Earlier this week, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price made an unexpected announcement about her campaign to defeat the Voice to Parliament referendum.
The breakout star of the Coalition had defected from a committee she’d started, Recognise a Better Way, in favour of heading up “a new grassroots No campaign funded by right-wing activist group Advance”, The Australian reported.
Price’s involvement with Advance’s campaign (formerly Advance Australia) against the Voice, called Fair Australia, is unsurprising. The Country Liberal Party senator was named as the right-wing lobby group’s spokeswoman in 2020, before she was elected to the Senate last year. Her comments are frequently packaged and shared to Advance’s 104,000 followers on Facebook and beyond with paid advertising.
However, Advance is far from a normal grassroots organisation. Crikey analysis of Advance’s most recent filing with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) reveals that the group is funded by some of Australia’s richest people, often obscured by holding companies and donations spread across associated individuals.
Associates and holding companies funding Advance
In the 2021-22 financial year (which includes last year’s federal election), Advance reported receiving $2.45 million — $723,422 in amounts that were over the mandatory disclosure threshold of $14,500.
Crikey analysis of disclosed donors reveals that just 12 associated individuals and groups were responsible for at least 30% of Advance’s entire funding during the year, often through a series of donations or through holding companies.
These include:
- $112,500 from Louis Denton and Rayleen Giusti, who both have links to the Garnaut property family. Giusti, who gave $37,500, is employed as a personal assistant to the managing director of Garnaut Private Wealth, Chris Garnaut. Garnaut is also the founder of Fawkner Property, a property fund that has “arranged and managed property syndicates to a total value in excess of $500 million”. Denton, who gave $75,000, listed his address in the same Melbourne building as both Garnaut Private Wealth and Fawkner Property. Denton’s wife, Katherine Denton, told wedding publication Harrold’s Journal that Kathy Garnaut, a director of Garnaut Private Wealth, is a “close friend”.
- $75,000 from various members of Sydney’s millionaire O’Neil family, through holding companies Nedigi Pty Ltd, SixMileBridge Pty, and Willimbury Pty Ltd, documents lodged with ASIC reveal. The companies have been among some of the largest disclosed AEC donors over the last three financial years. Rodney and Janette O’Neil, whose father established Australian Blue Metal, are listed by ASIC as directors of both Nedigi and SixMileBridge. Their brother Colin, meanwhile, is listed as director of Willimbury. The three companies made donations of $25,000 each.
- $75,000 from JMR Management Consultancy Services. Company documents lodged with ASIC list Melbourne businessman Brett Ralph as the sole director and secretary. He owns the transport company “Jet Couriers”, and with his brother Shaun owns a 20% stake in the Melbourne Storm NRL club.
- $50,000 from former fund manager, Simon Fenwick and his partner Lisa, the directors of Silver River Investment Holdings. The $50,000 donation is a drop in the pond for Simon, who in 2020 donated a record $1 million to the group to help fight “left-wing agendas” and “dictatorial” politicians like Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
- $45,000 from Gabrielle and John Hull, a Queensland couple who’ve frequently donated to both the Liberal National Party and Advance.
- $25,000 from Ian Tristram, CEO of the 100-something-year-old company Trisco Foods which created the “Trisco” soft drink before selling it to Cadbury.
- $25,000 from Telowar Pty Ltd, a company linked to the owners of Taylor Wines. The company lists Loretta Taylor, Victoria Taylor, Angela Cattana, Michell Taylor, Justin Taylor and Clinton Taylor as directors. Both Cattana and Mitchell Taylor use Taylor Wines as their address. This company had also given $125,000 to Advance in the two years prior.
- $20,000 from Andrew Abercrombie, a multimillionaire Liberal party powerbroker and chair of buy now pay later company Humm. A cocktail party at his luxury Aspen chalet in 2020 was ground zero for a COVID-19 cluster affecting wealthy Victorians.
- $20,000 from Marcus Blackmore, the scion of the Blackmore supplements empire.
- $20,000 from Siesta Holdings Australia, a company which lists storage king and long time Advance backer Sam Kennard as one of its directors.
The remaining $171,628 came from the Australian Taxation Office. (The ATO told Crikey it couldn’t comment on an individual case but said generally that funds declared to the AEC could include deposits related to income tax, GST or other employer obligations.)
This analysis considers only disclosed donations that were above the $14,500 threshold. More than a third of donations to political parties in 2021-22 were made up of “dark money”.
Despite denying it has links to the Liberal Party, Advance has a number of connections with the Coalition including listing former ACT Liberal MLA Vicki Dunne as a director. Unlike many grassroots organisations, Advance has a history of using advertising firms to assist with its campaigns; its Facebook lists Whitestone Strategic and RJ Dunham & Co as partnered organisations.
