Advance Australia Fair? The lobby group working to stoke ‘fear and hatred’

Content warning: This article features an image published in the Australian Financial Review which invokes racist and misogynistic stereotypes. Honi has re-published this image for the express purpose of contextualising our criticism of its creation and publication.

Months ago, Honi Soit published a comprehensive editorial on the Voice to Parliament. Our analysis examined where First Nations rights currently stand, and unpacked our key criticisms of wider media coverage of the referendum — including an ignorance of the historical Indigenous rights movement, the erroneous idea that First Nations opinion is a monolith, and the dualistic framing of the debate in and of itself. 

There have been a number of developments since Honi shared its position back in May – most of which have occurred in the past few weeks. Recent opinion polls show public support for the Voice has declined to its lowest levels.

Source: The Guardian; public support for the Voice over time, broken down by state and polling outlet.

There was also the passage of legislation through both houses of Parliament to hold the referendum, and Senator Lidia Thorpe’s gathering of Indigenous sovereignty activists calling for a “No” vote in favour of more practical outcomes and counteracting claims made by both the Labor-backed “Yes” campaign and conservative “No” voters.

More immediate and overwhelming though, there has been a mood of exhaustion building among First Nations communities from all sides of the debate in broaching the referendum.

“Cultural load” is a term used to describe the unique social and intellectual burden upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly those who live or work in a majority non-Indigenous environment. It refers to the additional work placed onto Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be consulted and provide education, recommendations and cultural knowledge in the workplace. This work is invisible and regularly goes uncompensated. As discussions of the referendum increasingly become a constant presence in the Australian conscience, First Nations people and communities are grappling with the increased cultural load generated by these debates.

Beyond abrasive conversations in the news and Parliamentary grandiloquence from Labor MPs, nowhere is this cultural load more in focus than on social media. The digital atmosphere is tense, and has seen a stratospheric uptick in coverage of the Voice debate in recent months. Much of the media landscape has been littered with false claims, malinformation, and an inexplicable smoke-and-mirrors game between partisan actors.

The Guardian recently published an investigation into the condition of social media coverage as it relates to the referendum, and found that key players within the “No” campaign have made concerted and intentional efforts to obfuscate the demands of the “Yes” camp and garble any attempts at clear messaging or factual reporting.

“Fair Australia” is an offshoot of Advance Australia, a lobby group with ties to Christian conservative politics. It is by far the most partisan of the “No” campaign’s social media platforms, depending on support from Coalition figures like Country Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, as well as former Prime Minister Tony Abbott (who sits on Advance’s advisory board). In turn, “Fair Australia” comprises one half of “Australians for Unity,” with the other half made up of the “Recognise A Better Way” movement, led by Warren Mundine.

The Guardian’s investigation also found that two of the “No” campaign’s three social media platforms — “Referendum News” and “Not Enough”, outwardly portraying opposing (or at least incongruous) perspectives on the referendum — are operated by Advance.

“Referendum News” presents itself as a traditional ‘Gen X’ news outlet, veiling its conservative lean with an ostensibly independent agenda, while “Not Enough” platforms the views and arguments of the “sovereign No” or “progressive No” campaign.

As explained in Honi’s editorial, the “progressive No” campaign is grounded in the notion of the Australian constitution as a deeply conservative and colonial tool (something which Honi does not dispute) and the belief that First Nations people deserve “more than a Voice” — a position held by figures such as Lidia Thorpe and Celeste Liddle.

“Not Enough”’s platform also relies heavily on the Howard Government being the first to suggest constitutional recognition. While this is true, “Not Enough” fails to also consider Howard’s intentions — to undermine First Nations sovereignty and cripple capacity-building within communities — behind proposing constitutional recognition, highlighting Advance’s propensity for malinformation and its fraught relationship with factual reporting.

This pattern of conduct can be traced back to Advance Australia’s earliest foray into the world of political lobbying, when the group coordinated campaigns against Zali Steggall in the 2019 election, and David Pocock during the 2022 election.

Advance first made headlines during independent MP Zali Steggall’s campaign against Tony Abbott for the seat of Warringah in 2019, when the lobby group launched “Captain GetUp” to mock Steggall’s left-wing supporter GetUp.

