As mentioned last week, I’m following various civil society / third sector campaigns during the 2025 Australian Federal election campaign, part of some research with Ariadne Vromen. One of the places we’re tracking activity is one YouTube.
In 2024, YouTube claimed over 20 million users in Australia, was the second highest social media app used in terms of hours spent (after TikTok), with the audience roughly 50% male/female. Globally, over half of YouTube users are Millennials or GenZ (born between 1981 and 2012). So not an insignificant platform.
The four main organisations we are following are the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Advance Australia and GetUp. We’re also looking at organisations campaigning around the climate and cost of living / housing affordability.
From what I can see so far, the only third sector organisation taking YouTube seriously in this election is Advance.
Attack. Rinse. Repeat.
At time of writing (Saturday 5 April) Advance have released 23 election-related videos on their YouTube channel for a total of 880,108 views, an average of just over 38,000 per video. 12 of these videos explicitly attack “Albanese” (they never use Albo) and the other 11 attack the Greens. The average views per video is around 36,000 for the anti-Albo videos and just over 40,000 for the anti-Greens ones.
The first three videos were released on 28 March (2 anti-Albo, 1 anti-Greens), then 10 anti-Albo videos were released on 29 March and 10 anti-Greens ones on 30 March. The views on the three 28 March videos are modest (1526 total compared to the ones released on the following days.
My suspicion here is that these videos are being used in YouTube advertising campaigns, interspersed between whatever the viewer’s algorithm is serving them that day. For me it would either be the latest clip of The Arsenal Women’s team demolishing opponents in the WSL, the latest Marvel trailer, or maybe that clip of Brandi Carlysle and the Highwomen which has been an earworm for months now – but I don’t think I’m Advance’s main target demographic on YouTube.
The Greens are Double Negative are Not Old White Ladies
The anti-Greens videos are either 15 or 30 seconds long (6/10 and 4/10 respectively) and are based around three different themes, all within the slogan “Can’t Vote Greens. Not this Time.” If you remove the double negative, as my high school English teacher taught me to do, you get Can Vote Greens This Time, but that’s probably not the subliminal message they’re going for.
The first theme (2 videos, 1x 15s, 1x30s, 102,285 total views as of 5/4) is that the Greens are weak around sexual harassment. Both videos use direct quotes, read by an actor, from news reports from former Greens members or staffers talking about problems within the party around sexual harassment or assault. The 15 second version of this video is the highest viewed anti-Greens Advance video so far, with 71,172 views.
The second theme (4 videos, 2x15s 2x30s, 153,378 views) targets the Greens around anti-Semitism, and nominally their apparent support of “violence” via support of Hamas / “violent” protest. These use a mixture of images of recordings of statements from Greens MP and then uncredited “news-looking” people calling them anti-Semitic. The least watched of these three, 147 views total, is extremely vague, and suggests that the Greens supported vandalism of a war memorial site.
The third theme (4 videos, 3x15s, 1x30s, 189,756 views) focuses on Greens policies, as digested by an apparently former Greens member and former Greens voter – two white women probably in their late-50s to early 60s – as well as Greens Brisbane MP Max Chandler-Mather saying essentially that the Greens want higher immigration.
In the anti-Immigration video (15s, 47,990 views) the old white lady says “you can’t just bring in those people,” which sits nicely alongside the line in the 30s video which suggests that immigrants are to blame for the rental crisis. The other two policies under the microscope here are an inheritance tax and that the Greens are apparently going to legalise all hard drugs.
(Former old white lady Greens members can now moonlight as spokespeople for Advance, the Australian Christian Lobby, or run as an independent…)
Albo is Albanese is Woke
The anti-Albo (he’s my local member I’ll call him Albo if I want to) videos follow a different pattern than the anti-Greens ones. The anti-Albo equivalent of “Can’t Vote Greens. Not This Time,” is “Albanese. Weak. Woke. Sending Us Broke,” a slogan which appears in all 12 anti-Albo videos.
Four of these are just 5-6 seconds long and feature either Albo saying “um” and one where he’s dancing in what I assume is supposed to be a woke way, and then the slogan. These short videos average just 1970 views, well below anti-Albo average of 36,000.
(I have busted these moves before – guess I deserve to live in Grayndler…)
The two 30s anti-Albo videos tell the “full story” of Advance’s messaging schema, for an average of total of just over 19,000 views, also below average. In a nice nod to their coupling of the Greens and Labor in their supporter emails (see last post), where Albo is apparently weak is on anti-Semitism. The wokeness comes from funding for decolonising breastfeeding, which is rounded off by the claim that “everything’s gone up under Albo”, which is how he’s sending us broke.
