According to The Guardian online: ‘The Greens MP and candidates faced a barrage of negative ads from right-wing campaigners Advance and other conservative lobby groups such as the Australian Institute for Progress (AIP). Advance was crowing about the Greens’ election result on Sunday afternoon, with the group’s executive director, Matthew Sheahan, congratulating supporters for helping to “stop the Greens in their tracks… The Greens have been belted. And for that, I thank you”.’
I so hope the Greens do not take this shitfuckery lying down. This is heartless corruption. This is a vicious undermining of the legitimate aspirations of over a million voters, and the thousands of volunteers and small-scale donors who backed the ‘losing’ candidates.
I am a long-term Greens supporter and in my guts I feel fury at the cold manipulation of other potential supporters by this right-wing corporate-backed rent-a-mob. Could it be fair to assume that without this manipulation Mandy Nolan would already be the clear winner in the Richmond electorate?
The Greens are not some kind of intrinsically evil, or stupid and dismissible, non-people. We are decent citizens fighting a perfectly legitimate, and desperately rearguard action, to protect what little is left of the natural world, clean ecosystems, biodiversity, and so many endangered species. And have a carefully considered portfolio of other pro-social policies.
What actual positive values do Advance and AIP have, if any?
Next they will come for the teals. They stand (lie) for more of the same-old-same-old, as we spiral down into environmental and social chaos caused by once-preventable but now recurrent climate disasters. It is not just sickening but deadly.
The election results in affected constituencies should be annulled. There should be prosecutions, but expect no help from the major parties or right-wing media.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
