Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten insists he has no knowledge of a $400,000 donation the ALP might have received from a director of a tobacco company.
"This came as news to me," he said of a report in Fairfax Media on Monday.
Peter Chen, the sole Australian director of Sydney tobacco company ATA International, donated to the NSW and federal Labor parties via another of his companies Wei Wah which retails the cheap Chinese brand cigarettes ATA imports, the report said.
Wei Wah is suspected of smuggling cigarettes.
The ALP banned donations from the tobacco industry in 2004, while NSW laws ban funds from any "tobacco industry business entity", which includes "a close associate of a [tobacco] corporation".
Mr Chen donated $200,000 to NSW Labor in November 2011 while a second $200,000 donation went to the federal branch in 2013.
Mr Shorten said he had been in touch with Labor Party officials about the report.
"I don't want obscure foreign donations coming into our system, full stop, tobacco-related or not," he said.
