The ties go a little deeper than that. Much of the credit for organising the conference goes to Tim Andrews, the founder of The Australian Taxpayers Alliance. Actually he’s more than a founder: the ATA’s website is owned by Australian Taxpayers Alliance Pty Ltd, which was incorporated in 2011 and is wholly owned by Andrews.

The ATA describes itself as a grassroots activist organisation with more than 75,000 members (its Menzies House website puts the number at only 25,000). It’s “not a think tank: it is a do tank!” which is the “umbrella body” for a number of affiliate organisations, it says.

There’s the Australian Libertarian Society. It's been around a while, but the business name is owned by Andrews’ company, ATA. MyChoice Australia is another ATA business name. There’s a Facebook site, and then Menzies House, which is also owned by ATA.

Andrews owns another company, ATA Education, which he set up in 2015. What sort of education? It operates under the business name, Legalise Vaping Australia, and it wants to help smokers.

All of these entities that Andrews controls list his home address as Sydney. But he doesn't live here. Last year Andrews moved to Washington DC, where he is executive director of the Taxpayer Protection Alliance.

TPA is part of the Kochtopus, largely funded by groups tied to the Kochs, according to Sourcewatch.org. Its president, David Williams, and director Stephen deMaura have deep links to the networks of dark money funding US right-wing causes.

It’s not Andrews’ first rodeo. After he completed his MBA in Sydney he worked for Americans for Tax Reform before enrolling for a year with the Koch Associate Program, a study course run by the Charles Koch Institute, funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.

The newly minted Koch Associate then came back to Australia to found the ATA.


His latest venture on March 21 was to incorporate Australian Economic Education Foundation Limited. It's a public company with five shareholders: Kyle Kutasi (HR Nicholls Society); John Humphreys (UQ academic and adjunct scholar with the Centre of Independent Studies); Chris Berg (adjunct scholar at the Institute of Public Affairs); Andrews; and Christopher Butler, of Fairfax Virginia.

That would be the Chris Butler who is chief of staff for Andrews’ one-time employer, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, which has also taken millions from entities funded by the Koch brothers.

So on March 21, five days before al Jazerra broadcast its One Nation expose, personnel from two US activist groups tied to dark money were taking a more low-key approach, quietly taking 40 per cent of a new Australian company, AEEF, in partnership with leading figures from the IPA and HR Nicholls.

It’s a public company limited by guarantee, which means the only information on shareholders comes from the original incorporation application.

It's entirely innocuous and had nothing to do with the election, Andrews makes clear. It was set up to be a tax deductible charity to provide scholarships for students who believe in classical free-market ideas – any student, any university, he says.

It’s a commendable venture reflecting a meeting of minds, of ideas, of corporate structures and perhaps a little money, between leading Australian conservative figures and US lobby groups. It’s rather adroit.

Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to the Australian Taxpayers Association. This has been amended to The Australian Taxpayers' Alliance.