Kerry Stokes-backed Telethon halves grants to kids institute

afr.com:

The Kerry Stokes-backed Telethon, one of Australia’s most influential charities, has slashed the amount of money given to the children’s medical research institute that bears its name, even as donations from business and government soar.

The Telethon, run by organisations linked to the West Australian billionaire, wields enormous philanthropic influence, raising tens of millions of dollars annually from big business and securing sizable cheques from the state and federal government.

Anthony Albanese with Kerry Stokes in Western Australia in the week before the 2022 federal election. Alex Ellinghausen

It culminates in a 26-hour telethon broadcast on Mr Stokes’ Seven network and a glitzy ball, which last year was attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, then-WA premier Mark McGowan andthe upper echelons of the Perth social set. The top prize at the 2022 Telethon ball was a private jet trip and closed-door lunch with the prime minister and Mr Stokes.

For decades a substantial slice of the funds raised by the trust has been funnelled to the Telethon Kids Institute, which is chaired by former foreign minister Julie Bishop. From its base at the Perth Children’s Hospital the institute runs medical and research programs focusing on children, particularly around Indigenous health and chronic diseases.

But recent accounts lodged by the Channel 7 Telethon Trust, which runs Telethon and has a board stacked with Perth’s business elite, shows that despite donations to the trust more than tripling between 2013 and 2022 to $72 million, grants to Telethon Kids have halved between 2019 and 2022.

Last year, the two largest Telethon donations came from Mr McGowan committing $11 million from the state’s coffers, and Mr Albanese pledging