Influenced: the new media creators gaining ground this election
More than ever before, this federal election campaign is playing out largely on social media. This is the new generation of commentators mobilising young voters.
Gen Z and Milennial creators, mostly women, are leading the political charge this election campaign, as these two cohorts of voters will outnumber Baby Boomers for the first time.
This follows the 2024 US presidential election campaign, during which Kamala Harris appeared on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy – which is claimed to be the most-listened-to podcast by women – and Donald Trump on Joe Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.
Given this shift, we’ve rounded up the most watched social creators turned political commentators to keep an eye on this federal election cycle.
Last week, some of these content creators made mainstream media headlines because of their invitation to participate in budget lockup, a ritual where journalists are stripped of their internet access and locked in a room with stacks of budget papers before the treasurer formally announces the budget. The purpose is for reporters to have time to understand, scrutinise and prep their budget stories for publication ahead of the announcement.
The Albanese government extending the invites shows they’re acclimatising to the new playing field – one where long-form podcast interviews and Instagram reels are part of the strategy.
Our main criterion for this list is creators turned commentators with reach. Accounts like The Daily Aus is taking a new approach to news through primarily delivering it in Instagram carousels and podcasts, but replicate a bipartisan traditional media structure so they don’t make the cut. Likewise, influencers turned candidates like Jordan van den Lamb (aka @purplepingers) running for senate as part of the Victoria socialists party were excluded from the list.
In no particular order, except alphabetical, here are the creators swaying your (or your children, or your mates) votes this election:
Abbie Chatfield
Abbie Chatfiled is an Australian media personality and, at the time of writing, her podcast It’s a Lot is the 12th most listened to on Spotify’s Australian podcast charts.
Abbie rose to prominence by speaking about abortion and sex openly on the seventh season of The Bachelor Australia, which aired in 2019. Since then, she’s built a platform of 523k Instagram followers and commentates on everything from the toxic dynamics of reality television shows to Trump’s presidency and Australian politics.
Impact so far
Abbie interviewed both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Greens Leader Adam Bandt on her podcast and created collaboration posts on social media with the two. She has openly endorsed voting Greens first and Libs last, blatantly saying her objective is to keep Peter Dutton out in this election.
Her posts prompted a ‘probe’ from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) after Liberal senator Jane Hume raised them in senate estimates last month and queried whether they required an authorisation (the disclaimer at the end of political advertisements that say “AuthorisedbyABandtAustralianGreens” at rapid pace).
AEC made their determination yesterday: no, they don’t require authorisation.
“The AEC is not satisfied that the episodes of Ms Chatfield’s podcasts on 21 February, 2025, and 11 March, 2025, could be considered to be paid advertising or to be communicated by or on behalf of a candidate or party,” an AEC spokesperson said.
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Abbie made a video soon after the result, alleging the headlines generated from the AEC investigation was a tactic from the Liberal party to discredit her content, because on face value, if people hear she’s “under investigation”, they think she’s done something wrong.
Despite the controversy, she maintains her position is to get people to “vote 1 Greens and put Libs last”.
friendlyjordies
We remember friendlyjordies aka Jordan Shanks-Markovina rising to prominence in the mid 2010s when Facebook used to seriously push video content onto our feeds.
As such, he’s been around for a while and is a comedian cum political commentator with considerable reach. At the time of writing, he’s got 187,000 Instagram followers, 1.38 million YouTube subscribers and 347,000 followers on Facebook.
Many would be tuning in for his undeniably great impressions of Australian politicians and voter archetypes. They stick around because of his cutting political commentary.
His most mainstream moment to date was when he was sued for defamation by the then Deputy Premier of New South Wales. It’s a long story.
Also, his house was fire-bombed!
Impact so far
Nothing that’s attracted the ire of the AEC, but he’s been posting and promoting his ongoing Australian tour.
We’d consider him somewhat of a shock jock for the edgy Australian left; he takes no prisoners but wants to stand up for those who’re struggling in Australia, whether that’s issues with buying a house or cost-of-living pressures.
Hannah Ferguson
Hannah Ferguson is the CEO of Cheek Media, an author and at the time of writing, her podcast Big Small Talk is ranked number seven in the country. In the past week, Big Small Talk has published three specific Auspol episodes, one explaining how the Australian preferential voting system works, one interview with Albanese and one interview with Bandt.
She has expressed on multiple occasions on the podcast that she extended the same invitation to Peter Dutton but hasn’t received a response. But it should also be noted Hannah has sold t-shirts that read ‘Good morning to everyone except Peter Dutton‘, so you can imagine his team’s hesitancy.
