Heavy propaganda attacks on teals in key seats orchestrated by third-party groups

The Guardian

24-04-2025

Third-party groups targeting the teal independents are flooding pre-poll locations in Victoria and New South Wales, and include campaigners with links to the Jewish community such as Repeal the Teal.
In Goldstein, where the independent Zoe Daniel is hoping to hold off Liberal candidate Tim Wilson, Repeal the Teal has made its presence known this week with posters, T-shirts and pamphlets. The group is also campaigning in Kooyong.
Repeal the Teal is part of J-United, an initiative that campaigned against the Greens in the recent Prahran byelection in Victoria over the party's stance on Israel.
The J-United co-founder Simonne Whine said Repeal the Teal does not tell voters to favour either of the major parties, and has people of various backgrounds involved. 'Whether it's Liberal or Labor, that's their choice,' she said. 'The message is just that [the teal independents] had three years to help Australians, and they haven't achieved much.'
Repeal the Teal's materials are authorised by Harriet Warlow-Shill, a Melbourne lawyer who presented an online session in March for the Australian Jewish Association titled Does My Teal Support Terror?
She outlined how her view of the teals was affected by debates over funding for Unrwa, which provides aid in Gaza, after the 7 October attacks.
Warlow-Shill described herself as 'part of the Liberal party' during the March event and told viewers it was 'of key importance that the Liberal party wins the next federal election for the safety of the Jewish community'.
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On Thursday, she told Guardian Australia she was no longer a member of the party. 'I felt it was important not to be a member if I were to do this campaign,' she said.
Daniel said the rise of 'third-party attack groups like Repeal the Teal and Better Australia shows that the major parties are rattled'.
'These groups are a reaction to the growing influence of independents who challenge the status quo,' she said. 'They're funded by those invested in maintaining a two-party system that often overlooks community needs. Their emergence underscores the fear of losing control to a more transparent and accountable political movement.'
Daniel said she had worked 'incredibly hard' on measures to combat antisemitism. On the issue of Unrwa and 'critically important' humanitarian aid to Gaza, Daniel said: 'I'm agnostic about who [delivers aid], but at the time I was advocating for the reinstatement of funding to Unrwa, it was the only organisation capable of doing it.'
As Guardian Australia has previously reported, rightwing advocacy group Advance provided support to J-United in the form of flyers, T-shirts and corflutes during its Prahan campaign. Whine said Repeal the Teal is its own project, but J-United is separately assisting Advance with volunteers.
Another third-party group, Better Australia, has posters and representatives wearing yellow 'community adviser vests' at multiple locations in Sydney.
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An offshoot of Better Council, which targeted the Greens during the 2024 NSW local elections, Better Australia is running an extensive campaign against teal candidates across the eastern Sydney electorate of Wentworth and targeting the Greens in other seats, including Brisbane and Melbourne. The teal independent Allegra Spender won Wentworth in 2022.
Better Australia is headed by Labor party member Sophie Calland. The former adviser to Scott Morrison Yaron Finkelstein and former Liberal staffer Alexander Polson have also been involved in discussions about Better Australia election strategy, according to meeting minutes obtained by journalist Wendy Bacon.
Guardian Australia spoke to four people handing out 'Don't get tricked by the teals' leaflets for Better Australia in Sydney on Thursday. All said they were volunteers and visitors from countries including Israel, Spain and Italy. None were eligible to vote in Australia.
At a booth in Bondi, located in the Wentworth electorate, one volunteer said she found out about the role from a WhatsApp group. Asked why she was representing Better Australia, she pointed to the corflute of the Liberal candidate, Ro Knox, and said she hoped she would win.
Calland said Better Australia's campaign is non-partisan. 'We are not advocating for a particular major party but against the Greens, teals and other minor party candidates across the country,' she said. 'Our message is resonating with a diverse range of nationalities across Australia.'
At another location in Bondi Junction, someone had printed out the authorisation on the Better Australia posters in a large font and taped it over the original smaller print. The AEC said it could not comment about whether it had contacted the group over the legibility of its authorisation.
Knox was speaking to voters outside a pre-poll location in Bondi Junction. She said the atmosphere during pre-poll voting had been positive, with voters largely raising concerns about the cost of living.
The Wentworth campaign was dominated this week by the AEC's investigation into 47,000 unauthorised pamphlets targeting Spender. On Wednesday evening, the agency said it had identified the person behind the material but did not provide more detail.
'There's obviously very passionate supporters on all sides, as you'd expect,' Knox said of her conversations on the campaign trail. 'All material must be authorised, it's really important.'
The Liberal campaign did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.