The donation from the former prime minister’s long-time friend Kung Chin Yuan, a Taiwanese-born businessman, was funnelled to Labor’s pollster, UMR Research Australia, for “a program of research” in Mr Rudd’s Brisbane electorate during last September’s election, without the knowledge of the national secretariat or state Labor officials.

Under Queensland laws, any donation of $100,000 or more has to be disclosed to the Electoral Commission of Queensland within weeks of its receipt. Mr Rudd says all disclosures were the responsibility of the party.

Speaking in Melbourne, Mr Shorten said he had no knowledge of the donation but said any wrongdoing should be rectified.

“There are clear laws (around campaign funding) in Australia and the laws have got to be adhered to. Full stop. No excuses. No exceptions,” Mr Shorten said.

“When you think about donations though, the story of the week’s Australian Water Holdings — The story of the week is Liberal sponsors getting Australian Water Holdings to get money from Sydney Water and pass it through to the Liberal Party. We are seeing tens of thousands of dollars being handed back by the Liberal Party.”

UMR is now refusing to refund the money to the Queensland ALP, which sent a letter of demand for the $200,000 after a meeting of its administrative committee on Wednesday.

Queensland ALP secretary Anthony Chisholm told the committee that until this month, he was unaware of the donation until it was discovered in an audit of the Griffith branch. The audit found the donation was paid directly by Mr Kung into the Griffith branch bank account from his bank account in Taiwan and withdrawn hours later to cover the UMR bill.