The multimillion-dollar campaign to oust Greens MPs from Brisbane

Big money is being spent on attack ads and billboards across the Queensland capital in a push to unseat its Greens MPs.

This masthead understands conservative lobby group Advance is spending about half its $4 million campaign budget on the Greens’ three federal seats in Brisbane.

MP Stephen Bates says he wears the challenge as a badge of honour.

An Advance advertisement targeting Greens in Brisbane CBD.Credit: Rosanna Ryan.

“Look, if a whole bunch of loser billionaires and right-wing idiots want to attack me, then go for it,” he said at a Greens community event last week.

“The reason they’re putting so much money into this seat … is because they are terrified they’re actually going to have to start paying taxes, and they think this is a better investment.

“If we go into a minority government, that is the biggest structural threat to their power probably ever in this country since Federation. That’s why they’re so afraid.

“I welcome it … They’re just going to be really pissed off when we win.”

Greens MP Stephen Bates at a community event in Brisbane. Credit: William Davis

Billboards and pamphlets across the city carry the slogan “can’t vote Green, not this time” and some show local members alongside anti-Australia Day and pro-Palestinian protests.

The Greens have three federal representatives in Brisbane: Max Chandler-Mather in Griffith, Elizabeth Watson-Brown in Ryan and Bates in the CBD electorate.

All hold their seats by thin margins, and the electorates are likely to be three-way contests with Labor and the LNP at the May 3 ballot.

Advance says the progressive party has become dominated by “political extremists” and does not represent “mainstream” values.

“We’ve taken a strong interest in seats like Brisbane because the Greens of today are not the harmless hippies and tree-huggers they were when the party was founded in the 1980s,” spokeswoman Sandra Bourke said in a statement.

“Now they are political extremists: they openly advocate drug decriminalisation, violent pro-Palestine protests and wide-open borders during a housing crisis.

“The Greens are not who they used to be, and we want every Australian to know that … We thought it was time to tell Australians the truth about people like Stephen Bates and the Greens.

“They’re not a party for the environment, they’re not a party for young people, they’re something much, much worse.”

Advance pamphlet sent out to homes in the seat of Brisbane.Credit: William Davis

Advance’s funding is opaque. It calls itself a “grassroots movement” and the conservative answer to GetUp!

“Billionaires in this shadowy organisation backed by fossil fuel money have realised that the Greens are the real progressive alternatives,” Greens federal leader Adam Bandt told this masthead.

“They know that we’re heading towards a minority parliament where the Greens will push to tax billionaires and stop opening up new coal and gas projects.

“Clearly these coal billionaires are worried about it … so they’re spending huge amounts of money to try and change the result.”