Political advertising
What Australia’s political parties have paid the two big platforms to advertise to voters — $92.2m across 16 parties since 2020.
Party spend
$92.2m
both platforms
Parties
16
advertising
On Google
$67.9m
since 2020
On Meta
$24.3m
as at 2026-07-17
Spend by party
Includes national bodies, state branches and individual campaign pages.
| Party | Meta | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Labor Party | $18.8m | $9.9m | $28.7m | |
| United Australia Party | $23.9m | $2.3m | $26.3m | |
| Liberal Party of Australia | $11.1m | $4.8m | $15.8m | |
| Trumpet of Patriots | $8.9m | $1.5m | $10.4m | |
| Australian Greens | $1.9m | $2.1m | $4.0m | |
| Liberal National Party of Queensland | $2.3m | $1.3m | $3.6m | |
| The Nationals | $572k | $585k | $1.2m | |
| Animal Justice Party | $59k | $806k | $865k | |
| Family First | $97k | $298k | $395k | |
| Pauline Hanson's One Nation | $12k | $339k | $350k | |
| Jacqui Lambie Network | $59k | $216k | $275k | |
| Libertarian Party | $55k | $50k | $105k | |
| Katter's Australian Party | $9k | $63k | $72k | |
| Legalise Cannabis Party | — | $40k | $40k | |
| Sustainable Australia Party | — | $24k | $24k | |
| Centre Alliance | $4k | — | $4k |
When the money is spent
Weekly spend on Google, all advertisers, 2020-11-15 to 2026-07-19. Meta’s report gives totals only, with no weekly breakdown.
2020-11-15peak 2025-04-27 · $13.0m2026-07-19
The ten biggest weeks
| Week beginning | Spend |
|---|---|
| 27 April 2025 | $13.0m |
| 15 May 2022 | $8.6m |
| 20 April 2025 | $6.4m |
| 8 May 2022 | $4.1m |
| 13 April 2025 | $3.8m |
| 6 April 2025 | $3.2m |
| 30 March 2025 | $1.9m |
| 23 March 2025 | $1.7m |
| 1 May 2022 | $1.7m |
| 24 April 2022 | $1.5m |
Spend by state
Google, all advertisers. State is as far as either platform reports — neither publishes an electorate breakdown for Australia.
- New South Wales
- $23.7m
- Victoria
- $22.3m
- Queensland
- $17.4m
- Western Australia
- $8.7m
- South Australia
- $5.8m
- Tasmania
- $3.0m
- Australian Capital Territory
- $1.1m
- Northern Territory
- $667k
What is counted
- Advertisers matched by name to a registered political party, including state branches and candidate campaign pages. The mapping is published with the dataset, and a name matching none of it is not counted.
- That is 82.1% of political advertising spend on Google and 10.1% on Meta. The remainder is advertising by charities, government agencies, companies and campaign groups, which is not party spending.
- Meta counts advertising about social issues, elections or politics. Google counts electoral advertising by advertisers it has verified as political. Platform totals are shown in their own columns.
- Both platforms report federal, state and local advertising together. These figures are not federal-only.
- Spend is what a platform was paid to show advertising. It is not a party’s total advertising budget, and not its total expenditure.
- Every reported figure is a multiple of A$150. Google records spend in USD, rounds it, and converts at a fixed rate, so these are not exact Australian dollar amounts and should not be read to the dollar.
- Advertiser totals are rounded. Per-advertisement figures, which Google publishes as ranges rather than amounts, are not included here at all.
- Geography is reported at state level only. Google publishes no electorate-level breakdown for Australia.
- Google deletes this data seven years after an election, so the earliest figures will disappear from the source over time.
- Spend is what Google was paid to show advertisements. It is not a campaign's total advertising budget, and not its total expenditure.
Meta
- Refreshed by hand, so it is current only as at the retrieval date shown. It does not update itself.
- An aggregate summary. Individual advertisements, their targeting and their creative are not reproduced here — the Ad Library itself is the place to look at those.
- 34042 advertisers spent an amount Meta reports only as a bound ("100 or less") rather than a figure. Those are excluded from the total rather than counted as any particular number.
- Spend is what Meta was paid to show advertising. It is not a campaign's total advertising budget, and not its total expenditure.
- Meta counts advertising about social issues, elections or politics — a much broader category than Google's electoral advertising. Charities and government agencies are among the largest advertisers here, so this total cannot be compared with Google's like for like.
Sources: Google Political Ads Transparency and Meta Ad Library (as at 17 July 2026). Last built 22 July 2026. Download this dataset.