I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is we now know that the High Court won’t hear Zoe Daniel and Rex Patrick’s constitutional challenge to the unfair electoral finance laws until after they come into force on January 1.

The good news is that we can futureproof our work if we act now. That’s why today I’m asking you to support our emergency appeal.

Can you chip-in to our Federal Election Fighting Fund so we can continue our work and counter the cashed-up far right in 2028?

One Nation has already stockpiled millions to spend on Australia’s highest-risk federal election in decades. Gina Rinehart and her associates have reportedly donated more than $3 million in cash and private jets.

Meanwhile, Advance is touting their election warchest, and serial election pest Clive Palmer is shelling out huge sums to the Nationals to attack net-zero and keep big gas and coal drilling, fracking, and burning.

With the Labor-Liberal duopoly crumbling and cost-of-living biting, the far right knows this is their big shot at exploiting fears to seize a raft of seats – and the levers of power.

We don’t know exactly how much the far right has amassed in uncapped funds - disclosures won't be made public until April next year, months after the new regime kicks in.

But we have a plan.

Dollars raised before the end of the year can be carried into the 2028 election and beyond. With your help we can turn Climate 200 into an unbeatable campaigning force in just six weeks.

Using our Federal Elections Fighting Fund, we can drive donations directly to key campaigns and back-in competitive candidates with strategies that build volunteer armies and sway votes, and research that ensures maximum impact.

Every dollar that goes into the fund will be spent on our federal election efforts.

In fact, under the new laws, we can only participate in federal elections if we have a fund like this. The more we can raise now, the more we can do between January 1 and polling day.

Donate today to sustain our work to protect climate action, women’s rights and fight corruption for years to come.

The major parties promised to stamp big money out of politics. But, faced with their terminal decline in the polls, they teamed up to weaken democracy for all of us with self-serving laws that put unprecedented public money into their coffers, and kneecap independents.

These laws are unfair, undemocratic, and potentially unconstitutional.

But the dodgy rules are being imposed before Rex and Zoe have their day in court.

It boosts the far right’s plans to splurge vast sums to overwhelm the electorate with fearmongering ads and AI rage-bait, and to seize enough seats to potentially share power with the Coalition.

While politics shouldn’t be about money, this is the reality we’re faced with. We need to raise serious funds to ensure we can continue to help independents to compete before it’s too late.

Climate 200-backed independents have already reshaped politics, leading a powerful cross bench to lift parliament out of the gutter and deliver results on the issues that matter.

But the task of defending seats – and getting more independents elected – will be made harder by Labor’s unfair electoral laws. And the prospect of a fractured parliament full of One Nation cronies, conspiracists, and climate deniers puts all that has been achieved at risk.

Please give to our Federal Election Fighting Fund today to back the community independents standing strong to give voters a hopeful, uplifting and unifying alternative to One Nation’s politics of hate, disinformation and division.

Byron Fay,

Executive Director, Climate 200