Uh-oOh! — Ad giant stung over Liberal Party lie factory

ANTHONY KLAN

The nation’s biggest billboard company has been left reeling after it was caught publishing anti-climate lies from Liberal Party-funded disinformation outfit “Advance”.

ASX-listed oOh!media said it had run two billboards — which claim ‘renewables’, in quotation marks, “cost the earth” —  in “error” and that it had since improved its “review processes”.

Yet the advertising giant has been caught out over its handling of the scandal after — amid public outcry — it made public statements that “incorrectly implied” it had taken down the billboards before their paid advertising period had ended.

“It was never our intention to mislead or deceive and we apologise for this confusion,” an oOh!media spokesman told The Klaxon.

“Two Advance Australia ads that ran on oOh classic billboards were done so in error”.

“Established internal creative review processes were missed and additional checks have now been implemented to review all sensitive content moving forward.”

The two billboards were run near Newcastle, in a marginal electorate where fake “grassroots” movements have been mobilised to aggressively oppose offshore wind farms in favour of fossil fuels.

The scandal is particularly damaging for oOh!media — the nation’s biggest outdoor advertising company — because it is a key member of “Ad Net Zero”, an industry body claiming to “tackle climate change”.

Advance aggressively spreads pro-fossil fuels and anti-environment propaganda, including that claiming climate change is a “hoax”.

Please DONATE HERE and support this vital journalism

The Klaxon’s report last week. Source: The Klaxon

As previously reported, Advance is actively spreading anti-windfarm propaganda in the Newcastle region, including lies that windfarms “kill whales”.

The US-style disinformation outfit pays to “micro target” voters via social media, running disinformation campaigns against Independents, the ALP and Greens, including spreading fake claims that some Independents are secretly from the Greens.

Advance ran the “No” campaign against the Indigenous Voice to parliament, claiming to be a “grassroots” movement of “ordinary Aussies”.

In fact, it was bankrolled by a handful of mega-millionaires, many with deep ties to fossil fuels.

Internationally, Indigenous rights have been one of the few real impediments to fossil fuels expansion.

Advance is paid for by Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party.

Anti-Indigenous Voice group Advance spreading disinformation about offshore wind “killing whales”. Source: Dr Jeremy Walker/Advance

Last financial year Liberal Party slush fund the “Cormack Foundation” was Advance’s biggest funder by a factor of ten.

The Liberal Party and Dutton have repeatedly denied they are connected to Advance, yet disclosure records show the Cormack Foundation gave Advance $500,000 in 2023-24, ten times more than its next biggest funder.

As reported by The Klaxon last month, Cormack Foundation Pty Ltd, a Liberal Party shell company, is registered to a residential property in Melbourne’s Brighton.

Under a rigging of Victorian electoral finance laws by the ALP In 2018, the major parties — and only the major parties — can be funnelled limitless “donations” via three shell companies.

The shell company that can funnel limitless funds to the Liberal Party is the Cormack Foundation.

The “Cormack Foundation” lists its address as a home in Melbourne’s Brighton. Source: The Klaxon

Two weeks ago the Albanese Government rushed through federal parliament a string of laws that similarly rig “donations” laws in favour of the major parties.

The ALP and Coalition refused to put the legislation to a parliamentary review, as is standard practice, and instead rushed the laws through parliament despite the fierce objection of Independents, integrity experts and democracy advocates.

Advance’s Newcastle billboards stated that ‘renewables’ — written in quotation marks, suggesting that renewables are not renewable — “cost the earth”, followed by the words “dollars and destruction”.

On February 10 advertising executive Mike Spirkovski posted an image of one of the billboards, in Tarrow, just north of Newcastle, to social media.

“To say I was taken aback when I saw this billboard is an understatement,” wrote Spirkovski.

“This billboard, which criticises the environmental impact of renewables, stands in a massive construction site spanning floodplains and farmlands.

“Adding to that irony, this site is not far from the Hunter Valley, one of NSW’s major coal mining regions. Large-scale open-cut coal mining in places like Singleton, Muswellbrook, and the Upper Hunter has significantly impacted farms and local ecosystems,” he wrote.

The billboard is set against cranes and major power lines carrying coal-generated power. Photo: Anthony Klan/The Klaxon

Spirkovski’s post sparked deep criticism of oOh!media for running the ads, including  from advertising and climate professionals.

The following day, on February 11, oOh!media said that “following an additional internal review” it had “now removed this advertisement”.

It said it was undertaking an investigation as to whether it had run the Advance ad elsewhere.

Days later Guardian Australia reported that the contracted advertising period for Advance’s Tarrow billboard had ended on February 9 — the day before Spirkovski’s post.

In response to a query from The Klaxon, oOh!media it had run the ad on one other billboard, also in the “Newcastle area”, which it had also taken down.

The super-elite who bankrolled the anti-Voice campaign. Source: The Klaxon

In a response to further questions from this publication, oOh!media said it had earlier “incorrectly implied” that it had taken down the billboards before their paid advertising period had ended.

“Our initial response incorrectly implied that removal occurred while the campaign was still active,” it said in a statement to The Klaxon.

“It was never our intention to mislead or deceive and we apologise for this confusion.

“oOh! takes its sustainability commitments seriously and is strongly committed to meeting sustainability practices,” it said.

The company said it had implemented “additional checks have now been implemented” to “review all sensitive content moving forward”.

Yet oOh!media refused to say what this would mean in practice.

When asked by The Klaxon whether it would run the same Advance ads if it was approached again, it refused to comment.

Instead, the advertising giant said it would “not be commenting further”.

Join the fight! Independent media is vital in the fight against fossil fuels lies – but it’s almost impossible to make viable. Please help keep us afloat by making a ONE-OFF DONATION HERE, or by making a RECURRING DONATION HERE.

We can’t do it without you.

Thank you,

Anthony Klan

Editor, The Klaxon