Brad Norington writing in The Australian today.

Less than a fortnight before new federal laws take ­effect on January 1 to ban political donations from foreign interests, GetUp has confirmed receiving $495,000 from the Sunrise ­Project.

Sunrise, which campaigns for 100 per cent renewable energy, refused to disclose the source of the donation yesterday, but ­insisted all funds it redirected from other donors were “from Aus­tralian sources”.

The group is known to receive international funding, following documents aired by WikiLeaks, from the US-based Sandler and Tides foundations that were ­directed at the anti-Adani coalmine campaign.

GetUp national director Paul Oosting confirmed yesterday that funds from the $495,000 Sunrise Project donation would be used in the lead-up to the federal election expected in May.

GetUp plans to campaign against the Morrison government, and hand out how-to-vote cards for Labor or the Greens.

Mr Oosting said “all funds” ­received from the Sunrise Project came from Australian sources, but declined to say where it had accessed the $495,000 donation.

ENDS

Here's some background on the Sunrise Project from a piece we published in January 2017.

Bishop's collusion with the Clintons takes on something of a more sinister hue when we consider adjacent events.  HIV/Aids isn't the only profit centre exploited by the Clintons.  Climate change is another lucrative earner.

Clinton's May invitation came as Tony Abbott's leadership was being whiteanted and as you'll see, Tony Abbott had many global environmental and Leftist groups who wanted to help kick that process along.

This report from the AFR in February 2015 sets the scene:

• Defiant Tony Abbott buys time against plotters
• Tony Abbott throws out the political chaff

A federal MP has emailed colleagues pleading for calm as Tony Abbott ’s hold on the leadership became increasingly tenuous after Julie Bishop refused to give the Prime Minister an assurance she would not challenge.

A day after his National Press Club address, in which he appeared to buy some respite from his leadership woes, Sky News reported that at a meeting on Sunday, Ms Bishop had declined to give Mr Abbott an assurance when he sought one.

The Australian Financial Review previously reported that at the meeting, Ms Bishop confronted Mr Abbott with the concerns of the backbench to which she had been talking all week and she sought from him an answer as to how he planned to turn things around.

Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/national/julie-bishop-leaves-open-challenge-to-pm-20150202-134i65#ixzz4X1GFJOzZ

The New York Times also took an interest, publishing a story under the headline"Australian Leader Alters Course After Losing State Vote".

In the lead-up to the Clinton Foundation's retreat in May the extent of the network of Abbott enemies was becoming crystal clear.

Here's a grab of The Sunrise Project's website http://sunriseproject.org.au/

Sunrise was then engaged in a whatever it takes battle to stop the Adani coal mine in Queensland.  With Labor back in power in Queensland they had a bit of wind in their sails - however Tony Abbott was still their major concern.

On 25 May 2015 John Hepburn, the Executive Director of Sunrise sent this email to a select group of 'discrete' funders and controllers including John Podesta and the Clinton Foundation. 

....the Abbott Government has established a Parliamentary Inquiry to examine the activities of environmental charities. It is part of an anti-environmental agenda that has been building for a few years now and is being pushed in large part by the mining industry as well as by various right wing think tanks and far-right members of the Liberal Party.

 I have attached a word document with a series of articles that ran in the Australian Financial Review and The Australian last week, including one in which the head of the Minerals Council called for The Sunrise Project to have it's charitable status removed. We posted a blog on our website saying that fossil fuels in the Galilee Basin should stay in the ground, and the next day the head of the most powerful industry group in the country is in the paper calling for our charity status to be revoked.

 The long and the short of it is that

1. 1. There is a reasonable likelihood that Sunrise will be called to testify to the inquiry;
   2. It is a House of Representatives Committee that has very strong coercive powers to summon witnesses and to call for documents to be tabled;
   3. This could potentially include board minutes, grant agreements etc
   4. If I refuse, the maximum penalty is 6 months in jail. If I didn't have children I'd be happy to tell them where to go (on principle) but it isn't really an option;
   5. This potentially creates a situation where we may need to disclose our funding and grant agreements;

Next steps: We have a strategy session with our lawyers and board on Thursday to plan out our response. As part of this we are seeking advice on steps we might take to avoid disclosure, challenge and limit disclosure, or to ensure that any disclosure is limited to the committee members and is not made public.

I  have concerns about the potential PR impact of disclosure of both our funding and grantees - should that eventuate.

John

The next significant contribution came from Ken Roth, the Executive Director ofHuman Rights Watch.  Roth is writing to Herb Sandler of the Sandler Foundation  - with Podesta/Hillary and the CF all copied in unashamedly on the note:

Dear Herb,

I’ll ask our new Australia office to look into this. As I mentioned in your office, Australia has a ridiculously narrow concept of a charity which does NOT include advocacy.

This is not uncommon in the Commonwealth. For example, in the UK, HRW had to establish a charitable trust which funds only our research, not our advocacy. We tried something similar in Australia but the tax authorities rejected us, so after a 4-year struggle, we ended up going to parliament in the waning days of the Labor government and got it to give us charitable status by special parliamentary bill.

So far the Liberals haven’t played with that...themining companies seem to own the Liberals, and they play very dirty. Please keep me informed of what more happens in this case, and I’ll let you know if our Australia office has anything to add.

Warm regards, Ken

That same day the Podestas started taking a great interest in East Timor and George Soros funding to crank up the litigation pressure on Australia as this email from 24 May 2015 shows https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/32358

We reported the end result of that matter a couple of weeks ago:

Julie Bishop gives in to Soros et al and gives up on our border with East Timor

Tuesday, 10 January 2017