Online and in the real world, disturbing lines are being crossed in 2022 with political advertising. And one deliberately opaque cashed-up right-wing group is behind the bulk of it as Australia marches towards May 21.
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Misinformation. Smears. Unauthorised imagery.
The envelope has been pushed hard as this political group campaigns in attack mode against a rising progressive mood.
An image of Chinese leader Xi Jinping voting for Labor splashed on the side of a truck.
Independents Zali Steggall and David Pocock painted as closet, "extreme" Greenies.
The group behind the attack ads, Advance Australia, has returned to grabbing the headlines in its mission to be the conservative, hard-right answer to the progressive, Get Up.
It's not the first federal election it's sought to influence, raising a nearly $2.5 million campaign war chest from donations in the lead up to the 2019 federal election during its first few months.
While many of its former and current directors have held senior roles in Liberal Party offices, the murky organisation has insisted it remains unaffiliated with any political party.
So, who exactly is pulling the strings behind the controversial group? The Canberra Times can reveal many roads lead to Canberra.
A web of familiar faces
Interactive graphic: Touch or click on a person for more detail.
The hard-right group first formed in 2018 in response to the left-wing activist group, Get Up, seeking to turn the tide on so-called "woke" progressives.
With then-national director Gerard Benedet at the helm, a former chief-of-staff to Queensland MP Liberal-National MP Tim Nicholls, the group quickly fielded donations from rich, conservative backers around the country.
Some of those donors included Kennards storage king Sam Kennard and Queensland pub mogul James Power, who was also involved in setting up Sydney Catholic tertiary institution Campion College.
The group's objective is simple: drum up financial donations, funnel the money into scare campaigns against centrist and left-leaning groups and candidates while working to get conservative picks into power.
It states its purpose is to advance "western" and "Judeo-Christian" values and to give a voice to Australians who "feel powerless or intimidated".
But its remit extends far beyond that, drawing attention to the Chinese Communist Party's influence in Australia, rejection of "traditional" family values by inner-city leftists and climate scepticism.
During the 2018-19 financial year, the group raised nearly $2.5 million in donations, spending just shy of $2 million on social media advertising during the election campaign.
Mr Benedet's reign, however, was short-lived and the group has since changed hands more than once during its short existence.
Following the 2019 election, a former adviser to Senator Zed Seselja took up the mantle.
Liz Storer, for nine months, led the organisation, targeting the "unhinged" climate group Extinction Rebellion and the "identity politics" of the left.
She once described to a hard-right Christian commentator the group's purpose as "promoting personal freedoms" and "attacking political correctness" while claiming left-leaning Australians had "very big" class envy.
The financial donations didn't flow as heavily for the 2019-20 financial year, when the group received just $1.3 million - or nearly half of what it gathered the previous year.
Waiting in the wings was Matthew Sheahan, who first joined as senior adviser but was elevated to the top role when Ms Storer moved on in mid-2020.
Mr Sheahan, unlike his predecessors, has no obvious ties to the Coalition, working in "cause-based" advocacy previously.
Ahead of the upcoming May federal election, the director has overseen campaigns in state elections in Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia.
Despite the resources and money the group poured into those state battles, it failed to secure a conservative leadership at the polls.
But Mr Sheahan's time steering the organisation has bolstered its ranks, with the introduction of a number of Coalition-aligned personalities.
Former long-serving ACT Liberal MLA Vicki Dunne joined the group as a director and finance committee chair in early 2021, just nine days after she allegedly severed ties with the Canberra Liberal branch.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was also recruited as a public spokesperson for Advance Australia, making numerous appearances on Sky News programs, including calling Labor leader Anthony Albanese "a lapdog for Xi Jinping".
Ms Price has since been placed atop of the Country Liberal Party senate ticket, telling Advance Australia supporters in an email earlier this month she'll step back from the role but take the "fight to Canberra" if elected as a member of the Coalition.
The CLP candidate still features prominently in Advance Australia social media posts.
But Liberal Party branches at all levels have continued to deny any association with the firebrand group.
The murky money trail
Since its inception, the third-party campaign group has raised millions in donations.
But unlike its progressive counterpart, Get Up, the majority of its funds come from a small pool of conservative backers, according to disclosure forms returned to the Australian Electoral Commission.
There's Cartwright Investment Corp Pty Ltd ATF Burleigh Trust, which ASIC financial records show is wholly owned by Elizabeth Fenwick.
The trust has donated a total of $690,000 across three financial years with an additional $650,000 provided in the 2020-21 financial year through Silver River Investment Holdings Pty Ltd, registered in Ms Fenwick and her hedge fund manager husband Simon Fenwick's name.
