EXCLUSIVE
Former Prime Minister John Howard and his former senior minister Richard Alston oversaw a $500,000 payment to MAGA-style lobby group “Advance”, specifically to fight the Greens.
The payment by Liberal Party-linked entity Cormack Foundation — which was by far Advance’s biggest funder last financial year — was to fund Advance’s “Greens Truth” attack campaign, it can be revealed.
The $500,000 donation was approved by Cormack Foundation’s eight-person board, including long-time directors and Liberal Party luminaries Howard and Alston.
In an exclusive interview with The Klaxon, Cormack Foundation chair Charles Goode said the foundation had made the payment specifically to fund Advance’s “Greens program”.
“A lot of their (Greens) policies are restrictive on the individual,” Goode said.
“So we were taking a very broad view, that they (Advance) were advocating more openness, a bit more freedom in our society, and the Greens weren’t”.
Advance, which ran the anti-Indigenous Voice “No” campaign, is a US-style “far right” lobby group, which aggressively spreads fossil fuels disinformation, pushes racist messaging and stokes community division.
It aggressively attacks the ALP and Independents and ran a “multi-million dollar attack” against the Greens, in a “massive year-long campaign” ahead of last month’s federal election — claiming credit for the Greens losing three of their four lower house seats.
While its impact on the Greens is disputed, Advance has come into sharp focus following last month’s historical wipeout of the Liberal Party, which last week launched its official review into what went wrong.
Liberal leader Sussan Ley will today front the National Press Club in Canberra, and is reportedly set to say “we didn’t just lose, we got smashed”.
She has suggested she wants to return the Liberals to the “sensible centre”.
Advance aggressively campaigns against renewable energy; falsely claims wind farms “kill whales”; has suggested immigrants in detention are “rapists, paedophiles and murderers”; and is running a campaign against the Indigenous Welcome to Country, claiming it is part of a secretive plan by “elites” to “deligitimise Australia’s history”.
Ley refused to respond when asked by The Klaxon whether she or the party currently endorse Advance.
An Advance billboard near Newcastle, NSW. Photo: Anthony Klan/The Klaxon
Advance is closely aligned with the party’s far-right, including former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Senator Jacinta Price; yet some others within the party see Advance as having contributed to the party’s massive losses, particularly in the cities.
They argue voters saw it as an arm of the Liberal Party and were turned off by its extremism and MAGA-style disinformation.
Advance now sits at the heart of the battle for the control of the Liberals: how close it is to the party next election depends on whether the far-right or the moderates prevail.
Senator Jacinta Price heavily spruiked Advance just one day after the Coalition split. Source: The Klaxon
While the far-right lobby group states it is seperate to the Liberal Party, it has many deep ties, including having had Abbott as an “advisor”, Price as official “spokeswoman”, it running the main anti-Voice campaign, and it relentlessly attacking the Liberal Party’s political opponents.
In February it emerged, for the first time, that Advance was being funded by Cormack Foundation, a $120 million investment vehicle which for decades has been the Liberal Party’s biggest donor.
In the 2023-24 financial year, the most recent data, Cormack Foundation gave Advance $500,000, making it Advance’s biggest single funder in the period by a factor of ten.
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Former Prime Minister Howard declined to comment about the payment when approached by The Klaxon, directing us to Goode.
“As you note…I am no longer a director of the Foundation,” Howard told The Klaxon.
“It is appropriate that you seek comment on the matters you have raised from the Chairman. I do not intend to comment on them.”
Peter Dutton and John Howard at a campaign rally in Mona Vale, Sydney, on April 27, one week before the federal election. Source: AAP/Mick Tsikas
Howard and Alston oversaw the $500,000 payment as Cormack Foundation directors, but both departed last September, when they were replaced on the board by former Federal Treasurer Peter Costello and fellow long-time Liberal Party heavy-weight, Caroline Elliott.
