12:00a.m. 13th May 2008

| By Carolyn Tucker

Caroline Hutchinson says her only regret after standing as an independent in last year’s federal election is that some of her campaign donors might not think they got their money’s worth.

The Sunshine Coast radio personality admits her tilt at the seat of Fisher cost a lot more than she expected and the $32,500 from supporters didn’t even cover half of it.

Details of donations to candidates were yesterday made public by the Australian Electoral Commission and Caroline topped the Sunshine Coast list with $32,508 from 45 individual donors.

Candidates endorsed by political parties don’t feature as they can roll their reporting into their party’s figures which will not be made public until next February.

The successful Labor candidate for Longman, Jon Sullivan, decided to take a different path and declare $1070 in donations from 13 donors while Max Phillips (Fairfax independent), Lisa Woods (Fairfax, Family First) and Graeme Cummings (Fisher, Family First) all told the AEC they did not receive a cent.

Caroline said while the $32,508 she received from family, friends and supporters might sound a lot, it was nowhere near enough to run a full-scale campaign.

“We spent more than double that and the Electoral Commission funding we received ($1.06 for every vote over 4% of the total votes) was a godsend. We couldn’t have done it without it.

“I think my husband John did an amazing job with the money we had, but we didn’t spend nearly enough when the major parties are spending upwards of half a million dollars on individual candidates.

“As it is, we spent a lot of our own money we couldn’t afford to spend.”

“John (her husband) laughs and says it’s his gift to democracy.”

But she admitted she worried there might be people who donated money and were now regretted it.

About a third of the donations came from family and the remainder from the community, she said.

“There are people who heard I was running and made a donation – sometimes as much as $500.

“There were a significant number of them and I regret I didn’t do better for them.

“I hope they’re not thinking ‘that was a waste of a good $500’.”

And while she has no plans to stand again at that level of politics, Caroline does have some advice for anyone considering taking the plunge.

“Get into local politics first. You have to build a profile as a politician like Peter Wellington did.

“He has proved how spectacular it can be for a community to be represented by an independent but he went the local government route first.

“Do I regret actually running – no.

“But I wouldn’t do it again.”

Candidate donations can be found at fader.aec.gov.au