Former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce's novelty cheque from mining billionaire Gina Rinehart got plenty of attention this week, but Queenslanders mightn't realise they have access to a system that essentially waves an oversized cheque in the air every time a political party gets a donation.

Thanks to the Electoral Commission's electronic disclosure system, Queensland voters go into Saturday's election with more information about political party funding than any other electorate in Australian history.

Under federal rules, we have to wait months to find out who donated more than $13,000 to the parties.

But in Queensland, new rules mean that any donation above $1,000 must be declared within seven days.

So what can we tell about donations in Queensland using the new real-time system?

It's relatively easy to find out the big picture: of the $14 million in donations declared so far, more than 50 per cent went to the LNP, followed by Labor and then Katter's Australian Party.

One Nation's donations are surprisingly small but the party's statement for the first half of 2017 reveals it also received $136,000 in candidate fees (averaging $3,400).

Its leader in Queensland, Steve Dickson, has received $46,460 in donations, while several candidates have received a total of $4,200 from the Queensland Shooters Union.

Of the $500,000 received by Katter's Australian Party, almost all ($494,111) came from firearms interest groups including the Sporting Shooters Association and a trust fund connected to Bob Katter's son-in-law Robert Nioa. His company, NIOA, touts itself as Australia's largest privately-owned small arms supplier.

This is the overall picture for both major parties this year, according to declared public donations.

It's obvious the LNP went into the election with a clear lead in donations, and extended this lead throughout the campaign in November.

So what can we find out about the election campaign?

When we focus on what happened in November:

$2.88 million has been donated in total.

$2.88 million has been donated in total. LNP has collected almost twice as much as Labor ($1.5 million vs $743,000).

LNP has collected almost twice as much as Labor ($1.5 million vs $743,000). The biggest single donation was $75,000 from Ian McCauley of Mount Kilcoy, to the LNP.

The biggest single donation was $75,000 from Ian McCauley of Mount Kilcoy, to the LNP. The average donation was $3,750.

The average donation was $3,750. Among the minor parties, most donations ($146,000) went to Katter's Australian Party, including $50,000 from the Sporting Shooters Association.

Among the minor parties, most donations ($146,000) went to Katter's Australian Party, including $50,000 from the Sporting Shooters Association. Queensland Greens were the only party to receive all their donations from individuals.

We then used data analysis software to try to group together variations in the spelling of company and party names etc. The ABC's analysis shows the top 10 party and candidate recipients during the campaign were:

Recipient Total received Liberal National Party $1,462,733 Australian Labor Party Queensland $710,906 Katter's Australian Party $145,984 Queensland Greens $77,650 Ricky Flori (Independent) $50,000 Robert Pyne (Independent) $27,000 Steven Dickson (One Nation) $20,000 Pauline Hanson's One Nation $16,265 Hetty Johnson (Independent) $10,760 Malcolm Roberts (One Nation) $9,900

And the top donors during the campaign were:

Donor Total donated Taxi Council of Qld $100,000 Village Roadshow Limited $100,000 Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union $80,261 Ian McCauley $77,000 United Voice - Queensland Branch $66,867 CEPU Plumbing Division $65,441 Gulf Coast Agricultural Company $60,000 Maritime Union Queensland Branch $51,000 Ronald Baldwin $51,000 Duncan Turpie $50,000 Ian Melrose $50,000 JF & GD Hull $50,000 Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (QLD) Inc $50,000

Of the Taxi Council's donations, the LNP and Labor each got $15,000, $30,000 went to Katter's Australian Party, and $20,000 went to One Nation's Queensland leader, Steve Dickson.

Village Roadshow split its $100,000 evenly between the ALP and LNP, but each donation was lodged using a slightly different donor name so a search in the electronic database would only have surfaced one of these.

Which sectors are handing out the most money?

It's easy enough to work out how much money a particular union or company donated, but working out how much money a particular sector has donated requires extra work.

For example, unions do not always have the word "union" in their title, which makes it more difficult to identify them all.

Similarly, looking for all donations from property developers would mean knowing the name of all developers in the system, including their representatives.

The system shows us that the company City Lodge Motel Pty Ltd has donated more than $25,000 to the LNP in recent times, for example. But it requires extra research to find out that City Lodge Motel has lodged its donations on behalf of Pradella Group property developers, who have been busy constructing apartments in West End and South Brisbane of late. (Surprisingly, this link was more obvious under the previous returns system, but it would have taken six months to reveal).

And then there are donations from individuals, also known as third parties. They are required to fill in a name, address and electorate but no other information is required. Who are they?

Donations are often made by individuals on behalf of companies or organisations, meaning it is almost impossible to get a complete picture without knowing the background of everyone donating. To give you an idea of how many people we're talking about, there were 2,836 donations made in the 22 months prior to the election being called.

PO boxes are frequently given as addresses for all types of donors. The ABC's analysis showed PO boxes were used in 35 per cent of total donations in the system.

A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission of Queensland said that under the current legislation, the recipient of a donation from an individual or organisation (other than a trust fund or unincorporated association) is only required to provide the name and address of the entity that gave the gift.

Despite these issues, it is possible to get at least some idea of where the money is coming from.

If we search for contributions from donors with "union" in the title, and add in the acronyms for other unions, we can see at least a baseline amount of union donations. Similarly, we can apply searches for developers and mining companies based on likely words in their titles.

Here we see unions favouring the state Labor Party account (unsurprisingly), and property developers favouring the LNP, over the course of 2016-17.

Clearly, the LNP stands to lose the most from a ban on donations from developers which has yet to be passed by parliament but is effectively now in force.

The mining and resources sector appears to favour both sides almost equally.

Important funding sources are not so visible

University of Queensland law professor Graeme Orr says other funding sources, such as interest groups who run campaigns outside election time, are not covered by the EDS but the federal system does capture some of this.

Associated entities are groups aligned with one or more political parties, and they usually direct funds to their associated party.

The ALP's associated entities include union sources and its investment arm Labor Holdings, while the LNP is aligned with associated entities including Altum and LNP Nominees.

So payments made by Labor Holdings to the ALP's Queensland branch should form part of the real-time donations data in the ECQ's system, right? Not quite.

Associated entities fill in returns twice a year, outlining their payments to the parties.

We used the associated entities' six-monthly returns to check how their funding stacks up to other donations declared through the real-time system.

In 2016, Labor Holdings declared in its six-monthly declaration that it had given just over $3 million to ALPQ. That's $1 million more than all other donations to the state party for 2016.

When Labor Holdings' contributions are added to other donations for 2016 and 2017, Labor's war chest swells from $2.5 million to more than $6.2 million.

The LNP's financial dealings with its associated entities are a little more complicated, with several loans and payments between the three groups listed.

According to their returns, Altum Property Unit Trust and the LNP both owed more than $1 million to LNP Nominees in the first half of 2017.

At the same time, according to Altum Pty Ltd's return, the LNP owed it more than $3 million.

The ECQ spokeswoman told the ABC that under the current legislation, associated entities do not need to declare gifts made to political parties.

She said the EDS is the first system of its kind in Australia and gives the public unprecedented access to information about donations.

"It has been operational for less than 12 months and, as the commission is always looking for opportunities to enhance the integrity of electoral events, it is considering future upgrades to the EDS," she said.