Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, Scott Morrison managed to narrowly win a
Speaker 1: third term despite Pole's placing the Coalition behind Labor for
Speaker 1: almost three years. At the heart of the victory was
Speaker 1: a change in the way they campaigned, bringing in a
Speaker 1: pair of young strategists armed with a new weapon, low
Speaker 1: quality memes. The duo, called Topp and Gearen have become
Speaker 1: a go to agency for conservative parties and have been
Speaker 1: hired by Peter Dutton ahead of the next federal election.
Speaker 1: But they're more controversial. Methods including deep fakes and disinformation
Speaker 1: are raising questions about the ethics of political campaigning in
Speaker 1: the digital age. Today special correspondent for the Saturday Paper,
Speaker 1: Jason kotsukus on the rise of Topp and Geeren and
Speaker 1: the political power of bad memes. It's Tuesday, December tenth.
Speaker 1: So you've been looking into this digital creative agency, top
Speaker 1: em Gearen. Who are they.
Speaker 2: Well, top em gearan or TG as they sometimes refer
Speaker 2: to themselves as an advertising company, you might call it
Speaker 2: a boutique marketing agency. It was formed in New Zealand
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen by two young wiz kids, Sean Topham
Speaker 2: and Ben Gearen, and they've grown pretty quickly since then.
Speaker 2: They've now got offices in London and Sydney as well
Speaker 2: as their headquarters in Auckland, and they've really in that
Speaker 2: short amount of time established themselves as a very disruptive
Speaker 2: force in the world of political communications. They're pretty a
Speaker 2: student pumping out a lot of content very quickly, that's
Speaker 2: very emotionally charged.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it was formed by these two young fellows
Speaker 1: in New Zealand. Tell me about some of the campaigns
Speaker 1: that worked on well.
Speaker 2: That kind of breakthrough moment was actually in twenty seventeen
Speaker 2: the New Zealand general election. They ran the digital comps
Speaker 2: for that campaign and the New Zealand Nationals won the
Speaker 2: most seats, but they weren't able to form a government,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't a huge victory, but they still did
Speaker 2: pretty well, well enough so that the Liberal Party here
Speaker 2: in Australia hired them to run the advertising for Scott
Speaker 2: Morrison's re election campaign in twenty nineteen, and when Morrison
Speaker 2: won so unexpectedly even he described it as a miracle.
Speaker 2: And not long after that win, Ben Gearan spoke at
Speaker 2: a right wing conference called the Freedman Conference to discuss
Speaker 2: pr strategy really interesting.
Speaker 3: You've got to surprise people, you've got to shock people,
Speaker 3: you've got to unlock and arouse on emotion in people, right.
Speaker 2: And this is really one of the first times where
Speaker 2: we saw Ben Gearon talking about where they really found
Speaker 2: success and the key to it was using social media
Speaker 2: to engage older Australians with his kind of purposefully low
Speaker 2: quality memes. Ben Geron described this as the Boomer memes strategy.
Speaker 3: And the peak point during the campaign we were posting
Speaker 3: thirty posts a day and more than two hundred or
Speaker 3: two and fifty a week. That means you have to
Speaker 3: generate and publish a new piece of content every twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: That's how you get what we call the boomer memes
Speaker 3: because you had to crank stuff out quickly. You couldn't
Speaker 3: spend too long doing it perfectly created, like artisanally perfect graphic.
Speaker 3: You're gonna slap some calibri font on a shitty, you know,
Speaker 3: reused meme and you're gonna publish it, and then you
Speaker 3: get onto the next one, and you know what that
Speaker 3: content is going to do better than the thing that
Speaker 3: your poor graphic designer spent a week on.
Speaker 2: In the same presentation, Ben Grin also referred to a
Speaker 2: Bill shot in Game of Thrones meme which labeled Bill
Speaker 2: Shot and the tax King.
