigger a donation rush - highlighted by - before pledges slowed as his campaign petered out.
