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April 12, 2025
Saturday 12 April 2025
Alison Xiao and Jordyn Butler
ABC News
Independent MP Allegra Spender has admitted to paying an agency to commission social media content with influencers and content creators.
Mental health advocate and content creator, Milly Rose Bannister, posted several videos this month, disclosing they were "made in collaboration" with Allegra Spender and Climate200.
The videos about the upcoming election were glowing of Allegra Spender and policies from the so-called teal independents.
Ms Spender, the member for Wentworth in Sydney's eastern suburbs, told the ABC her campaign had paid an agency which commissioned the videos.
"We've worked with an agency and a bunch of influencers and content creators to reach different audiences," she said.
"Our campaign has paid an agency, who has paid some influencers or content creators to collaborate on different posts."
Ms Spender said she was "collaborating" with Ms Bannister in different ways, including hosting a 'Politics in the Pub' session next week. The influencer was also invited by Labor to this year's federal budget lock-up.
In one video posted last week, Ms Bannister, who has more than 130,000 followers on Instagram, "shadows" her local MP in parliament for a day.
"Meet Allegra Spender. Not a career politician, she's a wicked-smart economist, mother, a daily five k [kilometre] queen and works in line with the values of her constituents who are real working people," she says in voiceover for the video.
"She ran as an Indie in 2022, not for her, she had a perfectly lovely life, people just kept begging her to do it."
In another video, she advises her viewers of an online tool to look up MPs' voting histories.
Following Ms Spender's comments on Afternoon Briefing, a spokesperson for her campaign said the MP had worked with an expert agency, Sentiment, which had identified content creators with aligning values.
"The final editorial decisions of the content are completely up to the content creators," the spokesperson said in a statement.
"All our media connections are handled appropriately, ethically, and in line with Allegra's obligations.
"Our advice is that the authorisation meets all requirements of the AEC.”
Earlier this week, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) advised that politicians must add a political authorisation to influencer posts that have been paid for.
The AEC said the purpose of authorisation statements is for voters to know who is behind a message, but said electoral laws don't ban paid content with third-parties.
"There are no laws that prevent people being funded to put out messages or communicate on behalf of, or in collaboration with, a political entity," an AEC spokesperson told the ABC.
"It would only be a technical question of whether the specific statement meets the requirements."
The AEC's new guidance followed cases of politicians cross-posting clips on Instagram with influencers including Abbie Chatfield.
Political marketing expert from the Australian National University, Andrew Hughes, said he believed Ms Bannister's posts may breach AEC guidelines.
"You must follow the AEC, it must say 'written and authorised by'," he said.
Mr Hughes said consumer law under the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission — which doesn't cover political communication — required influencers to identify paid content for brands with a hashtag like '#ad' or '#paidfor'.
"They should identify paid content because that way we know it's paid content, and the content they're putting up therefore isn't as authentic as perhaps their own content," he said.
"It lowers the credibility. That's why a lot of influencers won't do it.
"They don't put up the notification about the content being paid for, because the moment you see that, you do know it's an ad, and then we treat it as an ad, as a consumer, as a viewer.
"That means then we're less likely to have that alter our behaviour, or go into our memory."
Mr Hughes said it was likely a lot of social media content was being made for — or with help from — political parties, which the average Australian was unaware of.
"It's very, very hard to track," he said.
"We're inundated with so much content, we're not looking out for things like that."
The Coalition's campaign spokesperson James Paterson has accused Ms Spender of providing "cash for content".
"Allegra Spender must provide full transparency about … which influencers have been paid to generate content," he said in a statement.
"She must also be clear about the length of time her campaign has been paying influencers via this unnamed agency."
The Coalition said it had not used a third-party agency to pay for social media content creators to post on their platforms.
"We have not engaged any influencer agencies or influencers to make unauthorised content on our behalf," a spokesperson said.
"The Coalition takes its obligations under electoral laws seriously and complies with them."
The ABC has contacted the Labor Party over whether they engage third-party agencies to pay for content on social media.
Last month, Labor reportedly compensated the travel and accommodation costs for some content creators to attend the federal budget.
Milly Rose Bannister has been approached for comment.