Right-wing lobby group in donations probe over anti-Greens push in Prahran

Victoria’s election watchdog is investigating a complaint that right-wing lobby group Advance has not declared any donations in the state while bankrolling a campaign against the Greens in the hotly contested Prahran byelection.

Advance has funded T-shirts, how-to-vote cards and social media advertisements urging voters to put the Greens last on ballot forms in Saturday’s three-way contest. But the campaigners are yet to declare any donations with the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC).

An Advance billboard campaigning against the Greens in the federal Melbourne seat of Macnamara.

A spokesman for Advance said all disclosures related to the Prahran byelection would be made in accordance with the law. “This is just desperation from the Greens,” he said.

State donations greater than $1210 need to be declared on the disclosure log within 21 days. Social media ads specifically targeting Prahran only began in the past fortnight, meaning Advance has time to declare the funding behind them.

But Advance has also been running a national campaign on social media, television advertisements and large billboards in federal electorates such as Macnamara, which overlaps the state Prahran electorate.

The Greens argue those generic anti-Greens ads amounted to state-based campaigning once the writs for the byelection were issued on December 20, or else the intention of state donation rules could be easily undermined.

Angelica Di Camillo is running for the Greens in the Prahran byelection.Credit: Penny Stephens

“These advertisements have the clear effect of influencing the vote of electors on the Prahran district byelection and are therefore election material and political expenditure,” the Greens complained in a December email to the VEC, obtained by The Age.

Federal donations cannot fund state campaign material.

One of Advance’s recent anti-Greens advertisements.Credit: Facebook

“We therefore have concerns that the money used to pay for this substantial amount of advertising could be federal political donations in breach of the Electoral Act 2002,” the Greens wrote to the VEC.

Advance said its television and outdoor ads were part of a federal campaign that had run since June “to expose the truth about the Greens”.

“It has nothing to do with the byelection, does not mention byelection candidates, and was prepared before the byelection. It is a federal campaign,” the Advance spokesman said.

A VEC spokeswoman declined to comment on any complaint or investigation, but said there was nothing to prevent federal campaigning during a state election.

“Signs about a Victorian state election and other election campaign material displayed or distributed by candidates, parties or third-party campaigners, including (but not limited to) how-to-vote cards and signs near to a voting centre during the hours of voting, must comply with Victoria’s electoral laws,” the spokeswoman said.

In an email update to supporters, obtained by The Age, Advance said it had bolstered its federal campaign in a “summer storm” ending on Sunday, the day after the byelection. The lobby group has also been targeting the federal seat of Wills in Melbourne’s north and Queensland seats Brisbane, Griffith and Ryan.

“The Prahran byelection on February 8 sits squarely in the heart of our federal target electorates (Macnamara and Melbourne). This makes it a tactical move in our broader election strategy,” Advance executive director Matthew Sheahan wrote.

Sheahan said the Greens wanted voters to forget the circumstances in which former Prahran MP Sam Hibbins quit the parliament in November following an affair with a staffer.

“We’re meeting them head-on: over 100 volunteers are on the ground in ‘can’t vote Greens, not this time’ T-shirts, distributing ‘the Greens don’t stand for us’ flyers in every letterbox, while our digital ads continue to saturate the electorate,” Sheahan wrote to Advance supporters.

“It’s a perfect fit with our ‘her truth’ and ‘Greens truth’ messaging, ensuring the Greens don’t get a free pass to further expand their power at the federal election.”

Donations in Victoria are capped at $4850 every four years. While no cap exists for federal donations, they must be disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission if they exceed $16,900 in a year. The AEC on Monday released data on money raised and spent in 2023-24, revealing the biggest donation Advance received was $500,000 from the Liberal Party’s associated entity, the Cormack Foundation.

Advance had tripled its fundraising to more than $15 million. More than $14 million of that fell below the disclosure threshold, meaning donors did not have to be identified.

In its email to supporters last week, Advance said it had raised $6.77 million from 29,341 donors across the country since its “Greens truth” campaign began.

The lobby group unsuccessfully campaigned against Labor in the federal byelection in the outer Melbourne seat of Dunkley and helped defeat the Voice referendum, but it has since narrowed its target to the Greens, claiming the minor party has become an extremist organisation that fosters antisemitism.

That view is shared by ex-Labor MP and now independent candidate Tony Lupton, who has given Liberal candidate Rachel Westaway a genuine chance of flipping the seat by swapping preferences. Lupton, Westaway and Advance all call on voters to put the Greens last on Saturday.

Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt, the federal MP for Melbourne, claimed Advance was a far-right disinformation group.

The Greens’ Prahran candidate, Angelica Di Camillo, who is defending a 36.4 per cent primary vote, said Prahran was a compassionate and inclusive community.

“This divisive, Trump-style politics has no place here,” she said.

Any state-based donation, including those below the disclosure threshold, still has to be declared in annual returns to the VEC.

Advance did not lodge an annual return in 2023-24, which means it could not have received any state-based donations that year. Annual returns for this financial year, covering the Prahran campaign, are not due for months.

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