Taxpayers are paying millions of dollars to fund think tanks closely aligned to the major political parties.
Experts say voters should be concerned about the little-known Department of Finance grant payments to the Liberal-aligned Menzies Research Centre and Labor-aligned Chifley Research Centre.
The department has given the two think tanks, which have close financial links to their parent parties, more than $1 million each in grants since 2012, an analysis of department documents shows.
The department says it gives the money through its Grants-in Aid program to organisations that "advance public policy debate". But analysis shows 85 per cent of the program's money goes to party-aligned organisations.
The department awards smaller annual grants to the Greens-aligned Green Institute and the Nationals-aligned Page Research Centre.
But non-partisan organisations such as the RSPCA and Australian Institute of Policy and Science are given a fraction as much.
The department says it attaches strict contractual conditions on the money, which specify what activities can be funded. It said it specifically does not allow grants to flow back to the political parties in the form of political donations.
But University of NSW social sciences lecturer Belinda Edwards says the payments help the parties entrench their advantage over would-be competitors.
"They are trying to win the ideas war by making sure they have more money and resources than their competitors, and they are using taxpayer funds to do it," Dr Edwards said.
"These payments need to be seen in the light of efforts to strip green NGOs of their tax deductible status."
But Menzies executive director Nick Cater says the payments pale in comparison to the $30 million in public money given as an endowment to the "pro-tax" and "anti-business" Grattan Institute.
"It is also peanuts compared to the millions of dollars of subsidies that go to anti-business groups like Greenpeace and the anti-coal zealots get because they have DGR (deductible gift recipient) status," he said.
Australian Electoral Commission returns suggest the department is the major external contributor to both centres.
Of the $330,000 income Menzies disclosed to the AEC in 2014-15, about $240,000 came from Finance. The remainder came from Google and businessman Paul Espie, one of the centre's directors.
It's a similar story for Chifley. Its $240,000 Finance grant accounted for the lion's share of it's $340,000 of AEC declared income in the same year.
All up the partisan think tanks have collected almost $3.2 million in public money in the past five years.
