The Coalition has a campaign problem. Victorian Coalition MPs say Advance’s pre-election campaign could cost them majority government, even as the rightwing lobby group insists its critics have misunderstood the numbers and its strategy.
Advance will begin campaigning in 20 suburban and regional seats held by Labor, presenting the effort as a trial run for the federal election. Its campaign will use social media, streaming services, mobile billboards, and print to reach voters in those seats — a broad media push for an organisation that has already managed to irritate the people it might be expected to support.
The campaign features a 60-second AI-generated advertisement involving Victorian Premier Ben Carroll and former premiers Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews. Its central message is blunt: whoever voters put first, they should “put Labor last”.
That message clashes with the Coalition’s own pitch. Coalition candidates have spent months telling voters that the “only way” to defeat Labor is to vote for them, and several Coalition MPs believe Advance is now undermining that argument before the state election.
One Coalition MP said Advance was telling voters the opposite of what the Coalition had told them for months. A Liberal source framed the concern through Advance’s earlier federal activity: “At the federal campaign, they went hard against the Greens and helped Labor. Now it looks like they’re going to go hard against Labor and it will help One Nation.”
Advance rejects the criticism with language that leaves little room for a peace summit. An Advance spokesperson said Coalition MPs had displayed a “galactically stupid misunderstanding of both the electoral position they find themselves in and our strategy for the campaign”.
The organisation’s executive director, Matthew Sheahan, sought donations to finance the Victorian operation, which is expected to cost about $350,000. In the email, Sheahan argued that Labor is behind, the vote is split, and “they’re counting on the numbers further down the ballot to carry them back in”.
That argument explains why Advance is targeting Labor-held seats rather than simply aligning itself with Coalition candidates. The campaign includes Pakenham, Bass, Hastings, Melton, and Yan Yean, with some of those seats also being contested by One Nation.
Pakenham is one of those contests, with Warren Pickering, One Nation Victoria’s leader, standing as the candidate. Some Liberals accuse Advance of pursuing its own agenda instead of acting as an ally, and they fear its campaign could move support toward One Nation while weakening the Coalition’s claim to be the only viable vehicle for defeating Labor.
Sheahan described the Victorian contest as a rare chance to test Advance’s approach against Labor at a state election before taking it into a federal campaign against Albanese. That makes the state campaign more than a local advertising exercise: Advance is using Victoria as a live test of its message, targeting, and ability to shape preferences further down the ballot.
For the Coalition, the problem is not simply that Advance is spending money on ads. It is that the group’s message appears to ask voters to treat Labor as the common enemy while leaving the Coalition’s position in the preference contest unresolved.
Advance believes its strategy reflects the electoral position in the targeted seats. Coalition MPs believe it risks splitting the vote and costing them majority government. The campaign has not even begun, and the conservative side is already arguing over who benefits when voters follow the instruction to put Labor last.
