Political parties poured millions into advertising on Google and Facebook until polling day as blackout laws only cover broadcast media
According to Google transparency data, 99.9% of the UAP’s spend was on video – such as preroll videos before YouTube clips – and just 0.1% was on text ads, such as those shown in the sidebars or banners of websites., including clips from a Sky News debate where Palmer faced off against the One Nation leader.
Palmer and Hanson were both on the Queensland Senate ticket, and were expected to fight it out for the final upper house seat in the state. Current Senate results show One Nation attracted 7.2% of the vote in Queensland and UAP just 4.1%, with Hanson currently neck-and-neck with the Liberal senator Amanda Stoker to take the final seat, and Palmer out of the running.
Other UAP ads launched in the final three days of the campaign were videos about a proposed World Health Organization pandemic accord; monologues from the party’s leader, Craig Kelly, critical of Covid “mockdowns”; and a country music-inspired “UAP anthem”. The various preroll video ads ranged from 44 seconds to nearly two hours in length, with the party spending more than $100,000 on boosting some ads to reach up to 10m impressions each.
One version of the UAP anthem was served up as a preroll on more than 10m YouTube videos in Australia between March and May, boosted by up to $1.5m in ad spending. The UAP’s spend was far smaller on Facebook, with parent company Meta’s transparency report showing it spent just $1.2m since 5 March, and $843,000 since 4 May, on boosting ads.