While Advance’s early efforts to campaign online were hamstrung when Meta rejected Facebook ads against the Voice for containing misinformation, the group launched its Voice-specific website and Facebook page this week. A section of the website seeks to organise volunteers to phone canvas, man polling booths, and even call in to talkback radio stations to argue against the Voice.
In a statement to Crikey, Senator Price said she respects the work of the national committee, but believes her efforts would be better spent focusing on the Fair Australia campaign, as opposed to the “thought leadership and policy focus of Recognise a Better Way”.
On donations, she said: “Donations to Advance are a matter for them, however, I am aware that the campaign has already attracted more than 79,000 supporters to be a part of their grassroots campaign.
“I would further note that the Yes campaign is a big-government, big-corporate-funded exercise that is about as far away from the reality of vulnerable Indigenous Australians that you can get.”
Advance declined to comment on the campaign.
I suspect that the real reasons for the political Right opposing the Voice, which won’t be mentioned in the “No” campaign, are:
Spot on.
0. Contemporary right-wing politics is almost entirely defined by Pavlovian opposition to “the left” (or “pwning the libs” as they say in the US).
I should have read this before commenting there was no need , Steve777 nailed the squirming which is pretty hard to do well.
One of the most noxious elements coming mostly from the right wing and sometimes their Indigenous members is the inherent welfarist paternalism. They cover their horror of blak empowerment by their affected concern for the wellbeing of First Peoples particularly women in remote communities. This very real social disaster they think is best addressed by policies formed by white know-it-alls a problem that could be addressed by a broadly representative Indigenous Voice to Parliament. So far the white know-it-alls have not got it right.
Hmmm – and what was the outcome when ATSIC was formed? How much of the aid actually got through to the people in need? It was not a great success. The most pathetic excuse I heard for the mismanagement of ATSIC was “We’re a people rich in culture but not very good at finance”.
Your points are not wrong but that’s the point of strawmen – to distract from the salients point(s).
There are valid reasons to vote NO to the proposed change to the Constitution but the main one, which even leftoids would, once, have grasped before the Great Awokening removed any critical faculties they, may, once have had – it is RACIST.
In conception, in proposed execution – they once called separatism called apartheid – and in practical effect.
How is it racist? The first nations were here long before the whites came in and stole their land, murdered them, stole their children, used them as slaves and attempted genocide.
There’s been no treaty, not even an acknowledgement of prior occupation of the land.
Tell me how would it be racist? A far as I’m aware, the racism has all come from one side… the white side.
You need to look up the word ‘racist’.
While you are struggling with that concept, check out the meanings of ‘dissembling’ & ‘obtuse’ – it’ll probably have your picture.
It’s not racist, it’s more about representing First Nations. People seem to think this is just going to be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples having random representation wherever they are in Australia, as opposed to communities being represented.
Besides, the Australian Constitution has always been racist. It was premised on White people being better than anyone else, has a race power (never envisioned to be used against White people). There has never been a non-Racist Australian Constitution
Resorting to old tropes of wokeness and leftoids merely serves to betray one’s prejudices and makes one sound like the worst kind of Republican.
my question is WHY?
What possible harm can the Voice do for anyone? AS I see it, only good.
Unfortunately some fame hunters (JP) and anti-Albos (Dutton et al). Unfortunately the RW press will hang on every ignorant/self interested uttering of Dutton and expand it. Let’s hope the “quiet” Australians don’t fall for the RW, Anti-good-for-all-Australians that seem to get too much air-time.
Reading the donor profiles, it seems the ‘why?’ for at least some of them would be hating anything with even a whiff of ‘lefty’. The super rich hate that ‘making a better world’ stuff.
But that’s just your unrealistic soft-hearted wishy-washy progressive view. Those who are funding this campaign have the usual neo-liberal right-wing ideology. They believe that everything is transactional and it’s all a zero-sum game. Anything that is good for one group is inevitably bad for the others. Everything is a fight to get to the top. If the Voice is going to be good for Aboriginal Australians it follows it must hurt those who are therefore funding this.
They don’t realise that a rising tide floats all boats.
But they say it often enough; it’s another version of the ‘trickle down effect’.
They absolutely do which is why they work so hard to make sure only a few people have boats. 😀
Or access to water where one might conceivably use said boat.
I dunno, AGW will give millions “water lapping at [the] door”
Don’t worry, young Australians don’t watch television or listen to shock jocks. They watch streaming services and listen to Spotify. RW press can’t get to them.
Mate, youtube and social media is stuffed full of the kind of far-right fascism, bigotry and general wingnuttery that commercial media commentariat wouldn’t even be game to talk about out the back having a smoke break.
My kids and their partners, all aged 30-40, agree completely. It’s what they do.
Agree with what ?
That is the great multicoloured hope, that Neoliberal control of mainstream media doesn’t filter through to a large part of the population , the grip is loosening.