In the 2022 election, Advance shared Photoshopped images depicting Steggall and David Pocock wearing Australian Greens merchandise in an effort to tie the independent candidates to the party. These images — along with related campaign materials depicting Chinese President Xi Jinping casting a vote for the Australian Labor Party — were found by the AEC to breach Australian electoral laws, and were referred to the AFP (although it is unclear whether any investigation remains active).

In both instances, Advance demonstrated their capacity to hijack public opinion — either in the form of outright disinformation or targeted mockery — in attempts to influence electoral outcomes, highlighting the group’s principal focus of sowing uncertainty and confusion.

The “No” campaign’s advertisement tactics are also concerning, with Meta page transparency data showing that all three platforms’ advertisements are paid for by Advance.

These advertisements rely on hyperbole and, in some cases, fear mongering — including this advertisement, which was “taken down because it goes against Meta Advertising Standards.”

Advance’s spending patterns are also of note. Page transparency data across all three of its platforms reveal the frequency of their paid advertisements. “Fair Australia,” easily the most well-funded of the three, has spent a minimum of $36,000 since February 2023.

A spokesperson for Advance Australia said that the group’s Facebook pages and advertising were “transparently authorised” and complied with AEC requirements, although “Fair Australia”, “Referendum News,” and “Not Enough” have all been flagged by Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — as part of their recent “crack-down” on abuse and misinformation surrounding the referendum.

Advance Australia has clearly evolved — both in the years following their clumsy attack campaigns against Steggall and Pocock, increasingly harnessing the potential of social media as a tool for misleading voters.

This all-too-familiar tactic of carpet-bombing the social media landscape in an attempt to confuse and misdirect voters is, as misinformation expert Ed Coper articulates in the Guardian, “straight out of the Republican playbook in the US in the last several years.” For those with memories of the 2016 and 2020 US elections, this assertion should be ringing alarm bells.

In line with the Americanisation of our political lobbying conventions, the positions peddled by “Fair Australia” and similar Advance-backed platforms have also undoubtedly stoked fear and hate, and re-normalised racist sentiments that have no place in Australia’s modern social and political landscape. 

Earlier this month, a cartoon was published in the Australian Financial Review which depicts Kaurareg, Kalkalgal and Erubamle man Thomas Mayo — board director of Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition and author of Finding the Heart of the Nation — in a minstrel-esque pose alongside Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney and federal teal MP Kate Chaney.

The cartoon carries an authorisation from Advance Australia and was shared across multiple social media platforms, including “Fair Australia.”

Steggall criticised the Financial Review on Twitter shortly after the cartoon was sent to print, stating that its publication “highlights the deeply racist beliefs of Advance.”

The concerning factor in all of this is how fundamentally the referendum debate has, in recent months, mimicked the Trump media ecosystem of the past six years — that is, coordinated misinformation targeting vulnerable communities and stoking racial hatred. Despite Advance’s rhetoric, which espouses the principle of a “fair go,” its tactics and language are unquestionably founded in the racial invective of Trumpist America.

It is something which is compounded by the dizzying volume of referendum coverage by Murdoch media outlets — particularly Sky News Australia, which has become principally concerned with platforming proponents of the “No” campaign.

Despite assurances from Sky CEO Paul Whittaker of the company’s commitment to providing comprehensive coverage by launching a new channel (Sky News’ The Voice Debate) dedicated to coverage of the upcoming referendum, Advance-backed talking heads Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin and Chris Kenney have remained steadfast in their efforts to discredit and disparage First Nations leaders while legitimising right-wing figures like Abbott, Dutton and former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce.

Among the reasons Advance Australia has proven to be such an effective political operator within this debate is the persuasive disparity between the “Yes” and “No” campaigns, and the electoral nature of a referendum (which is closer in its characterisation and procedures to the US voting system than to an Australian election).

Axel Bruns, a professor of digital media at Queensland University of Technology, has characterised the referendum debate as an “asymmetrical battle,” with the “Yes” campaign carrying out a much higher mandate than the “No” campaign.

Those working towards a successful referendum must convince the Australian people that their model of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a good idea. In the face of worsening outcomes in education, healthcare and employment (among other metrics), Labor and the Yes23 movement must demonstrate that the Voice is part of the solution to these issues.