Goode told The Klaxon the decision to fund Advance had been “made by the board” and was a “one-off to Advance in respect of their Greens program”.
He said Advance played an “effective role” in weakening the Greens vote.
“I think they (Advance) played an effective role, others might disagree” Goode said.
“I think they (Advance) played an effective role, others might disagree” – Charles Goode
“You’ve got to itemise what the Greens platform includes,” he said.
“It includes reducing our defence…withdrawing from the defence arrangements with the United States; it involves increasing our number of refugees and (increasing) immigration a lot; it involves legalising certain drugs…(and) it involves an inheritance tax.
“So they (Advance) campaigned and said ‘look, this is what the Greens campaign platform is, it’s not just about the environment’,” Goode said.
“And I think that was a useful thing for the public to know”.
A recent Advance advertisement. Source: Advance
Greens Senator Nick McKim told The Klaxon Advance’s “smear campaign” was “yet another example of the toxic influence of fossil fuel corporations and far right politics in our democracy”.
“The Cormack Foundation is a Liberal Party slush fund which bankrolled Advance’s campaign against the Greens because we challenged the power and profits of their corporate backers,” he said.
“It peddled conspiracy theories, amplified racist and Islamophobic tropes, and sought to drive people apart.”
Advance and its executive director Matthew Sheahan refused to respond to a series of written questions from The Klaxon.
Advance pushes fossil fuels agenda and aggressively campaigns against renewables. Source: Advance
Although the Cormack Foundation is deeply tied to the Liberal Party, and is part-owned by the Victorian Liberals, Goode said it was “not part of the Liberal Party” and the Liberal Party did not dictate where it donated.
He said Cormack Foundation had made donations totalling “about $3.7m” in 2023-24. In the year it donated $1.07m to the Liberal Party’s Victorian branch and gave $100,000 to the Liberal Party federally.
It also donated to a string of right-wing entities, as was its usual practice, including the Centre for Independent Studies ($700,000); the Institute of Public Affairs ($200,000); the Menzies Research Centre; the Samuel Griffith Society; the H.R. Nicholls Society; and the Alliance for Responsible Citizens.
Analysis of Australian Electoral Commission filings by The Klaxon shows Cormack Foundation has given $59.55m to the Liberal Party since the 1998-99 financial year, $46.69m to the Victorian Liberals and $12.86m federally.
Advance campaigned aggressively against the Greens. Source: Advance
Named after Liberal Party elder Magnus Cormack, it was created in 1988 to house $15m from the proceeds of the sale of Melbourne radio station 3XY, whose licence had been granted to Liberal Party precursor, the United Australia Party, in the 1930s.
Under electoral law, Cormack Foundation is registered an “associated entity” of the Federal Liberal Party and the Liberal Party’s Victorian branch.
Under Victorian law, Cormack Foundation is also the Liberal Party’s “nominated entity”, allowing it to sidestep the state’s political donations laws and funnel the party effectively limitless “donations”.
The Liberal Party’s Victorian branch owns 25 per cent of Cormack Foundation and selects two of its board members, currently Costello and Elliott, a former vice president of the Victorian Liberals.
Its other directors are “billionaire barrister” and Liberal Party donor Allan Myers; former chair of mining giant Newcrest Mining Peter Hay; private equity fund manager and Fawkner Capital owner Frederick Grimwade; funds manager Richard Balderstone and Melbourne lawyer Stephen Spargo.
Howard and Alston, who had also been selected by the Victorian branch, were both directors from November 2018 to September 10 last year.
Alston was Liberal Senator for Victoria from 1986 to 2004 and held multiple ministries in the Howard Government, including minister for communications and the arts.
A former longtime chair of both mining giant Woodside and ANZ, Goode has been a director of Cormack Foundation since 1992.
He said its revenue came solely from investment returns on the original $15m, and it received no donations or other payments.
Cormack Foundation’s assets now totalled about $120m.
