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Perth Now
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
Federal election 2025: Influencers flag intent to use press blackout in major moves against Coalition
Influencers with a political bent, and a dislike for Peter Dutton, are gearing up in their final push on social media to send their preferred party to parliament ahead of Saturday's vote. The call to arms comes as the content creators have featured significantly in the lead-up to the Federal election, with Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton appearing on the some of the biggest accounts and podcasts in the past month. The latest push is led by Cheek Media's Hannah Ferguson, who has called on her followers to share content which 'keeps Peter Dutton out' as TV and radio advertisements are forced to fall silent in the traditional media blackout starting tonight. 'This is the moment to have influence,' Ferguson said. 'We have a clear three days to distribute as much information as possible that keeps Peter Dutton out.' From midnight, the traditional media blackout begins, which means no political advertising will be allowed on television or radio for three days. That blackout doesn't include other election tools, such as websites, social media, streaming services, robocalls and text messages — newspapers are also exempt. According to Ferguson the blackout was 'crucial' because 'while radio and TV have to fall silent ... our messages, our influence, our impact is far greater and we have clear air to distribute the message we want to share'. 'This is the time to call the disengaged or withdrawn or unsure voters in your life,' she continued. The anti-Dutton message is nothing new from Greens member and teal supporter Ferguson, who says she runs her social media accounts with the aim of engaging Australians in discourse around the news. Cheek Media has 173,000 followers, while Ferguson's personal profile boasts 71,500. She is not alone in taking politics to social media with a number of other platform-users surfacing this year, including influencers like Konrad Benjamin from Punter's Politics, reality-star turned-podcaster Abbie Chatfield, author Trisha Jha, Freya Leach and Joel Jammal. Camera Icon Freya Leach (policy maker at the Liberal-affiliated Menzies Research Centre, Liberal member) Pictured with Peter Dutton. Credit: Freya Leach / Instagram Most of the influencers are left leaning, speaking to young voters on the platforms they use the most — Chatfield and Ferguson have emerged as faces of a national the Greens campaign against the Coalition. Leach and Jammal are the exceptions to the rule, spruiking conservative politics. And with Gen Z and Millennials now making up the most powerful section of voters — there are 7.7 million of them, compared to 5.9 million Baby Boomers and 4.4 million in the Gen X category, according to the Australian Electoral Commission — the major parties have embraced the new wave. The PM and Opposition leader have appeared with the many of the content creators, some of whom were even granted access to the tightly controlled Budget lock-in by the Albanese Government's team. Others have received exclusive and unfettered access to the PM and Opposition leader than major traditional news outlets through long-form interviews, allowing the politicians to show a more personal side. Some of these interviews have faced criticism, namely around 'soft' questions and bias from a sympathetic interviewer, but they say they are not pretending to be impartial journalists. Ferguson says she is 'transparent about her views'. TikTok, Instagram and podcasts have been flooded with election content in the past month, something the blackout period won't stop. These influencers will be able to continuing spreading their message online right up until the close of polls. However, the same goes for political hopefuls and the major parties hoping to harness the online trends to boost their message in a way which feels less like advertising and more like average social media use.