Speaker 3: Are we taking it for granted that everyone knows that
Speaker 3: Bill is all about text? We're moving one step on
Speaker 3: from that. What happens when you know that everything's about
Speaker 3: text with Bill? Oh, well, you know you've got the
Speaker 3: bad joke meme. You've got the fact that he's been
Speaker 3: compared to nearest Tigerian. I think that's a compliment. Actually,
Speaker 3: I think she's she wonders in the Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2: And he admits that it's not a particularly sophisticated or
Speaker 2: even well made meme.
Speaker 3: The point is here that we were sort of unlocking
Speaker 3: different ways of talking about the issue. But every single
Speaker 3: thing that we're doing is relevant to the key message.
Speaker 2: He also spoke about how they would whack short messages
Speaker 2: about tax next to pictures of cute dogs, and they
Speaker 2: really figured out how to weaponize these boomer memes.
Speaker 1: That it was very effective, really targeting the grandparents with
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 2: Jace absolutely, and I guess achieving mastery on Facebook was
Speaker 2: really call to their strategy. I also worked on the
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen general election campaign in the UK, which catapulted
Speaker 2: them onto the global stage. Top them created an advertisement
Speaker 2: for the Conservative Party which featured Boris Johnson doing a
Speaker 2: parody of that famous scene from the film Love Actually,
Speaker 2: where Kira Knightley's secret admirer turns up on the doorstep
Speaker 2: of her house and holds up a series of cards
Speaker 2: that declare his love for her.
Speaker 4: Oh Hi, what is it?
Speaker 2: It's Karle Sayers give And in the Conservative Party video
Speaker 2: entitled Brexit Actually, it's Boris Johnson with the cards and
Speaker 2: instead of declaring his love for the woman standing in
Speaker 2: the door, he's encouraging her to vote Conservative. And the
Speaker 2: key message in that ad was let the Tory government
Speaker 2: finally get Brexit done.
Speaker 1: Enough enough, Let's get this done.
Speaker 2: They were also widely condemned because during one of the
Speaker 2: Leader's debates, which was Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Corbyn, Topham
Speaker 2: Gearan changed the name of the Conservative Party's Twitter account
Speaker 2: to fact check UK.
Speaker 5: You'd be forgiven for thinking that this was an independent
Speaker 5: fact checking site, but the indication they're saying it was
Speaker 5: from CHQ, and that's what has people talking.
Speaker 2: People believed it was misleading, and they were accused of
Speaker 2: e roating public trust in digital platforms and you know,
Speaker 2: blurring those lines between genuine fact checking and partisan propaganda.
Speaker 1: So they've kind of pushed some ethical boundaries there in
Speaker 1: relation to digital campaigning. But is it against the law,
Speaker 1: is it against the rules or anything like that.
Speaker 2: No, it's not against the rules or any regulation. And
Speaker 2: Sean Topham himself has defended it in an interview with
Speaker 2: The Spectator earlier this year.
Speaker 5: Look, we were there to be playful and create some
Speaker 5: noise to get attention and eyeballs on the conservative edges.
Speaker 5: Controversy sometimes a good thing on social media.
Speaker 1: A little bit of controversy can be a good thing
Speaker 1: on social media, and it's about making sure that that
Speaker 1: controversy relates back to an important message.
Speaker 2: But it's also far from the only controversial thing that
Speaker 2: top Gearan has done. They were hired to do the
Speaker 2: advertising for the Queensland Liberal National Party in the state
Speaker 2: election there in October and they created four hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty five custom video ads during the campaign and TJ
Speaker 2: also revealed that using artificial intelligence had been a really
Speaker 2: important part of helping them turn these videos around very quickly.
Speaker 5: It looks like a video of the premiere, but it's not.
Speaker 5: This clip, posted on the Liberal National Party's tektok account,
Speaker 5: has been created using artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the videos that created had a bit of
Speaker 2: controversy during that Queensland election was a deep fake video
Speaker 2: of then Queensland Premier Stephen Miles dancing, and I think
Speaker 2: by itself it was pretty harmless, but it did raise
Speaker 2: some eyebrows about is this the beginning of deep fakes
Speaker 2: being a standard go to thing during election campaigns? And
Speaker 2: Steven Miles himself said it represented a pretty dangerous turning point,
Speaker 2: and so experts that I spoke to pose the question
Speaker 2: that is this really the sort of thing that's in
Speaker 2: line with the ethical norms of being a professional communicator.