Impact so far
Hannah’s style is to inform listeners and follow it up with her own political critique. Her line of questioning to the Prime Minister and Greens leader focused on climate, the war in Gaza, and the cost of living – all front of mind for young voters. But she also angles for the power of minor parties and independents, the increasing possibility of a minority government and wants her listeners to think outside the two-party system.
She’s been equally critical of the Labor government as she has the Liberals, but her main message in the campaign so far is that a diverse political makeup is better for the country.
Jack Henderson
Jack Henderson is a red-cap wearing property influencer who manages to cut through the noise of the Instagram algorithm.
He’s sitting pretty at the time of writing, with 128,000 followers on the platform who tune into his Reels about property investment and mindset coaching.
Henderson wants to debunk popular media narratives like the rental crisis and the cost-of-living crisis.
One video has him claiming there is no rental crisis, rather: “people have had it too good for too long”.
In another video on SBS, he claims there’s no cost-of-living-crisis, rather people are simply living beyond their own means.
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Impact so far
While he might not be directly influencing how people vote or even talking about the Federal election too much, he’s aiming for the minds of young, upwardly mobile men who want to own investment properties and pay less taxes.
In a sense, he’s part of the global ‘manosphere’ – a trend whereby young men are tuning into online voices that push to the right of the political spectrum.
Milly Rose Bannister
Milly is the founder of ALLKND, a Gen Z-led mental health charity. She was one of the creators invited to budget lockup and then appeared on Channel 10’s The Project to speak about influencers’ invitation to the budget. When asked by The Project hosts if she’d advise Treasurer Jim Chalmers to go viral with a ‘get ready with me’ video, she suggested “maybe dropping something really crucial to youth mental health, that would go viral”.
Milly doesn’t want to see politicians try to go viral this election, she wants to see respect grow for content creators like her that she says “bridge the gap” to make things like the budget accessible to an audience they’ve already built trust with.
Impact so far
Milly is another that wants her following to look beyond the two major parties and educate themselves on the independents in their area.
Her most recent video on the election shadowed her local MP, Allegra Spender, who was elected as a teal candidate in the 2022 federal election. Milly created a ‘day in my life’ style of video popularised on TikTok and Instagram. This was arguably more effective than if Spender created such a video herself because with Milly’s voiceover, Milly is reaching an audience she’s already established trust with, giving them access to rooms they wouldn’t usually have through the video.
Natasha Etschmann
Natasha is known as Tashinvests on Instagram, with 167,000 followers at the time of writing. She is licensed to give financial advice and is used to being in the headlines about the rise of financial influencers and the dangers of getting financial advice on social media.
Impact so far
She hasn’t specifically made an endorsement but attended the budget and produced a carousel detailing her highlights. Her main budget discourse contribution was a video questioning the Finance Minister Katy Gallagher about why tax brackets aren’t being indexed to inflation in Australia. Her impact remains to be seen, but she’s one to keep your eye on.
Punter’s Politics
Spanning YouTube and Instagram, Punter’s Politics (aka Konrad Benjamin) is another commentator embracing the power of social media to make the complicated accessible.
His skit-like Reels are funny, but aim to demystify political topics and the news of the day into digestible short-form video content.
Classic targets of Benjamin’s include oil and gas giant Santos, house prices and the supermarket duopoly. You might be sucked into watching one of his videos after seeing the thumbnail which often says something like “Are Aussies REALLY this dumb?!” or “How to SCAM Aussies”.
Impact so far
Benjamin’s gathered enough steam to have attracted the attention of the ABC, which wrote a feature on the influencer.
With electioneering now in full swing, his videos have focused on that topic. He even interviewed Greens politician Max Chandler Mather on his YouTube channel.
Otherwise, he’s focussed on crowdfunding money to buy up spots on billboards to “expose” gas “SCAMS” around the world – even in Japan.
Sam Fricker
Fricker is an Australian Olympic diver turned political podcaster who gets the thirst clicks and clicks from political wonks – the best of both worlds.
At the time of writing, he’s got more than 160,000 followers on Instagram and his podcast – Diving Deep Podcast – has become a hotspot of political action in recent weeks.
While Albo might’ve favoured Chatfield’s podcast for his New Media appearance, the opposition leader Peter Dutton popped up on Diving Deep in January.
Impact so far
Dutton’s appearance on Diving Deep predated the official beginning of the election campaign, but it signalled that the Opposition leader was as interested in this new approach as his Labor counterpart.
Since then, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has made an appearance on Diving Deep, showing the blonde diver can straddle both sides of the aisle.
He even took Bowen for a ride in his electric vehicle. No, not a Tesla – an XPENG.