SBS Australia
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
We put some of Australia's most famous political influencers in a room to debate each other
Political commentators Konrad Benjamin (aka Punter's Politics), Abbie Chatfield, Hannah Ferguson, Trisha Jha, Freya Leach and Joel Jammal clash at The Feed's political debate. This election campaign, according to Andrew Hughes, political marketing researcher at the Australian National University, is: "The most boring campaign I've seen." "If you watched the second leaders' debate, the biggest feedback I had from most people I talked to who aren't political experts, so to speak, was how dry it was." This, he says, is one of the reasons why people want to hear from influencers. "We go, 'finally, someone's not following the script.'" In the lead-up to the federal election, The Feed brought together six of Australia's most well-known and passionate young political commentators to talk about the issues on the minds of voters. These influencers might usually be seen in the algorithms of followers who have a similar opinion. "That's one of the disadvantages of algorithms when it comes to political communications and content," Hughes says. "We're never going to see the complete picture. We want to understand there's other perspectives out there." The Feed debate tries to break down those algorithm silos by bringing content creators together to challenge one another's ideas. With a million followers between these six commentators on Instagram and 800,000 or so on TikTok, the panellists have done what politicians are trying to do — capture a youth audience. On the panel was Abbie Chatfield (podcaster, Greens supporter), Konrad Benjamin who is better known as ' Punter's Politics' (podcaster, unaligned, and whose catchphrase is 'policy over party'), Hannah Ferguson (Cheek Media co-founder, Greens member and Teals supporter), Freya Leach (policy maker at the Liberal-affiliated Menzies Research Centre, Liberal member), Joel Jammal (Turning Point Australia founder, conservative libertarian) and Trisha Jha (researcher at the Centre of Independent Studies, centre-right commentator, not a content creator). Coming out of your social media feeds and into one studio, they debated whether Australia is doing enough combat climate change, if nuclear should be part of Australia's energy future, the merits of using superannuation to buy a house, whether immigration should be cut, student debt and even horse manure in the 1800s (you'll have to watch the debate to hear more about this one). The shift in campaigning has led to influencers and politicians figuring things out as they go. Clips of Chatfield's interviews with Greens leader Adam Bandt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese were reviewed by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) after Liberal senator Jane Hume questioned if they had breached electoral rules by not including an authorisation statement. The posts were cleared of breaching any laws, with the AEC finding no evidence that the podcaster had been paid for any political posts, or that Albanese or Bandt had any creative control in the interviews. While climate change has long been a major issue for young people, Mission Australia's youth survey, , found that young people's main concern had shifted from climate change to the cost of living. But climate anxiety still remains a major concern. In a discussion about whether Australia is doing enough to combat climate change, Joel Jammal, a conservative libertarian, said to a sea of mixed facial expressions: "In terms of 'is Australia doing enough to combat climate change?' We're doing far too much." Abbie Chatfield, bemused at the response, asked: "What reality are you living in?" while Freya Leach said the discussion around climate was too fearmongering. "We have frequently faced these kinds of like civilisational moments where it looks like everything is going to implode and then we have innovated our way out of it," she told the group. 'Punter's Politics' asked the panellists to consider the "scapegoating" of renewables around the cost of a transition in the climate debate and instead shift the blame to the one in three massive corporations in Australia who are not paying tax. "The climate debate becomes both a virtue signal for large corporations to pretend they're doing something and it becomes a scapegoat for every problem in our society," he said. "The thing that I will forcefully inject into here is that the reason why Australia is suffering with living standards, cost of living, housing, energy, is because there is a set of corporate bludgers who are leeching off the taxpayer in Australia." While the panel clashed on how much property investors are impacting the housing market, they agreed that a lower barrier to entry is needed for young people trying to get into the property market. Political marketing researcher Andrew Hughes says, whether you like what they're saying or not, it must be acknowledged that people have these platforms, and it's important to break out of the pockets that algorithms create and be challenged. "Algorithms make it very, very hard to find that information because they're thinking, 'hang on, you don't like this stuff, you're not really watching this a lot, then you're going to see less of it,'" he said. "It reinforces your thinking. It doesn't challenge it. And that's something we need to really consider ... We want to understand, there are other perspectives out there." Having observed several political campaigns over the years, Hughes says there's been a bit of a shift this election. "I don't think there's a moral panic anymore," he said. "We understand there's a place for them and they have a role and that role is to feed the debate and have a different perspective to what we may normally hear in a discussion. "In a way, it might actually speed up some of these issues which are on the fringe, which struggle for airtime and only get it every three years when there's an election campaign on, now courtesy of influencers who may pick it up as their issue." Watch now