Speaker 2: And so while these guys have emerged as a go
Speaker 2: to agency for conservative parties seeking to leverage digital media,
Speaker 2: I think there are really genuine concerns about disinformation and
Speaker 2: deep fakes that are used so often by this agency,
Speaker 2: particularly as we approach the next federal election.
Speaker 1: After the break rebranding, Peter Dutton, so Jason, the consultancy
Speaker 1: group top Gear and have been engaged by the Liberal
Speaker 1: Party to work on the next federal election campaign. Do
Speaker 1: you have any sense about what that campaign is going
Speaker 1: to look like? More Boomer means for one.
Speaker 2: Well, a senior Liberal Party source did confirm to me
Speaker 2: that yes, TG has been hired to work with the
Speaker 2: Federal coalition and of course Peter Dutton as he heads
Speaker 2: into the campaign. And as for what that campaign might
Speaker 2: look like, I guess we could treat the recent Queensland
Speaker 2: campaign as a bit of a dress rehearsal, so I
Speaker 2: think we'll see some aggressive use of AI and deep fakes.
Speaker 2: But one other thing that the agency has done that's
Speaker 2: been effective has been using video platforms like TikTok to
Speaker 2: humanize politicians. We saw this in the New Zealand election
Speaker 2: last year where they got the New Zealand Nationals leader
Speaker 2: Chris Luckson, who looks a little bit like Peter Dutton, tall, bald,
Speaker 2: known for being pretty no nonsense and a lot of
Speaker 2: people might look at Chris Luxon and think that he's
Speaker 2: probably never going to work on social media, but according
Speaker 2: to Sean Topham, they're able to work at revealing Chris
Speaker 2: Lackson's sense of humor.
Speaker 4: A lot of you have said to me, Look, Chris,
Speaker 4: you're a good looking board man.
Speaker 1: How do you keep your skin in such good condition?
Speaker 1: All of these two tracks?
Speaker 4: In my skin care regime, I have a daily moisturizer.
Speaker 1: Cara a sirav.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how to say that. It seems to
Speaker 4: work really well. You only need a little bit of
Speaker 4: this great daily moisturizer to go a long way. Unlike
Speaker 4: this government, we don't waste anything, not even the moisturizer
Speaker 4: and the most important thing.
Speaker 2: And I think we could sort of see that as
Speaker 2: perhaps a bit of a signal as to how the
Speaker 2: agency is going to try and humanize Peter Dutton.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I understand that Peter Dutton has a TikTok account.
Speaker 2: Not only does he have a TikTok account, but he's
Speaker 2: using it.
Speaker 4: I think he's.
Speaker 2: Posted around eight videos. It's doing exactly what Chris Luxon did.
Speaker 4: I know. My first TikTok is supposed to be something
Speaker 4: fun and I probably should say something that is or
Speaker 4: isn't demure.
Speaker 2: But he's got a video there about the family dog,
Speaker 2: the video that I think that's got the most views.
Speaker 2: As a proposal to ban foreigners and temporary residents from
Speaker 2: buying existing homes hard.
Speaker 4: You stay in while everyone's going out so that you
Speaker 4: can save a bit more, and you finally have enough
Speaker 4: to buy your first home, put in a good offer,
Speaker 4: only to be outbid by someone who doesn't even live
Speaker 4: in this country. It's a situation.
Speaker 2: According to Garin, he was on a podcast earlier this
Speaker 2: year explaining that the key test is whether or not
Speaker 2: the content is entertaining, So it's going to be interesting
Speaker 2: to see how they try to take that further. And
Speaker 2: of course the other goal is to try and create
Speaker 2: content that will ultimately get shared.
Speaker 1: So after twenty nineteen losing the unlosable election, Labor must
Speaker 1: have realized they were outmaneuverd by the Liberals online I
Speaker 1: like gearing up. They have their own twenty four hour
Speaker 1: meme factory.
