Liberal party’s ‘Teals Revealed’ scrutinises voting record of Climate 200-backed independents, six of whom won former Coalition seats at the 2022 election
Australians will be deluged by negative political ads on social media by a string of dedicated attack pages in the lead-up to the federal election, as the two major parties and large campaign groups set up networks of Facebook profiles and pay thousands to promote negativity on their opponents.
Guardian Australia analysis has uncovered a string of Facebook pages set up by Labor, the Coalition, Climate 200 and campaign group Advance with different names and imagery without party branding, in an apparent bid to promote specific campaign messages targeting particular demographics and electorates.
Labor state divisions in NSW and Western Australia have set up at least two anti-Peter Dutton pages, with posts raising doubts about health spending and WA’s GST deal under a Coalition government.
One page titled “Dutton’s cuts”, with a Facebook profile and website authorised by the NSW Labor party, is running campaign material with the slogan “don’t let him cut Medicare”.
With black-and-white photos of the opposition leader, the website criticises his “record of failure as health minister” including reductions to health budgets and his proposed $7 GP co-payment, claiming electing the Coalition would put “countless Australians at risk of losing access to the care they need”.
The page is currently running one paid advertisement on Facebook, putting $300 behind an attack ad on Dutton’s health record, which has targeted women in NSW aged 25-54.
A separate page, “Don’t risk Dutton”, is running ads geared toward West Australians. Meta’s ad library shows WA Labor senators including Sue Lines, Glenn Sterle and Louise Pratt have paid to boost ads with the taglines “Peter Dutton’s Liberal colleagues warn that he can’t be trusted with WA’s GST deal” and “Have you done your research on Peter Dutton?”
The page has spent about $10,000 targeting WA residents since launching its ad blitz in October.
“Dutton’s always wanted to take our GST. WA can’t risk Peter Dutton,” one video ad claims.
The Liberal party has launched a page called “Teals Revealed”, scrutinising the voting record of Climate 200-backed independents, six of whom won former Coalition seats at the 2022 election.
With a website and Facebook page claiming “Teals mean taxes”, the Liberal posts highlighted how often independents like Monique Ryan, Allegra Spender and Sophie Scamps have voted with Labor or the Greens – with some ads targeted to the specific areas those MPs represent.
“Vote Teal, get Greens and Labor. Don’t risk it,” the “Teals Revealed” page claims. It has spent $24,000 on boosting campaign ads on Facebook.
Climate 200, in turn, has set up “Independent News”, which has promoted news about crossbench MPs, promising “community news delivered directly to your feed”.
The page, authorised by Climate 200 director Byron Fay, was the fifth-biggest political advertiser in Australia last week, spending nearly $16,000 on 391 ads.
It highlighted news articles which praise the independent movement and criticise the two major parties, as well as boosting videos of speeches made by Climate 200-backed independents like Helen Haines and Zali Steggall.
“Vote for someone who listens, vote independent,” read some posts.
It echoes a tactic from conservative campaign group Advance, who set up a similarly branded page through the Indigenous voice referendum to share news articles critical of the yes campaign – a tactic the lobby group has continued by rebranding to an “Election News” page, as well as two separate Facebook pages criticising the Greens.
Lobby group Advance’s “Election News” – formerly “Referendum News” – was the 11th-highest spending political advertiser in Australia with $8,200 in targeted ads last week.
That page is boosting a number of old news articles critical of the Greens party – with ads targeted largely at young women in Victoria, a state where Adam Bandt is seeking to challenge several Labor-held electorates.
Advance is also running a further two anti-Greens pages on Facebook, titled “Greens Truth” and “Her Truth”, highlighting articles critical of the party’s policy platform and reports with allegations of internal cultural or bullying issues. “Her Truth” has spent about $18,000 to boost ads in the last month, while “Greens Truth” has spent about $2,000.
The major parties’ main pages continue to spruik their own plans and successes, however.
“It’s like the ‘good cop/bad cop’ routine. The good page runs the positive side, all the nice things they’ll do if you vote them in, then on the other page is the stuff going hard at the other party,” said Andrew Hughes, an expert in political marketing at the Australian National University.
“You need that one degree of separation because you want to protect the main brand. You don’t want your positive campaign hurt by the negative stuff.”
Hughes predicted this would be a major trend in the coming federal election, and said the major parties would turn to more unconventional means of reaching disengaged voters, such as tapping social media influencers or podcasters to help carry their messages.
“Negative is working more and more in Australian politics. It turns us off in general but it is effective in behaviour change,” Hughes said.
