One Nation’s election campaign for the New South Wales election is being predominantly funded by loans from its Queensland branch, raising questions about the party’s compliance with the stricter NSW campaign finance laws.

Since August One Nation in NSW has declared $177,494 in loans from the party’s national executive in Queensland. The figure represents more than 80% of the party’s war chest for the election campaign, according to disclosed records.

The two states have different rules about who can contribute towards election campaigns. In NSW, contributions from property developers, liquor, tobacco and gambling industry business entities and their associates are all banned.

One Nation in Queensland has received at least $17,000 in donations from the liquor and gambling industry since 2017, including a $10,000 donation from the Australian Hotels Association last month. The donations are legal in Queensland.

Unlike Queensland, NSW also has a $6,300 donation cap for individuals and corporations.

It is impossible to know whether money from banned donors made up part of the loan contribution from Queensland to NSW. But Joo-Cheong Tham, director of the electoral regulation research network at the University of Melbourne, said the circumstances warranted investigation by the NSW Electoral Commission.

“The NSW election campaign of One Nation appears to be predominantly financed by funds raised by its Queensland branch,” he said.

“This raises questions as to whether the NSW laws on political donations have been breached and whether there is a scheme to circumvent these laws.”

University of Queensland electoral law expert Graeme Orr said One Nation could find itself in breach of NSW law if the loans were not repaid.

Money donated from one branch to another is subject to the $6,300 cap in NSW, which would include any forfeited loans.

One Nation, he said, might “want to centralise control of funding through its Queensland branch, and use loans that it expects the NSW branch to repay once all the NSW public funding is available,” he said.

“But its NSW branch may come a cropper if the amount of uncharged interest, or any future forgiveness of the Queensland branch loan, exceeds the cap.”

MPs from other parties said they were concerned One Nation might not be complying with the state’s donor laws.

Peter Phelps, a Liberal member of the NSW upper house and the chair of the parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters, questioned whether One Nation might be seeking to avoid disclosure regulations.

“I am concerned that what One Nation appears to be doing is attempting to avoid the legal restrictions on donor caps and disclosures,” Phelps said.

“If this is the case, it represents a serious breach of the electoral funding laws of the state.”

David Shoebridge, a Greens upper house member, accused the party of “funnelling donations” through Queensland in an “obvious attempt to avoid real transparency and the more rigorous NSW campaign finance laws”.

“It allows One Nation to gather funds in Queensland [from] gambling and alcohol interests that can’t donate in NSW and then use those funds to deliver loans to the NSW branch,” he said.

“If this practice is not illegal then it bloody well should be.”

One Nation did not directly respond to questions about how it quarantined donations from proscribed donors, saying only that the party was “doubly compliant”.

“There is no financial benefit to the loan, it is a loan guarantee and standard practise in party offices. NSW branch of One Nation gets no financial advantage from it, it is simply funds to enable us to run the NSW campaign,” a spokeswoman said.

“NSW is entirely compliant. Everything is entirely by the book.”

One Nation was formed in Queensland in the mid 1990s, and the party’s national headquarters are still based in that state. The spokeswoman said NSW was a “related branch” of the Queensland party.

Emails obtained by Guardian Australia show Queensland intended to maintain a tight rein over the NSW campaign.

In March 2018 the party’s NSW president, Jay Ross, wrote to officials in the party’s state office laying out Queensland’s control over the party.

“Important decision-making,” Ross wrote, would flow “from the leadership of the national party”.

The states would have no control over membership information or party databases, and would not even be able to speak to the media without pre-approval.

An email from a party official at the time said Queensland’s close control of the nascent campaign was causing “serious angst” in NSW party headquarters.

Polling shows One Nation on track to win as many as two seats in the NSW upper house in the election on 23 March.

An Essential poll conducted for Guardian Australia last month showed 8% of voters saying they would give them their first-preference vote. The party did not contest the previous state election.

Mark Latham, the one-time Labor leader turned party pariah, joined One Nation in November and heads its upper house ticket, after previously aligning himself with the Liberal Democrats.

This week Guardian Australia revealed Sydney radio broadcaster Alan Jones had made a $10,000 donation – split into amounts given separately as an individual and through his company – to the far-right party’s campaign.