Anti-Voice ‘news’ Facebook page is run by the No camp, but you wouldn’t know it

The No campaign is running an unbranded anti-Voice to Parliament “news” Facebook page as part of its network of social media accounts targeting Australian users with its political message.

“Referendum News” was created on May 1 by Advance, a conservative lobby group formerly known as Advance Australia that is behind the “Fair Australia” campaign to defeat the Voice to Parliament referendum set to take place later this year. It was first spotted by Institute of Strategic Dialogue analyst Elise Thomas.

While featuring an electoral authorisation in its bio, the page is otherwise unbranded as being associated with a political group. Instead it’s categorised as a “news and media website” and only posts links to news articles from mainstream media outlets. These articles are exclusively critical of the Voice and typically feature politicians and figures associated with Advance’s campaign.

“Shadow Indigenous Affairs Minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has slammed political lobbying by sport administrators, telling 2GB, ‘I seriously think that sports codes should stay the hell out of politics,’ ” one post read.

An Advance spokesman told Crikey the Facebook page was intended to complement the federal government’s information program launched at the weekend: “We are committed to ensuring as many Australians who are undecided or unaware about the referendum have access to content that shows there is another side to the Voice story, one that goes beyond the vibe.”

A spokesperson for the Yes campaign, Yes23, didn’t answer questions directly about the Referendum News page but instead said it was important to have information from reputable sources: “Australians expect that advocates in this debate will act in good faith and not seek to confuse or mislead voters ahead of the referendum.”

Referendum News has only a handful of followers but has been used to run 37 ads across Facebook and Instagram since it was launched, according to Meta’s ad library

Social media advertising tool PoliDashboard shows that Advance has spent somewhere between $5700 and $10,160 to show the page’s ads to more than 1,056,000 Australians over the past three weeks. These advertisements predominantly target women aged over 35 in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.

In addition to Advance’s Fair Australia and the self-titled Facebook pages, the group recently launched a similarly unbranded “Not Enough” Facebook page on May 17 that uses progressive arguments against the Voice. In some cases, the Not Enough page advocates for policies such as reparations coming before the Voice that Advance’s other pages warn will happen as a result of the Voice.

“First Nations Peoples deserve self-determination, reparations, repatriation of stolen goods, and an end to oppressive incarceration and abduction of our children! ‘The Voice’ only perpetuates and legitimises systems of oppression. #VoteNo,” one post read.

Advance has run 24 ads using the Not Enough page. These ads, exclusively shown to people under the age of 34, have been shown 185,000 times over the past week.

Last month, Crikey reported that the Yes campaign had a social media head start over the No campaign but that negative case was catching up.