Cricket viewers have been repeatedly confronted this summer with a grim ad featuring quotes from alleged victims of sexual abuse within the Greens, as part of a conservative group’s sweeping attack to drag down the left-wing party’s poll numbers.
The ad from right-wing advocacy group Advance begins quietly with a somber caption on a black background telling viewers that “the following are real quotes from victims of alleged sexual abuse and bullying within the Green Party.”
Three young women are then shown in an anonymous silhouette, with each labeled as a ‘former Greens member and suspected survivor of sexual violence’.
“I was belittled, silenced and blamed,” the first female voiceover says:
This is followed by ‘The Greens don’t care what happens to women within the party’ and ‘The party knew about my alleged sexual predator and did nothing’.
Those who view the ad are redirected to a website with press releases detailing stories of alleged sexual abuse, toxic workplaces and cover-ups within the Greens.
Cricket viewers have been repeatedly confronted with a grim advert featuring quotes from alleged victims of sexual abuse within the Greens over the summer
Advance, which rose to prominence for coordinating the main No campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the run-up to the 2023 referendum, defended the ad’s brutal tone to Daily Mail Australia.
“Allegations and revelations of serious sexual misconduct and bullying within the Greens have been going on for years and the voting public needs to know the staggering scale of these allegations,” said Advance spokesperson Sandra Bourke.
‘The complaints against the Greens are not trivial and include serious allegations of bullying, sexual assault, cover-up of rape and even pedophilia.
“So many unresolved allegations over so many years would destroy other political parties, and rightly so. This time the Greens don’t get a free pass.’
Ms Bourke said the ad had played 3.4 million videos on digital TV alone during the break, including at high-profile events such as the cricket.
“We’ve reached over a million people on social media,” she said.
‘In addition, we have 70 high-profile, high-traffic billboards in metropolitan locations across NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia,
What was worrying for Ms Bourke was that the advert had led to a number of stories along the same lines.
High-profile Greens supporter comedian Tom Ballard, who has carried out fundraisers for the party and against whom no allegations of misconduct have been suggested, has certainly taken notice of Advance’s campaign
“We have been inundated with former party members, supporters and even candidates sharing their stories,” she said.
Ms Bourke took some of the credit for damaging the Greens, saying recent polls show them losing support across the country, and especially in the inner-city areas where they are targeting votes.
“The important message of this campaign reached millions of Australians last summer,” Ms Bourke said.
‘At the same time, the Greens continue to decline in the polls. This shows that the more voters hear the truth about the Greens, the less they like them. Understandably so.
“It’s clear that Australians are waking up to the fact that the Greens are not who they used to be.
‘For a long time the Greens made it seem as if they were an innocent environmental party.
“The truth is they are not who they used to be and Australian voters deserve to know the truth.”
High-profile Greens supporter comedian Tom Ballard, who has carried out fundraisers for the party and against whom no allegations of misconduct have been suggested, has certainly taken notice of Advance’s campaign.
On December 30, he posted an image of himself smiling with a thumbs up in front of an Advance billboard that says The Greens “aren’t who you think they are” and invites passersby to use a QR code to “get the receipts read’.
A recent Resolve Political Monitor found that support for the Greens among voters aged 18 to 34 fell to 23 percent, compared to 27 percent in the previous survey.
Newpolls, conducted for The Australian, also shows that Greens support fell from 13 percent to 12 percent nationally in the final quarter of 2024.
The Greens have been contacted for comment.
Advance, originally known as Advance Australia, was founded in 2018 by former Liberal staffer Gerard Benedet as a counterweight to left-wing group GetUp!.
Advance has adopted GetUp!’s electoral strategy! copied not to advocate for a party, but to place negative advertisements against ideological political opponents.