Mr Fenwick told the Australian Financial Review in September 2020 he was donating the large sum because "left-wing agendas" were undermining Australia's interests.
There are also four unknown companies with the same PO box in Sydney's affluent suburb Double Bay.
Nedigi Pty Ltd, Sixmilebridge Pty Ltd, Telowar Pty Ltd and Willimbury Pty Ltd have together donated $900,000 to Advance Australia between the 2018-19 and 2020-21 financial years.
The four companies share current and former directorships naming Rodney O'Neil, along with a host of members from the affluent family.
One of those companies, Telowar, lists three directors - Mitchell, Clinton and Justin Taylor - from the third-generation winery Taylors Wines.
A spokesperson for the winery said the donations were made before the Taylors joined as directors and were not connected to Taylors Wines.
"Mitchell, Clinton and Justin have only recently been appointed as non-executive members of the Telowar Pty Ltd board in 2022 and were not involved in the donations [to Advance Australia]," a spokesperson for Taylors Wines said.
"The decisions made by Telowar in no way reflect support or endorsement by Taylors Wines - these are two separate entities."
Most roads lead to one party
Advance Australia has consistently maintained it is an independent group, with no affiliation to any political party.
But the involvement of a host of former Coalition staffers and politicians suggest that Advance Australia would likely be aligned with the Coalition's interests.
The Canberra Times can reveal a conservative campaign consultancy firm, Whitestone Strategic, has been engaged to assist with Advance Australia's Facebook page.
The firm's sole director, Steve Doyle, is a family member and former staff member of Senator Seselja while a former director, David Hutt, was on the national executive of the Australian Christian Lobby.
Mr Doyle served as the senator's chief-of-staff while he was the Canberra opposition leader in the early 2010s, and remains his "good friend" and his brother-in-law.
Senator Seselja said he had no oversight of Mr Doyle's commercial agreements with Advance Australia.
"I am not privy to [Mr Doyle's] commercial agreements," the senator said.
"As I am not affiliated with Advance Australia in any way, I cannot comment on what their arrangements are, however, I do support free speech and the right for everyone, including Advance Australia, to participate in the democratic process."
Another of Whitestone Strategic's clients appears to be former head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Lyle Shelton, according to the religious lobbyist's domain registration records.
A fellow former colleague of Senator Seselja's office and friend of Mr Doyle, Tio Faulkner, is also listed as a director for the anti-trans group, Binary.
Formerly known as the Marriage Alliance, the group rebranded following the plebiscite on marriage equality, recruiting failed Australian Conservative candidate Kirralie Smith.
She has been publicly backing the Liberal Warringah candidate Ms Deves against "woke" activists criticising her controversial views against transgender people.
Country Liberal Senate candidate Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, an official Advance Australia spokesperson until earlier this month, also attended an ACT Young Liberals event last year, where she met with members of the youth wing.
The Young Liberals branch did not respond to questions regarding whether members had assisted in distributing Advance Australia political material, or why it had chosen to publish supportive posts of the group on its social media pages.
Why does it matter who's behind Advance Australia?
There's nothing illegal about a third-party political campaigner being filled with former staffers and supporters of a particular political party.
A number of independent candidates have pushed for reforms to stamp out misleading or false attack ads but it's barely raised an eyebrow from either of the major parties.
Political expert Jill Sheppard said neither of the two parties had much of an appetite for change but also tended to avoid political attack ads on the more extreme end of the spectrum.
"Both major parties are usually pretty careful not to tell outrageous lies, because if one of them gets away with it, then the other party does," Dr Sheppard said.
"This is a very fraught issue."
Zali Steggall, independent MP for Warringah and a target of Advance Australia's attack ads, has pushed for new laws to stop lying during the campaigning period, proposing to give the Australian Electoral Commission more powers to order smear campaigners to cease and to force them to correct the record.
"I think this highlights a problem we have in our politics at the moment," she said.
"The regulations and rules haven't kept up with the players."
Senior figures in the Coalition's right-wing have argued these third-party groups be investigated to clear political ties.
Defence Minister Peter Dutton and long-serving Coalition senator Eric Abetz have called Get Up a front for the Labor Party and the Greens, calling for the electoral commission to investigate the ties.
In 2019, the electoral body declared Get Up had no formal links to the political parties, ruling it was more focused on targeting conservative members and candidates rather than benefiting the Labor or Greens.
Advance Australia has yet to face an investigation into its ties to any political party.
