Several Liberal MPs have raised concerns an anti-immigration campaign by the activist group Advance is hurting the party’s brand and alienating migrant communities.
Analysis of Advance’s Meta advertising since May’s federal election shows it has promoted 44 anti-immigration ads, with more than 1.5m impressions.
One ad warns the Albanese government has “flooded the country” with migrants, resulting in the country’s values “being threatened”.
Another claims mass immigration is “tearing Australia apart” and that “Australia can’t survive this”, featuring images of long queues of people, and protesters burning the Australian flag.
Advance has long claimed it does not campaign for any political party, but its links with the Liberal party have long been documented.
Anxiety over the immigration issue in the party was exacerbated this month when Jacinta Nampijinpa Price – a former Advance spokesperson – was dumped from the shadow ministry after she claimed, without evidence, the federal government’s migration program favoured Indians to win Labor votes (she later walked back the claim, but declined to apologise).
Four federal Liberal members and one senior party member who spoke to Guardian Australia on condition of anonymity expressed frustration at Advance’s latest campaign, and worried it could set the party back further after its thumping loss in May.
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A seasoned Liberal strategist said Advance’s messages were “problematic” for the party because you “cannot win from the margins”.
“[Advance] certainly make a lot of noise. They know how to raise money. They know how to get attention … but they lack the strategic knowhow to change votes,” they said.
Advance anti-immigration advertisement. Photograph: Facebook
“That’s the problem with a hardline anti-immigration position in a country like Australia in the year 2025.”
A senior Liberal member said the group’s anti-immigration campaign had “racial connotations” and it would not be embraced by the parliamentary party.
“A lot of Liberals are very concerned about where Advance is going, and we’re not going to follow them there,” they said.
“When you start playing with the fringes like that, you’re going to lose everybody. We won’t be going there. I’ve got no hesitation in saying that.
“It’s a hot topic in the Liberal party at the moment … because it’s very disturbing.”
They said criticism of Australia’s migration program was important but it needed to be sensible and respectful.
“You can’t do it this way … combining these themes – race and immigration – it will fail.”
Another Liberal member said the anti-immigration language “used by a very small cadre” of Liberal colleagues was “not founded on any traditional conservative thinking”.
“Everyone who has settled here has not ‘replaced’ anybody. Instead they have enriched our nation,” they said.
“To suggest otherwise is not only morally wrong but also turning your back on communities that are looking to elect political leadership that will respond to the challenges faced by every Australian.”
The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that net overseas migration is below 316,000 in the year to March.
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While it remains high compared with the roughly 230,000 annual rate in the five years before the pandemic, it is trending downward after peaking in 2023 after the Covid period, when the Nom entered negative territory for several quarters.
Advance’s executive director, Matthew Sheahan, did not respond to questions about the campaign, but said: “Yet again, bed-wetting anonymous Liberals are on the phone to the Guardian crying about Advance.
“Most fair-minded Australians agree that immigration is a serious issue and isn’t it just like the Guardian to insinuate that any dissent is racist.
“You tried to play the racist card during the voice referendum and look where it got you.”
Part of an anti-immigration Advance ad. Photograph: Facebook
Sheahan pointed to a recent Resolve Monitor poll, which showed 27% of respondents thought the permanent migration rate was “about right” while 49% believed it was too high. The poll also showed only 4% of respondents rated immigration as their main policy priority.
The former prime minister Tony Abbott, an Advance board member, has also used a number of platforms to argue against “mass immigration” in recent months.
In a newsletter titled “Mass Immigration Across the Anglo-Sphere Must Cease”, published to his Substack this month, Abbott wrote of his concern that high migrant numbers were “driving economic and social strain”, while also stressing the need for “a strong civic patriotism in the absence of an ethnic one”.
In a July podcast with a former Canadian politician, Abbott said immigration numbers needed to be “radically” scaled back, with a focus on assimilation.
“If they’re coming to Australia, they’ve got to join Team Australia. They can’t simply live in Hotel Australia,” Abbott said.
“Australia has flourished as a country with a predominantly Anglo-Celtic culture and a country with an overwhelmingly Judeo-Christian ethos. They are both precious.
“They have to be preserved, and no one should come to Australia without an expectation of living in an Anglo-Celtic culture, with the Judeo-Christian ethos. And we’ve got to be crystal clear about that.”
The right-leaning thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs has similarly argued against mass immigration.
In a media release on Thursday, the IPA’s deputy executive director, Daniel Wild, said “mainstream Australians” were “paying the price” for “the unprecedented surge of Australia’s population, underpinned by mass migration”.