I hope so and there are some signs, but it doesn’t seem like the politicians are feeling any heat that bothers them that much.
My fellow old farts possibly are just pissing in the wind but Crikey did influence the last election a bit I think , commenters well it’s the gist.
The why is most probably fear. Wealthy Australians, particularly those whose lifestyle is based on mining, real estate and agricultural investments, are afraid the Voice will lead directly to successful treaty negotiations, resulting in compensation and greater control of development on traditional lands. This is why they have a visceral reaction to the misinformation being peddled by the “No” campaigners whether subterranean eg LNP (for now) or blatant eg NewsCorp, Advance, the monarchists, cookers and neo-conservative stooges like Mundine and Price. I’m still optimistic reasonable, rational, decent people will prevail; it will come down to communities educating each other. At a recent “Yes” picnic in Euroa the 5 individuals who turned up to ‘exercise their god-given right etc etc’ were outnumbered 50:1 and after being shooshed and called rude and ignorant for interrupting speakers, they moved on when they finally realised they were not just a boot thick, they were on a loser.
Yes, we cannot be distracted by the loudest and most obnoxious voices. They were out in force at the Victorian and federal elections but couldn’t convince enough people of their righteousness. Let’s hear the “detail” of their objections expressed rationally and respectfully.
Many of us can remember the vicious campaign against the Native Title Bill and later against implementation of the Wik judgement.
What I still remember is the Hindmarsh Island case, where the feds under Howard argued that while they had the power to legislate about blackfellas, they weren’t obliged to legislate for the BENEFIT of them.
The bridge and women’s business, the media did report on this ,another example of how important the ABC is. And well put, I didn’t really get the message or it didn’t stick.
How short are memories – the entire Hindmash fiasco was a con, from start to finish, abjured by the local mob.
Of course, they were ignored by the bien pissants at the ABC & other useful idiots.
I’m pro-treaty. My question is why do so many Indiginous Peoples see this Voice as purely symbolic.
( I’m familiar with Canadian, American and the Irish/ English solutions to these issues and so far this ” Voice” seems very “anemic” and impotent compared to the above )
Unfortunately the RW press will hang on every ignorant/self interested uttering of Dutton and expand it.
How true. We’re already well into the ‘Dutton says…’ stage where his views and face headline the reporting of something Albo has said or the government done, the latter thus framed by Dutton’s opinion. A privilege and a luxury never afforded to a Labor opposition leader.
But it won’t be confined to Dutton on the subject of the Voice. Jacinta N. Price will likely get the same benign treatment, and more headline space for her views than any other indigenous person in the country, especially now she’s joined that fairness-based AA group. She seems just another Queensland Country Liberal Party politician with the same views as the rest of them and, as you say, a longing for fame; her being indigenous is almost irrelevant in that respect, except to media which choose to highlight indigenous division. Many ‘No’ people will like that because they argue that we’re all one nation and there shouldn’t be any race-based privileges like the Voice.
If the Price is Right just about anyone can be bought.
The problem with many on the far Right is the delusion that money (and it’s passing power) is the only truth, to the detriment of everyone’s future growth (in its broadest meaning) and happiness.
Certainly in Muckracker’s tabloids, Price’s comments get more column space than all other indigenous voices combined, all amplified by letters to the editor carefully selected to reinforce the echo chamber.
It’s the ‘politics of envy’ on naked display. What the rich/rwnj’s envy is the fact that the hoipolloi are, despite every effort to suppress them, capable of using their own minds to decide. With riches comes greed – enough is never enough.
Yes, wealth is wasted on the rich because they’re never happy with what they’ve got and full of anxiety about losing their privilege.
Also reflects imported US modus operandi of various fronts, institutes & think tanks channeling Koch’s ‘owned’ GOP & Tanton Network nativism or eugenics, supported by a large ‘Donors’ Network financing and media PR.
The usual description for such a pseudo-grassroots campaign is ‘astroturfing’.
One obvious conclusion from seeing who is funding it is that they fear The Voice will be effective at hindering their looting and pillaging of Australia. If the Voice was going to do nothing they would not care. So that’s quite a message for anyone who was wondering if the Voice might be an empty gesture.
Excellent point, Rat.
These people are effectively Australia’s aristocracy. More likely they are concerned that a Voice won’t be beholden to their donations as it goes about its work. And, I expect that these people prefer to be the only ones with the power to make representations to the government (through their lobbyists).
It’s well past the time to set the disclosure threshold for political donations back to something more reasonable, say $1,000.
Or ban them altogether, let the pollies fund the party through their own wages
But how do you account for the unlimited free advertising Uncle Phone Hacker gives to our fascist LNP extremists?
New laws demanding truth in churnalism, wit hefty fines and jail sentences coupled with loss of accreditation for multiple offenders.
