Amazon Web Services paid $46,500 to the federal Labor party branch on June 28, 2025, just days after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met company executives in Seattle to discuss a $20 billion datacentre investment plan. Speaking to a travelling press pack in Seattle, Garman was emphatic that Australia was incredibly important and a great market
for the world’s biggest datacentre company.
The payment was part of 34 payments totalling $538,000 that Amazon made to Labor and Liberal branches over a six-year period. While the financial contributions are legal, they have faced renewed scrutiny as governments face community backlash for fast-tracking datacentres.
Political Donations and Access to Ministers
Federal disclosures show that the payment following the Seattle meeting was Amazon’s largest payment to an Australian political party on record. In 2024, eight days before the Albanese government announced a $2bn deal with Amazon Web Services to build three top-secret datacentres for intelligence agencies, Amazon disclosed a $33,000 payment to Labor. Less than six weeks later, another $33,000 payment was disclosed. The deal announced on 26 June 2024 was intended to store sensitive information gathered by intelligence agencies.
These payments were membership fees for the Labor Business Forum, a fundraising vehicle that facilitates access to ministers and MPs. Under Australian electoral law, such membership or subscription fees are not technically classed as donations and are listed as “other receipts”, though the money ultimately goes to the party. Amazon has paid more than $200,000 in membership fees to the forum since mid-2021. Between mid-2021 and mid-2025, Amazon also paid $38,100 to the New South Wales Labor party and $37,400 to the Liberals while pursuing several new datacentres on Sydney’s outskirts.
Lobbyists and Industry Scrutiny
Transparency International Australia’s CEO, Clancy Moore, stated that the cutting-edge industry is relying on old methods to influence the political system, noting that datacentres are the new extractive industries but [are] using the old techniques of cash for access payments and full-scale lobbying to influence our political system
.
An Amazon spokesperson maintained that its payments to fundraising forums were unrelated to public investments and datacentre projects.
