Dale Paddle has donated his land on Wodonga's water tower roundabout for an election base for Dr Haines.

Senator Jane Hume said the gift jarred with Dr Haines having "made supportive noises of Queensland's decision to ban donations from property developers" and was an "act of hypocrisy".

She noted Dr Haines spruiked an infrastructure development fund in April that "would essentially funnel taxpayer dollars into the pockets of regional property developers including Dale Paddle" and "Helen Haines admitted as much when she said Dale Paddle had helped her develop this policy".

Mr Paddle said he had "absolutely zero to do with" the fund policy and was asked to join Dr Haines to talk about it as a building industry leader.

He said he donated the roundabout site because he was asked by the Haines camp and "if the Liberal Party had asked me first I would say yes to them".

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"I just think it's a smear campaign to try and cause trouble," Mr Paddle said.

He said he was a builder and not a land developer.

"If the Liberal senator wants to throw mud around look at where Ross Lyman posters are, most of them are on Nordcon land and he's the biggest developer in town," Mr Paddle said.

Mr Lyman, the Liberal candidate for Indi, confirmed he had signs on Nordcon land but could not say how many and asked if that firm had donated to his company he said "not directly to my knowledge".

Dr Haines was asked about donations at Tuesday night's Wodonga election forum and said Mr Paddle wanted to support her because of her work on border closures.

"(He) said 'would that block be useful to your volunteers to gather on as you work through your election campaign'," she said.

"So that's an in-kind donation from Dale and that will be declared as an in-kind donation once I put in my AEC return."

Dr Haines said donations had "absolutely no influence on what I do".

On Wednesday a spokeswoman for Dr Haines said: "Mr Paddle was involved in Dr Haines' launch of her regional housing infrastructure fund in order to provide a secondary view of the housing crisis in regional Australia, not only as someone who runs his own mid-sized, family-owned building business, but as someone who has a history growing up in social housing and seeing the benefit it gave to his mother and setting him up for his life.

"He is also a major supporter of low cost, affordable housing throughout his local career and was involved in a local disability housing project."

She also noted the eligibility criteria for Dr Haines infrastructure fund was the same as the current eligibility criteria for the government's National Housing Infrastructure Facility.

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