Demand truth in journalism? The legal system has trouble defining truth, until you can afford the best lawyer.
We are world leaders in strong defamation law. Changing defamation law would encourage journalists to be far more candid. It would be a good start.
Ban them completely……………
…………allocate $10 per Australian voter which they may donate to a candidate of their choice – or nobody…. in which case the money goes back into the treasury.
If you can’t persuade somebody to allocate their $10 to you, maybe you shouldn’t be in politics.
If you can’t run an election campaign on say, $120 million, maybe you don’t really have anything to say.
Takes all the corruption, and hopefully a large proportion of the bollocks, out of elections.
My other thought is a website which lists all the policies on offer, which are ticked by potential voters, who are then advised which of their local candidates matches their selections.
(And fund the election allocation by making the Oil & Gas companies pay tax…… how many billions would you have left over?)
How do you persuade someone if you don’t have the funds to market yourself ?
The counter-problem is limiting candidates to either the members of established parties or the independently wealthy, both of which are bad.
One of the best things that could be done would be limiting donations to people on the electoral role.
Alternatively, all candidates get a fixed amount of time on the public broadcasters to campaign in the month or two before an election and any other forms of political advertising are made illegal. Though this would also probably work against independents and in favour of major parties.
How do you persuade somebody to allocate their $10 to you?………….
GO AROUND AND ASK THEM.
A radical idea that seems to have become obsolete.
The vast majority of election spending is on pointless bollocks.
$120 million is quite enough to waste on people who want your vote…………..
………..and more than enough to elucidate your policies.
Which should be the only thing that determines elections.
To pick one example, the Warrego electorate is roughly 1,000km x 300km and covers and area of approx 370,000km^2, with about 30,000 people living in it.
Doorknocking’s a bit impractical.
I thought you country people all prided yourselves about your ability to drive long distances. It isn’t impractical, it just isn’t what politicians want to do. They’d prefer to schmooze with gambling, fossil fuel, media companies rather than find out what their voters really want.
So none of them have phones right?
My bad. I was silly enough to think when you wrote “GO AROUND AND ASK THEM” that’s what you actually meant.
How successful do you think the Teals would have been if they’d only campaigned over the phone ?
Do you realize that the Teals between them summoned more volunteers than the ENTIRE LIBERAL PARTY?
You do realise that the Teals used TEN MILLION DOLLARS of donations campaigning ?
And how much did the Liberal Party use campaigning?
NOBODY WILL EVER KNOW…………..
………………….because of our piss-weak election funding laws.
Careful you don’t do your back carrying those goalposts around.
Run out of ideas, much?
My “idea” is that it takes time and effort to run an election campaign. Which generally translates into money.
Which means – assuming you don’t want politicians who are either beholden to the selection filter of an existing party, or independently wealthy – campaigns need to be publicly funded, or funded by donations.
If they are publicly funded, then what is the criteria for it, and how much do they get ? Does the amount different based on whether the candidate is the incumbent, or new ? Should candidates get more, less or the same funding if aligned with a party or independent ? How will rorters who stand just to get some free cash be filtered out, if at all ? Etc.
If privately funded, what should the rules around that be ?
IMHO, private funding is fine so long as it’s fundamentally constrained to people on the electoral roll and has a fairly small annual maximum per person of maybe a few grand. With those conditions you don’t even need disclosure of names. Democratically, a lot of people giving a little is a vastly different scenario than a handful of people giving a lot.
It should also be centrally administered through the AEC, and comes with brutal penalties (bankruptcy-inducing fines and gaol time) for circumvention or attempted circumvention.
The problems with our political donations system stem almost entirely from a) very wealthy individuals and b) donations by non-persons (corporations, trusts, etc).
The other option I can see is ban campaigning outside of the lead up to elections, and during those times only allow it to happen in fixed chunks of time on the public broadcaster. The problem with that approach is similar to with the public funding – basically, should all candidates get equal allocations, or not ?
Meanwhile, your ideas are… run a campaign without running a campaign to try and grab a chunk of public funding (see above vis-a-vis party incumbents or the independently wealthy for the problems with this), or a website full of policies, which already exist and hardly anyone looks at anyway.
Give every candidate access to a set limited amount from the Treasury, money to be refunded in the case of not achieving a set no. of votes. All donations in cash or kind illegal, and all able to present their case free of charge on whatever public media forum they choose, with stipulation that lies and dishonesty means automatic disqualification from the election.
There has never been an explanation of why the Rodent, in changing the donor law, decreed the new to be $14,500.
Obvious that he’d want it raised for the good of – ‘the party and those who matter most’ – but why that clunky amount – why not $15,000? It would have been much neater.
The reason for no explanation is Howard did not do that. The amount changes annually.
‘Fair’Australia? I guess ‘Whitey’ Australia was a bit too obvious.