Influencers to join 2025 election campaign trail

After Labor invited about a dozen influencers to the budget lockup for the first time, the personalities will soon follow Anthony Albanese on the hustings.

Social media influencer Milly Rose Bannister with Anthony Albanese. Picture: Instagram

Labor’s campaign has invited social media influencers to the campaign trail for the first time after the Albanese government on Tuesday invited about a dozen to the budget lockup.

Anthony Albanese is set to be interviewed on Wednesday by multiple influencers, including Hannah Ferguson who runs her ‘Cheek Media’ outlet with 158,000 Instagram followers.

Others invited to the lockup on Tuesday included Milly Rose Bannister and financial advice influencers Equity Mates and Tash Invests.

There were 13 influencers in total invited, including “Instagram finance advisers and left-wing feminist influencers”, the Nine newspapers reported.

A government source confirmed to The Australian social media influencers had also been invited on the campaign trail in the upcoming election.

Ms Ferguson on Tuesday told her Instagram followers she would be “back in the building to interview the Prime Minister” on Wednesday.

She took issue with being labelled an “influencer” in news coverage.

“Being an ‘influencer’ is used as a derogatory term by much of the mainstream media,” she wrote.

“In the context of my work, it means I am able to engage an audience of voters and provide education, opportunity for discussion and interrogate systems of power in a way the major media players are failing to.

“The budget lockup is just one small, fresh moment in a new era of media in Australia.”

Coalition frontbencher Andrew Bragg accused Labor of letting in the “cash for comment brigade into budget lockup”.

Senator Bragg has previously appeared on an Equity Mates podcast.

The Albanese government said it invited social media influencers to the lockup in order to communicate with Australians “where they are and in the form they want to consume it”.

“Almost half of Australians primarily consume their news online through new media, podcasts and social media,” a government spokeswoman said.

“That percentage is even higher for young Australians.

“We want to make sure that we are sharing our plan to build Australia’s future with all Australians, where they are and in the form they want to consume it.

“If Australians are accessing news and engaging with politics online then we want to make sure we are communicating with them there as well as through well-established traditional media channels.”