Advance Australia (lobby group)
Advance Australia is a conservative political lobbying group launched in 2018 to counter the left wing activist group GetUp. Structure and funding. The national director of Advance Australia was Gerard Benedet, a former Liberal Party staffer who led the organisation during the 2019 Australian federal election. Benedet stood down in September 2019, and was replaced by Liz Storer, former City of Gosnells councillor, and advisor to Liberal senator Zed Seselja. High-profile backers include businessmen such as Maurice Newman, Kennards Self Storage managing director Sam Kennard, and Australian Jewish Association president David Adler. Other members of  the advisory council include security specialist Sean Jacobs and journalist Kerry Wakefield. Queensland businessman James Power is also said to have been involved. In its first four months, Advance Australia raised $395,000 and signed up 27,500 members. By May 2019, it had raised $1.7 million, according to Benedet. It raises money through donations on its website. Benedet says the membership is 60 per cent male and has an average age of about 50. Advance Australia has been accused of astroturfing and being little more than a front for the Liberal Party, much as GetUp has been accused of  being a front for the Australian Labor Party. Advance Australia's independence has yet to be tested, whereas GetUp has been cleared of ties to the Labor Party on three occasions by the Australian Electoral Commission. Policies. The group says it opposes left-wing activists who are trying to change the Australian way of life. It decries radicalism and political correctness, and says, "Mainstream values have been the bedrock of Australia’s growth as a western liberal democracy". It promotes family values, free markets, meritocracy, business, a Judeo-Christian heritage, a strong defence force and national borders. The group believes  that anthropogenic climate change is a "hoax", with current national director Liz Storer describing of the teaching of the predominant scientific view as "the other side of the story being shoved down their throats. It's already happening. The left have infiltrated our education systems. Any aware parent knows that their child is being taught the left's ideology." Campaigns. The earliest campaigns of Advance Australia were online petitions to: During the 2019 federal election campaign: During the 2022 federal election campaign so far: Climate campaigns. Advance Australia's national director Liz Storer vowed upon her appointment in September 2019  to target the "militant advance of climate activism" and in particular, the protest group Extinction Rebellion who she described as "criminals who pose a menace to society". In 2020, Advance Australia commenced a campaign aimed at children with an e-book titled "10 climate facts to expose the climate change hoax" in an attempt to go against the established scientific view on climate change. They claim that a “consensus” goes against the “scientific method” and that there are many recognised scientists who do not agree that human generation of is the “control knob” of climate. The group are seeking to  have their material distributed in classrooms. However the New South Wales Department of Education has stated it would not allow Advance Australia's in schools as they are not objective and would be in violation of the Controversial Issues in Schools policy. The Victorian Education Minister James Merlino has described the book as "rubbish", adding "this organisation is a front for a group of ill-informed climate change deniers". Reception. The group has received a considerable amount of criticism in the Australian media. Jacobin magazine ridiculed Advance Australia's claim to non-partisanship and said that their "extensive personal and  political connections of their members to the Liberal Party are public knowledge" while noting that they had received millions of dollars in donations from wealthy backers. In 2018, Crikey's Bernard Keane said that the idea of a "right-wing" GetUp! had been attempted many times with little success and described Advance Australia's public backers as "a clutch of angry men" who were unlikely to succeed in their venture. In September 2020, Kishor Napier-Raman wrote in Crikey that the group was "fading into irrelevance" despite injections of funding from wealthy donors, while noting that despite their stand goal  of providing a conservative counterweight to GetUp!, "Advance Australia are still playing catch up to GetUp when it comes to membership numbers, financial muscle, and sheer relevance".