Speaker 2: Well, they certainly learned the lessons of the defeat in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, and after that they got together and created
Speaker 2: a new digital unit which they deployed in the twenty
Speaker 2: two election, and they ran that as a kind of
Speaker 2: rapid response newsroom so that they were able to push
Speaker 2: out content quickly. But as you know, Daniel, this space,
Speaker 2: the online space, really has tended to be dominated by
Speaker 2: right wing groups, you know, in the last few years,
Speaker 2: and we saw that especially during the Voice referendum campaign,
Speaker 2: where the Yes twenty three campaign was completely outmaneuvered by
Speaker 2: groups like Advance, especially when it came to a shareable
Speaker 2: content on platforms like TikTok, where the Yes twenty three
Speaker 2: campaign didn't even have a presence. One person I spoke
Speaker 2: to was Hari Adne Froman She's a professor in the
Speaker 2: Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.
Speaker 2: She's also a political sociologist and she said, in her view,
Speaker 2: there's a growing network of people who work exclusively for
Speaker 2: conservative parties and that they are very much in the ascendency.
Speaker 2: The Voice campaign showed a serious risk for labor to
Speaker 2: see TikTok and other platforms. To Peter Dutton, we all
Speaker 2: know that Anthony Alberzi has yet to set up a
Speaker 2: TikTok account, then Anthony Alberanzi will absolutely have to compete
Speaker 2: with him in that space.
Speaker 1: And finally, Jason, when you look at how agencies like
Speaker 1: topgearon and say Advanced in the Voice fresherendum have maybe
Speaker 1: pushed some ethical boundaries around disinformation in political campaigns, deep
Speaker 1: fakes and falsehoods so legal and political advertising in this country.
Speaker 1: Is there any consensus to change that?
Speaker 2: Well, first point I should make here is that both
Speaker 2: the major parties are using deep fakes and AI to
Speaker 2: create new political ads. The Labor Party's got a deep
Speaker 2: fake video out there of Peter Dutton also dancing. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's so obviously a deep fake. I don't get the
Speaker 2: sense that they're trying to trick me. I don't have
Speaker 2: too much of a problem with political parties using AI
Speaker 2: in the way that the rest of society is going
Speaker 2: to be using AI. Political campaigning does evolve with each election,
Speaker 2: and you can't stop change, can you. So we're going
Speaker 2: to have to be all quite vigilant in making sure
Speaker 2: that we are policing any attempt to genuinely fool voters
Speaker 2: into believing this is a real video of Anthony Oberenezi
Speaker 2: doing X, Y or Z. Then we've got to be
Speaker 2: vigil about taking that sort of content down. There's not
Speaker 2: really a consensus around, you know, what the rules are
Speaker 2: or what they should be. I think this is going
Speaker 2: to be one of those things where we know, I
Speaker 2: guess regulations and laws will evolve as the technology becomes
Speaker 2: more sophisticated.
Speaker 1: Jason, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Daniel, great to chat to you as always.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, Prome Minister Anthony Albernezi has announced
Speaker 1: an AFP Special Operation Task Force to combat anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: Comes after the attack against the Adas Israel Synagogue on
Speaker 1: Friday was declared a likely terrorism incident by Victoria Police.
Speaker 1: The designation means the attack will be investigated by a
Speaker 1: joint counter terrorism team combining Victoria Police, the AFP and ASO.
Speaker 1: And The political fallout from the synagogue attack has continued,
Speaker 1: with OP positional leader Peter Dutton launched an extraordinary attack
Speaker 1: on Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns, whose electorate is home
Speaker 1: to the synagogue. Dunton blame Burns for losing his voice
Speaker 1: and not speaking up against Palestinians flaring Gaza being brought
Speaker 1: to Australia. Burns whose office has been the subject of
Speaker 1: anti Semitic attacks. So he works for his community every
Speaker 1: day and it does not serve the Jewish community to
Speaker 1: be arguing against ourselves, he said. I'm Daniel James seven am.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow