The rightwing advocacy group Advance has acknowledged it is paying for election materials attacking the Greens to be used by third-party groups during the election campaign.
“Advance is working with hundreds of volunteers from dozens of community groups to defeat Greens candidates and we make no apology,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Advance did not fund groups directly but “we absolutely pay for anti-Greens campaign material to be at the disposal of volunteers”.
“This includes 2m flyers and thousands of T-shirts and corflutes.
“Again, we make no apologies.”
The group’s plan to focus its election campaign on reducing the Greens vote has been no secret. Advance’s executive director, Matthew Sheahan, claimed in a February email to supporters it had already raised $7.6m to “smash the Greens” and about $2m to target Labor. The group has spent more than $200,000 in the past week to promote posts from Facebook pages with names such as “Greens Truth”.
But it has not previously talked publicly about the extent of its support for other groups hostile to the Greens, including those that take exception to the party’s position on the Israel-Gaza war or on renewable energy.
The type of assistance Advance has on offer was revealed by two Jewish advocacy groups at a forum hosted by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA).
Simonne Whine of J-United, which campaigned against the Greens in the recent Prahran byelection in Victoria, said her group had reached out to Advance to get its campaign started.
“They were fantastic, efficient, strategic, well resourced,” she said. “They supplied the flyers, the T-shirts and the corflutes, and shipped everything to Melbourne, helping us hit the ground running.” Advance even paid for a picnic to thank volunteers, Whine said.
During last year’s Queensland state election, the Queensland Jewish Collective (QJC) also focused on the Greens vote in Brisbane seats such as Maiwar and Moggill. One of the group’s directors, Roz Mendelle, told the AJA forum QJC had spoken with Advance after seeing its work during the campaign against the Indigenous voice to parliament.
“When time came … to do something against the Greens here in Brisbane, I knew who to turn to,” Mendelle said, claiming that Advance kept “a healthy distance” while the campaign was under way. According to an event invitation seen by Guardian Australia, QJC held a volunteer event with Advance in February.
Mendelle is a co-director of a new group, Minority Impact Coalition (MIC), which has started a billboard campaign against Labor and the Greens in multiple states.
During the AJA briefing, Mendelle showed an image of a billboard paid for by QJC that read: “The Greens: They’ve changed for the worse.”
“This is also inspired by the Advance messaging,” she said. “But from there, we gained our footing, and we decided to just speak our truth.” MIC is using the same mobile billboard provider as Advance in Queensland, NSW and Victoria – STT Advertising.
In return, Advance has also used content from groups such as J-United on social media, sharing pictures of its “local grassroots community members” on its Greens Truth Facebook page.
The likely electoral impact of the anti-Greens strategy remains somewhat elusive. The Greens hold only four seats in the lower house, of which the three they won in Brisbane at the last election appear vulnerable. They have six senators up for re-election. By contrast, six new teal independent MPs were elected in 2022 – if they hold those seats or even increase their numbers, they might be expected to have a greater say in the event of a hung parliament.
“They’ve clearly worked out how to get conservative people fired up enough to throw money at them, and the way to do that is by attacking the Greens,” said Peter Lewis, the executive director of Essential, which is conducting qualitative research for the ALP. “But it’s not going to do anything to help the Liberals win back teal seats.”
The Advance spokesperson said: “Our campaign against the Greens won’t defeat teals because it was never meant to. We have been crystal clear for the past 18 months that our focus is on the Greens this election.”
Sheahan told an Australian Jewish Association forum in 2024: “Our goal is to just expose the Greens policies so that people don’t vote for them … A partial benefit will be that we think that will also reduce the teal vote.” His logic for that claim was unclear.
Anti-renewables
Advance has also focused on the anti-renewables movement, appearing at “energy forums” across the country and events held by groups set up to oppose the roll-out of offshore wind and solar energy.
As Guardian Australia has previously documented, the Facebook account for Advance spokesperson Sandra Bourke is active in dozens of local Facebook groups and pages opposing renewable projects in places such as Lake Borumba and Mount Fox in Queensland, regularly sharing Advance content.
Bourke is a regular speaker at these rallies and events – unusually for the outfit, which generally avoids a public-facing presence.
Grant Piper is the former chair of the National Rational Energy Network (NRen), which brought together community groups opposed to renewable energy projects and hosted events including the Reckless Renewables rally in Canberra last year.
That’s where Piper first met Advance. “We didn’t tie any formal knots, but we could tell we were pushing after the same thing when it comes to renewables,” Piper said.
NRen, which has rebranded as Let’s Rethink Renewables, has had discussions with Advance “all the way through”, he said, although it has remained independent. Bourke, one of NRen’s original members, is now Advance’s spokesperson and the face of its campaign against the Greens.
According to Piper – who appeared in Advance’s anti-renewables Dollars & Destruction video series – the organisation is a natural ally for groups that feel they are mostly excluded from the conversation taking place in parliament and the media.
“Advance is helping get publicity for the grassroots people who have been shut out of everything,” he said.
Others who have teamed up for the Greens Truth campaign include groups that emerged from the anti-lockdown movement, the Freedom party and Reignite Democracy Australia – which makes clear to prospective volunteers that their details will be shared with Advance.
Another NRen member and former One Nation candidate, Katy McCallum, was the MC at a “Goodbye Greens Rally” in Brisbane in late March, where QJC also appeared. Along with other event backers such as the Libertarian candidate Jim Willmott, she thanked Bourke and Advance for their help at the event.
“If our other good mate Sandra Bourke … from Advance hadn’t have jumped on, this would not be happening today,” she said.
Do you know more? Contact ariel.bogle@theguardian.com
