Cameron McCullagh and his wife Georgina, who own the private investment company GEGM Investments Pty Ltd,  said yesterday he “liked the fact Mr Torbay is independent” and he also gave donations to the Labor and Liberal parties.

The donation was published on Monday by the Election Funding Authority.

 Given in the lead up to the last NSW election, the one-off cheque pushed Mr Torbay’s campaign fund to the second biggest in the state.

In all, Mr Torbay received $114,415 in donations from July 2010 to June last year.

Fellow NSW independents Peter Besseling  and Peter Draper declared just $14, 602 and $33,000 respectively in the same period.

Mr Torbay said yesterday it had been a generous donation and “much appreciated”.

The money was declared through GEGM Investments, a company Mr McCullagh said was owned by his wife Georgina. 

It was set up as a private company investing in firms such as White Outsourcing, an accounting and investment service and Employers Mutual.

Mr McCullagh’s son went to The Armidale School and his daughter attended New England Girls’ School.

“Richard is the sort of person I want in politics. He is effective,” Mr McCullagh said.

The disclosure to the authority shows Mr Torbay spent $64,633 in the same period promoting his election campaign. He spent a total of $41,103 on television advertisements. He also spent $1489 on catering for a meeting in November 2010 and $5,839 on “food, refreshments, decorations and gifts”.

Federally, independent Tony Windsor, in the same period, received  $13,575 from 58 donors, none of which amounted to more than $11,500.