During the last days of the Tasmanian election campaign, there was a flurry of last-minute Facebook ads, according to Guardian Australia’s project to monitor political advertising.
The ads we’ve recorded have been collected by readers, and therefore only represent a small sample of all the political advertising on Facebook. We still need more help in collecting ads ahead of the South Australian and Victorian elections.
While there was a blackout on newspaper coverage in Tasmania on polling day, no such restrictions apply to online and social media.
On the day of the election the Australian Christian Lobby ran an ad spruiking a petition against Tasmanian Labor MPs having a conscience vote on euthanasia laws.
On the day before the election, Rosalie Woodruff, the incumbent Greens MP in Franklin, sponsored this Facebook post calling the Liberals’ policy to relax gun laws a “total betrayal”.
The Tasmanian premier, Will Hodgman, put out a campaign ad on the day before the election linking to his “100-day plan”. According to the Facebook ad targeting information, the ad was aimed at Tasmanians over 18, and may have also included targeting based on people who had visited the Liberals’ website or used their apps.
The Politicalpostingmumma Facebook page, which has campaigned against safe schools and same-sex marriage, sponsored this post about Labor’s abortion policy in Tasmania.
Several ads were picked up from the CFMEU-run page Our Jobs Our Kids Our Future. The ads targeted Tasmanians with a message about job cuts.
Meanwhile, the NSW Liberal party has run Facebook ads to push their “tell GetUp to fess up” campaign. The ad campaign links to a petition in favour of GetUp being treated as an “associated entity” and therefore be subject to a disclosure regime for donations. Despite the Facebook ads, the petition so far only has 394 signatures.
The ads targeted people on Facebook interested in “Malcolm Turnbull”, “community issues”, “police” and those aged over 35 and in NSW.
Conversely, GetUp have run Facebook ads against the Coalition’s proposed legislation that places restrictions on the donations non-profit organisations can receive, and requires charities to record who donates to them if the charity engages in “political campaigning”. GetUp’s ads have targeted people over 25 and those interested in the Labor party.
Ahead of the election in South Australia, we’ve seen a Greenpeace ad about “cleaning up” a defunct coal-fired power station, and South Australian premier Jay Weatherill spruiking Labor’s policy to remove level crossings.
- To see the full database of ads we’ve recorded in partnership with ProPublica, go here. If you want to help to help us track political advertising ahead of the South Australian and Victorian elections, you can read more here about how contribute.
