Advance director says ‘bed-wetting anonymous Liberals' trying to blame others after bitter election defeat

The Guardian

19-05-2025

Several senior Liberal sources have questioned the impact of Advance Australia, with some arguing the rightwing advocacy group made 'no difference at all' to the election result and others warning it 'undermined' the party and cost it votes.
The criticism has sparked a bitter blame game, with Advance's executive director, Matthew Sheahan, accusing 'bed-wetting anonymous Liberals' of 'looking to blame everyone but themselves', and adding that Advance 'does not exist to get hopeless Liberals elected'.
Advance claimed its federal election campaign – bankrolled by $15.6m in donations during the 2023-24 financial year – to be a 'success' that 'destroyed the Greens' and led to 'terminal declines in their primary votes'.
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But one senior Liberal MP said that while Advance may have damaged the Greens, this ultimately benefited Labor, which won the seats of Melbourne, Brisbane and Griffith. They said Liberal preferences ultimately determined this outcome, not Advance.
A NSW Liberal party source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, accused Advance's campaign material of alienating some undecided voters in target seats. They described the groups's campaign material as 'extreme'.
'It plays to the Liberal base or to voters further to the right of the Liberals, but it can distract and undermine our own messaging,' said the Liberal source. 'I wouldn't say on balance that it aided the Liberal campaign.'
Another senior Liberal source said Advance inadvertently 'undermined the Liberal campaign' in seats held by teal incumbents.
'Their advertising focused on attacking the Greens, but all that did was drive up the teal vote,' said the senior source, who also declined to be named so they could speak freely.
'Their messaging also confused voters and led people to put the teals and Greens equal last which meant Liberal votes could not be counted [as the ballot was invalid]. Their poor judgment in their campaign strategy might be the difference between winning Bradfield, or not.'
Late on Monday, the independent candidate for Bradfield, Nicolette Boele, overtook her Liberal rival, Gisele Kapterian, with a narrow lead of 40 votes.
Sheahan said Advance did not distribute material in Bradfield and did not campaign in Goldstein or Kooyong. He said the outcome in those three seats had nothing to do with Advance and that suggestions otherwise were 'just wrong'.
'The Liberal party would do better to focus on how they managed to lose 11 seats to Labor rather than on the three seats Labor took from the Greens,' Sheahan said.
'All of this shows that many Liberals have learned absolutely nothing from their worst ever defeat. Fresh out of a shocking campaign, they are looking to blame everyone but themselves.'
In Victoria, Advance was bankrolled by a $500,000 donation from the state branch's nominated entity, the Cormack Foundation. The foundation also allocated $1m to the Liberals in the same year.
While one Liberal MP said Advance made 'honestly no difference at all' to the election result, a former MP said the party would ultimately realise the group was not a sustainable campaign affiliate. They cited the group's embrace of 'populist' culture war issues, suggesting they only appealed to a small subsection of voters.
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'They are taking a lot of money from a lot of people who are being hoodwinked,' they said. 'They are not spending it [effectively], and what they spend it on is high-profile, low-impact campaigns that splinter our electoral coalition.'
'While it may be difficult to get that through to Liberal party members and supporters because of the Sky After Dark effect, ultimately, the truth wins out.'
In response, Sheahan said he wasn't surprised some Liberal voters had adopted Advance's campaign material, claiming 'their own campaign didn't have any'.
'No one should be surprised that bed-wetting anonymous Liberals are backgrounding against Advance and don't have the guts to stand by their comments publicly, I wouldn't put my name to their campaign either,' he said.
'The truth is that Advance does not exist to get hopeless Liberals elected, it instead campaigns to promote and defend Australia's freedom, security and prosperity.'
Advance claims to have delivered 'millions' of broadcast ads and flyers during the campaign and splashed its messages on billboards, bus shelters and trucks. Analysis of public data indicated the group spent $1.7m on social media ads with $239,300 targeted at key seats.
The group paid to promote the slogan 'weak woke and sending us broke: Anthony Albanese has got to go'. It also campaigned for an end to public funding for welcome to country ceremonies before Peter Dutton's public comments on the issue – which were criticised by former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull as 'pure culture-war stuff' that 'turns a lot of people off'.