The six 15s anti-Albo videos each are broken up into two for each of the three parts of the slogan, with inventive titles like “Albanese is WEAK”, “Albanese is WOKE”, etc. These six videos average almost 65,000 views each, which suggests this is where the money is being put this week.
One each of the Weak and Woke videos has just over 90,000 views, which is pretty impressive. The Weak one of these focusses on anti-Semitism, while the second one (11,375 views as of 5/4) implies that Albo is weak on Chinese warships.
The two 15s Woke videos have the highest average of all the themes, 81,479 views, lampooning government funding of decolonising breastfeeding, an anti-racist dental curriculum, and a drag show for scientists. I mean at least they’re not funding a white woman to write about decolonising breakdancing, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
YouTube from not-Advance this Week
When I was collecting this YouTube data, I did ACL and GetUp first. Until I got to Advance’s anti-Greens and Albo Advertising Assault, I thought I was in for an easy afternoon.
The Australian Christian Lobby have released just one YouTube video in the first week of the campaign, which has a grand total of 1131 views as of 5/4. In contrast to the vitriol of their conservative counterparts, this 3-minute video accompanied the ACL’s launch of their “Australia Votes” website and essentially provides information about the Australian electoral system.
It contained the obligatory message of voting “according to truth”, including about “biological reality,” but also, interestingly, made a point of stating that “a vote for a minor party is never a wasted vote”. The ACL also recommends that people vote below the line if they want to be sure where their vote ends up.
(Coded transphobia aside, the ACL have produced a surprisingly good electoral information video.)
GetUp released two YouTube videos, between 60s and 90s, one of which has over 4,000 views. I thought was impressive until I went over to Advance’s channel. The other has 180 views. Both videos explicitly attack Peter Dutton. The key message in the more popular video is essentially that people should vote for an Australia that “works for all of us, not just billionaires.” It also uses the ACTU’s hashtag #DontRiskDutton.
(What happened GetUp? You used to be good at this stuff.)
Speaking of the ACTU, they released absolutely nothing on YouTube this week.
That doesn’t mean they’re not doing anything of course – they drove part of the broadcast media cycle during the week with calls for a 4.5% increase to the minimum wage that even Sky News reported – but it is interesting. The ACTU appears more active on TikTok, but I haven’t done comprehensive data collection there yet.
I also took a quick look at the activity of some of the climate orgs we’re following and was surprised at the lack of activity. The Australian Conservation Foundation have released nothing, neither has the Wilderness Society nor the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. The Climate Council appear to be lining up a few 30s advertisements of their own, but none of these have clocked 500 views yet.
The world’s premiere nature and climate activist organisation, Greenpeace, released a video about freediving on Lord Howe Island on 4 April, which currently has 35 views. It’s a lovely video, though I’d expect Greenpeace to focus on activism and leave the glossy marine docos to James Cameron.
YouTube Surprise?
When we started this project, I assumed that YouTube wasn’t going to be all that significant in the election campaign. Maybe I read the same tea leaves as the other progressive orgs I’ve looked at so far. Advance’s activity in this week, particularly the strength of their views, got me thinking again. It will be interesting to see whether the progressive third sector picks things up as the campaign continues.
We also shouldn’t assume that Advance is succeeding on YouTube in a political vacuum. A quick look at the Australian Greens YouTube page reveals they’ve already produced a series of 36 videos, each 15 or 30s long, for various of their high profile candidates. Most of these feature “Keep Dutton Out” in the title. Most also have modest views so far (we might imagine they’re on schedule for an advertising boost in future weeks) but some have significant numbers of views. Brisbane Greens MP Stephen Bates’ upbeat 30s video, for example, has clocked up almost 100,000 since its release on 28 March.
(Rule 1 of Greens video making: Don’t let the camera stop moving)
Perhaps taking a leaf from the ACTU, the Australian Labor Party has released one YouTube video in the first week of the campaign, an attack on Peter Dutton with 765 views.
(he cut you pay… The ALP jump on board the outsourcing subeditors bandwagon)
What’s Next?
I’ve also been collecting data this week from all of the supporter emails that have been sent out by the orgs we’re following, as well as digital media appearances (which is how I found this SBS Assyrian story on “the legal loophole allowing political lies”. Clearly what the Assyrian demographic care about? Or there happened to be an Assyrian journalist who wanted to run the story?
Many thanks for all the comments and questions on last week’s post, and the general level of interest in the research. I’ve been following up on people’s tips and suggestions – some of which will 100% feature in a future post.
I’ll definitely be looking at the orgs contesting climate sometime in the next few weeks, as well as those around cost of living / housing. Please do keep up the tips and ideas and requests.
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