Energy giant supplier AGL gave almost $100,000 to the NSW Labor and Liberal parties while seeking approval to drill 110 coal seam gas wells near Gloucester on the mid-north coast, but only half of those donations were apparently disclosed to the Planning Department which recommended the project proceed.

AGL's then head of government affairs Sarah McNamara – now an adviser to Prime Minister Tony Abbott – declared on May 13, 2010, that the company had made four political donations over the “relevant” two-year period totalling $48,250.

AGL made donations while seeking drilling approval: Protesters at AGL headquarters in Sydney last week. Credit:Louie Douvis

The funds were split $26,250 to Labor and $22,000 to the Liberals, who were then in opposition. However, the declaration omitted $11,000 donated for membership to the Liberal Party’s now discredited Millennium Forum on October 1, 2008.

Between the application and its approval by the Planning Assessment Commission on February 22, 2011, AGL donated a further $39,300. Of that, Labor received two donations of $13,750 and the bulk of the remainder went to the Liberals, including for several meals with then opposition leader and later premier Barry O’Farrell, who won a landslide victory in the subsequent March 2011 elections.