However, the “No” campaign has no need to propose alternate solutions or suggest any constructive options. Their only goal is to convince people that the Voice isn’t the right one. This is a much easier argument to make — simply saying “don’t risk it” or “it’s not enough” is easier than winning the hearts and minds of a majority of Australian voters and the majority of states.

In an electoral process which can ultimately be reduced to a simple matter of “Yes” or “No”, lobby groups such as Advance are able to influence voters by hyper-polarising the debate and generating static within the wider media’s coverage of First Nations issues.

The result of all of this, however, is a political and media landscape which alienated and demonises First Nations people on both sides of the debate. When Linda Burney is publicly shamed and called “an embarrassment,” and Thomas Mayo is portrayed as a piccaninny in the Financial Review, First Nations people are understandably silent in this debate.

This all-too-familiar tactic of carpet-bombing the social media landscape in an attempt to confuse and misdirect voters is, as misinformation expert Ed Coper articulated for the Guardian, “straight out of the Republican playbook in the US in the last several years.” For those with memories of the 2016 and 2020 US elections, this assertion should be ringing alarm bells.

In line with the Americanisation of our political lobbying conventions, the positions peddled by “Fair Australia” and similar Advance-backed platforms have also undoubtedly stoked fear and hate, and re-normalised racist sentiments that have no place in Australia’s modern social and political landscape. 

Earlier this month, a cartoon was published in the Australian Financial Review which depicts Kaurareg, Kalkalgal and Erubamle man Thomas Mayo — board director of Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition and author of Finding the Heart of the Nation — in a minstrel-esque pose alongside Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney and federal teal MP Kate Chaney.

The cartoon carries an authorisation from Advance Australia and was shared across multiple social media platforms, including “Fair Australia.”

Steggall criticised the Financial Review on Twitter shortly after the cartoon was sent to print, stating that its publication “highlights the deeply racist beliefs of Advance.”

The concerning factor in all of this is how fundamentally the referendum debate has, in recent months, mimicked the Trump media ecosystem of the past six years — that is, coordinated misinformation targeting vulnerable communities and stoking racial hatred. Despite Advance’s rhetoric, which espouses the principle of a “fair go,” its tactics and language are unquestionably founded in the racial invective of Trumpist America.

It is something which is compounded by the dizzying volume of referendum coverage by Murdoch media outlets — particularly Sky News Australia, which has become principally concerned with platforming proponents of the “No” campaign.

Despite assurances from Sky CEO Paul Whittaker of the company’s commitment to providing comprehensive coverage by launching a new channel (Sky News’ The Voice Debate) dedicated to coverage of the upcoming referendum, Advance-backed talking heads Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin and Chris Kenney have remained steadfast in their efforts to discredit and disparage First Nations leaders while legitimising right-wing figures like Abbott, Dutton and former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce.

Among the reasons Advance Australia has proven to be such an effective political operator within this debate is the persuasive disparity between the “Yes” and “No” campaigns, and the electoral nature of a referendum (which is closer in its characterisation and procedures to the US voting system than to an Australian election).

Axel Bruns, a professor of digital media at Queensland University of Technology, has characterised the referendum debate as an “asymmetrical battle,” with the “Yes” campaign carrying out a much higher mandate than the “No” campaign.

Those working towards a successful referendum must convince the Australian people that their model of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a good idea. In the face of worsening outcomes in education, healthcare and employment (among other metrics), Labor and the Yes23 movement must demonstrate that the Voice is part of the solution to these issues.

However, the “No” campaign has no need to propose alternate solutions or suggest any constructive options. Their only goal is to convince people that the Voice isn’t the right one. This is a much easier argument to make — simply saying “don’t risk it” or “it’s not enough” is easier than winning the hearts and minds of a majority of Australian voters and the majority of states.

In an electoral process which can ultimately be reduced to a simple matter of “Yes” or “No”, lobby groups such as Advance are able to influence voters by hyper-polarising the debate and generating static within the wider media’s coverage of First Nations issues.

The result of all of this, however, is a political and media landscape which alienated and demonises First Nations people on both sides of the debate. When Linda Burney is publicly shamed and called “an embarrassment,” and Thomas Mayo is portrayed as a black minstrel in the Financial Review, First Nations people are understandably silent in this debate.

As we approach the referendum, Honi will continue to report on the Voice to Parliament and the surrounding debate. See our editorial for our formal position.