The right-wing lobby group behind the No campaign for the Voice to Parliament has turned its attention to the March 2 federal by-election in Dunkley by repurposing its faux neutral “news” social media account to run thousands of dollars of negative advertisements against the Albanese government.
Since the end of last month, Advance, formerly Advance Australia, paid for 20 targeted Facebook ads on its “Election News” Facebook page.
Election News was, until January 29, “Referendum News”, an anti-Voice Facebook page that posted and ran advertisements linking to news articles that were critical of the Voice to Parliament referendum and the Yes campaign.
The page, which is categorised on Meta’s services as a “News & media website” despite being run by the conservative political group, features an authorisation that it is run by Advance but otherwise has the appearance of a neutral news page. It’s one of the handful of different Facebook campaigns run by Advance during the referendum, including the progressive-sounding Not Enough and the Indigenous-targeted Not My Voice.
In the past two weeks, Advance has targeted advertisements at more than 251,000 Victorian Facebook and Instagram users at a cost of up to $6,380 according to Meta advertising library dashboard PoliDashboard. These ads have been targeted specifically at Meta users in Dunkley and appear to be spread across demographics.
(For perspective, the Liberal Party’s Dunkley candidate Nathan Conroy has spent about half that in the same period).
The advertisements contain news-sounding captions written by the group attacking the federal government, and link out to mainstream media sources. The most popular topics include cost of living issues, followed by attacks on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s credibility over the stage three tax changes and crime.
An Advance spokesperson said the group chose to repurpose this Facebook page because of its success during the Voice referendum.
“Now with a crucial by-election imminent, we decided it is important to assist mainstream media overcome its inability to reach mainstream Australia with its must-read reports about Anthony Albanese’s cost of living crisis,” they said in an emailed statement.
The spokesperson said the group had not yet published a Crikey article on the Facebook page but would consider it if we wrote something “balanced, interesting and relevant to mainstream Australians”.
Those criteria seem to be a ringing endorsement for the Crikey article shared by then Referendum News on May 16, 2023 — a move their spokesperson was apparently unaware of.
What is the use of reporting donations to political parties if unaccountable faceless organisations conduct campaigns outside but clearly in support of a party? Of course the accolytes of Advance or Advance Australia – whatever they dream up – will say they are responding to GetUp. The difference is that GetUp is in support of any progressive political movement, not necessarily the ALP. Advance is blatently and undeniably supportng the Liberal candidate by bad mouthing the democratically elected Government of the nation.
Doesn’t New Scorp do exactly that? Wonder how much they contribute to Advance?
I think you’ll find Advance is opposing anything that might be “left” or “progressive” (or “woke”) rather than supporting the LNP. They’re reactionaries.
They are, in that sense, the anti-GetUp.
It is very difficult to see a workable solution to the problem.
It’s very easy to see a workable solution to the problem, but an armed uprising is unlikely to get off the ground 😀
Wow, I just looked at their FB page, talk about being inhabited by loony tunes RWNJs living in a parallel universe!
That’s good to hear. I’m not on FB, but if it’s just a bunch of cookers and angry auntyuncles baying at the moon it’s not a big worry, I guess.
But they’re well-funded and know how to use emotion, outrage and grievance to further the interests of their donors.
Self interest has always been with us, a cursed pox, but, this Advance rubbish indicates a high level of lying criminality, uncivilised fabrication, deliberate misleading propaganda and a total disregard for decency, honesty, accuracy. May they rot in their own foul juices.
The TAB currently have their odds for the Dunkley byelection set at Labor $1.30 and Coalition $3.40
The Poll Bludger reports a uComms poll predicts a close result of 52-48 two party preferred to Labor.
Anyone who thinks Advance’s campaign is going to work can make big bucks backing the Liberal candidate. Not for mine.
It’s a shame you can’t bet on whether or not Peter Dutton will still be Liberal leader one month after the next election.
Lol, they think they’re mainstream.