Right-wing political group Advance is in the headlines. What is it and what does it stand for?

Political lobby group Advance has been back in the headlines this week. It was revealed an organisation headed by the husband of the Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, donated A$50,000 to the group.

The news prompted outcry, though Segal denied any personal involvement.

So what is Advance and what does it do?

What is Advance?

Advance (originally Advance Australia) is a digital campaigning organisation. It was formed in 2018 by a group of wealthy Australians, many with connections to the Liberal Party. The idea was to be a conservative counterpoint to progressive digital campaigning group GetUp!

At the time, political journalist Mungo McCallum described them as a “stratospherically elite clique of rich, bored men looking for a hobby.” He suggested they would have little, if any, impact.

Today the group has more than 330,000 members.

They also successfully led the “No” campaign in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum in 2023.

McCallum’s initial dismissal of Advance appears somewhat premature.

What does Advance want?

Advance’s stated aim is to “take the fight to the activists and elites” to “secure Australia’s freedom, security and prosperity”. They campaign against progressive taxation, immigration, the transition to renewable energy and even Welcome to Country ceremonies.

This positions Advance alongside other right-wing populist actors, including Donald Trump, in the modern “war on woke”. This comparison was welcomed by founding Advance director, major donor and hedge fund manager Simon Fenwick.

Read more: Follow the money: the organisations that spent the most on social media during the election

These actors, which in Australia also include the Murdoch Press, construct elitism not along class lines, but along an urban/rural divide. In its view, Advance’s billionaire funders are apparently not elites. Instead, they attempt to foster divisions between urban “elites” and regional and suburban “mainstream Australians”.

Like the Trumpian model of “flood(ing) the zone with shit”, Advance has been accused of pursuing these aims by “unleashing a veritable fire hose of disinformation”. The hose is often aimed at progressive political candidates, climate change, immigrants or the Voice referendum.

Who runs and funds Advance?

Advance’s longtime Executive Director and “main man” is the somewhat enigmatic Matthew Sheahan. Their current spokesperson is Sandra Bourke, who has a background in law enforcement and national security. In 2024, Bourke claimed Advance was “the biggest grassroots movement in Australian political history”.

While Advance is structurally independent of any political party, a variety of Liberal Party figures have been closely connected to the organisation, including former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Early prominent members (and funders) of Advance included storage king Sam Kennard, far-right former president of the Australian Jewish Association David Adler, and climate denier Maurice Newman.

Founding Director Simon Fenwick has donated at least $400,000 to the organisation through his family trust since its inception.

In 2023–24, Advance received a $500,000 donation from the Cormack Foundation, an investment fund created by the Liberal Party of Victoria.

The organisation reported income of more than $15.5 million in the same period. It claims their average donation received from supporters is $160.

What impact has Advance had?

The 2023 Voice Referendum “made” Advance (and arguably Matthew Sheahan) via their management of two prominent No campaigns.

Prior to this, Advance’s campaigning was arguably more nuisance than anything else.

Advance’s No campaign featured significant amounts of dis- and misinformation across multiple media channels, including phone banking (cold calling voters). The campaign was characterised by contradictory micro campaigns that sowed the confusion that fed the slogan of “if you don’t know, vote No”.

The Advance-led No campaigns also strongly embraced racism against leading First Nations voices. This included suggestions that media commentator Stan Grant had artificially darkened his skin, questioning the “blackness” of Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe, and utilising “Jim Crow” style advertising against leading Yes campaigner Thomas Mayo.

The Jim Crow era of American history refers to a time in the late 19th and early-mid 20th centuries where laws enforced racial segregation and discrimination.

One of the key spokespeople for Advance’s No campaign was Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a woman with Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic heritage. She’s a former Advance staffer and current Liberal Party Senator and made the comments about Lidia Thorpe.

Why is Advance important?

Following their role in the Voice campaign, Advance have arguably “eclipsed” their inspiration and progressive rivals GetUp! as Australia’s leading digital campaigning organisation. Glen Berman, current GetUp! chair, has even admitted “there were things that GetUp! could learn” from Advance.

Advance appeared influential over Liberal Party strategy ahead of the 2025 federal election campaign. During the campaign, it was the highest spending third party group (non-party, non-candidate) on Meta (Facebook and Instagram) advertising. This saw it emerge as the conservative third party “opposition” to the Australian union movement.

However, following the Australian Labor Party’s landslide victory, Advance attempted to distance themselves from the Coalition’s campaign. While they claim to have been focused on “destroying” the Greens, analysis suggests Advance’s campaign was equally focused on framing Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “weak, woke and sending us broke”.