Ashcroft donates U.S. $1 million to Australian party

He is well known for his generosity to political causes in his native U.K. and Belize, but news from Australia indicates that Michael Ashcroft is spreading some of his wealth down under. According to Aussie press reports, the billionaire has made a one million U.S. dollar donation to that country’s liberal party. Handed over in 2004, the gift would rank as the largest single political contribution in Australian history. It was made in the wake of a meeting of the International Democratic Union of which Australian Prime Minister John Howard is chairman. Ashcroft is the deputy treasurer of the I.D.U., a grouping of eighty conservative and Christian Democratic political parties. Under Australia’s strict campaign finance laws, the disclosure for the 2004-2005 election year was made today.