The 'yes' Voice campaign is far outspending 'no' in online advertising, but is the message getting through?
With early voting set to open next week for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, this is a critical time for campaigners to win over voters.
- With early voting set to open next week for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, this is a critical time for campaigners to win over voters.
- If the same voting patterns apply to the referendum, this means more than half of Australians, particularly older voters, may have cast a vote before voting day on October 14.
What’s happening in the polls?
- According to Professor Simon Jackman’s averaging of the polls, “no” currently leads “yes” by 58% to 42% nationally.
- The rate of decline in support for “yes” continues to be about 0.75 of a percentage point a week.
- If this trend continues, the “yes” vote would sit at 39.6% on October 14, 5.5 percentage points below the “yes” vote in the republic referendum.
What’s happening in the news and social media?
- Using Meltwater data, we have seen a massive spike in Voice media coverage since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the referendum date at the end of August.
- In the most recent week we analysed, from September 14-21, we saw a huge jump of mentions of the Voice to Parliament (2.86 million) in print media, radio, TV and social media.
- This compares to about a quarter million mentions in the first week of the “yes” and “no” campaigns, which we documented in our last report of this series monitoring both campaigns.
- Media coverage of the Voice peaked on September 17 with 38,000 mentions, thanks to widespread coverage of the “yes” rallies that day around the country.
Who is advertising online?
- This week, we specifically turned our attention to the online advertising spending of the campaigns.
- The main online advertising spend is on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms.
- In the last three months, its advertising expenditure exceeds $1.1 million, compared to just under $100,000 for Fair Australia, the leading “no” campaign organisation.
- The advertising spending data shows how drastically different the strategies of the two main campaigns are.
Referendum disinformation
- Studies show disinformation surrounding the referendum has been prevalent on X since at least March.
- To mitigate the harms, the AEC has established a disinformation register to inform citizens about the referendum process and call out falsehoods.
- We’ve identified three types of disinformation campaigns in the campaign so far.
- This disinformation type is not covered in the AEC’s register, as the organisation has no provisions to enforce truth in political advertising.
- All three types of disinformation campaigns attacking this referendum should concern us deeply because they threaten trust in our political institutions, which undermines our vibrant democracy.