April 24, 2025

Australian Election and Politicians’ Presence on Alternative Platforms

TLDR

Leading up to the Australian election, Open Measures identified four Australian politicians with accounts on Gettr and/or Truth Social.
With the exception of Senator Ralph Babet, no Australian politicians identified have been active on these platforms in 2025.
Our investigation suggests that these platforms are more popular with US politicians of the far-right than their Australian counterparts.
Australian’s richest person, billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart, invested in Truth Social in early 2025. Rinehart has publicly endorsed Trump-style politics and has backed Peter Dutton’s “Coalition”.

Background

Ahead of the federal election on May 3, 2025, Australia’s two major parties, the center-left Labor Party and center-right Liberal Party, are squaring up. Smaller but still influential parties, such as the progressive Greens and Pauline Hanson’s conservative One Nation Party, are also vying for greater influence.

As alt-tech platforms have gained popularity, they have tended to amplify far-right views. Given this context, Open Measures decided to assess the presence of Australian politicians on alt-tech platforms.

Ultimately, we focused our research on Gettr and Truth Social, both American platforms. Gettr is a microblogging platform launched in July 2021. Likewise, Truth Social, Donald Trump’s platform, launched months later in February 2022. Both are popular among American conservatives.

It has also been reported that Australia’s wealthiest person, Gina Rinehart (via her mining company), holds a $2b position in US stocks which includes Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social. She has also poured millions into the upcoming election via donations to the “Coalition” which is an alignment of the center-right and right-wing Australian political parties.¹

Analysis

Through our research, we identified a small number of currently-seated, federally-elected politicians on these platforms. We also found accounts belonging to political candidates, retired and local politicians, and a political party. However, these additional accounts are excluded from this piece.

Australian Politicians

Our researchers found four Australian politicians with accounts on Gettr and Truth Social:

Politician	Account	Verified?
Ralph Babet	@senatorbabet on Truth Social	No, but Babet’s official website contains a link to the @senatorbabet account on Truth Social
	@senatorbabet on Gettr	Yes
Gerard Rennick	@senatorrennick on Truth Social	Yes
	@senatorrennick on Gettr	Yes
Alex Antic	@alexantic on Gettr	Yes
Matthew Canavan	@mattjcan on Gettr	Yes

There may be other seated Australian politicians active on Gettr and Truth Social. However, these four were the only accounts we identified in the course of our research.

Ralph Babet

Senator Ralph Babet is far and away the most active of the Australian politicians on both Truth Social and Gettr.

Representing the Australian state of Victoria, Babet is a member of the United Australia Party (UAP). The UAP was founded and has largely been bankrolled by mining magnate and bombastic businessman Clive Palmer. Babet is the only UAP member in the Australian Parliament,² and his term expires in 2028. The UAP voluntarily deregistered itself in 2022,³ and after an unsuccessful attempt to re-register the party, Palmer took over the conservative Trumpet of Patriots party in early 2025.⁴ During this, Babet has remained with the UAP, though has voiced support for the Trumpet of Patriots.

Senator Babet’s account on Gettr, showing “Joined August 2022.”

Though only Babet’s Gettr account is officially verified, the Truth Social account we identified is almost certainly his as well. Both accounts have identical handles (@senatorbabet), post identical content at similar times, and are both referenced on Babet’s official website.⁵

*Contact information on Ralph Babet’s official website includes links to his profiles on Gettr and Truth Social, spotlighted in yellow.*

Babet is quite active on both Gettr and Truth Social. In 2024, Babet posted an average of ~67 times per month on Gettr. In 2025, Babet’s posts have often focused on anti-wokeness, free speech concerns, and the merits of the Trumpet of Patriots party.

*Graph of Babet’s monthly post volume on Gettr from January 2024 through March 2025. Researchers used the query* ***uinf.username:”senatorbabet”***.

*Graph of Babet’s monthly post volume on Truth Social from January 2024 through March 2025. Researchers used the query* ***account.acct:”senatorbabet”****. Both this graph and the above Gettr graph show similar posting behavior.*

As an aside, Babet has shared articles from the far-right Australian news outlet The Noticer.⁶ In an investigation by the ABC, they found that “headlines were often crafted to push a less overt white nationalist agenda into the political discourse.” We have previously researched how The Noticer plays an outsized role in the Australian white nationalist scene.

Other Australian Politicians

Researchers also identified accounts for:

Senator Gerard Rennick for Queensland (formerly of the Liberal National Party but currently a member of his own People First Party)
Senator Matthew Canavan for Queensland (of the Liberal National Party)
Senator Alex Antic for South Australia (of the Liberal Party of Australia)

All party affiliations above were taken from the official website of the Australian Parliament.⁷ All three politicians have verified accounts on Gettr and/or Truth Social, though all are currently inactive.

Senator Canavan created his verified Gettr account in January 2022 and posted semi-regularly until October 2022. Since then, there have been no new posts on the account.

Senator Canavan’s verified Gettr account is no longer active.

Similarly, Senator Rennick was active for about one year on Gettr, and his first post was on May 11, 2022. His final post was nearly a year later, on May 17, 2023.

*Graph of Senator Rennick’s monthly post volume on Gettr from March 1, 2022, to March 31, 2025. Researchers used the query* ***uinf.username:”senatorrennick”***.

A few months after Rennick’s Gettr account became inactive, a verified account for Rennick appeared on Truth Social. This verified account has never posted.

Senator Rennick’s verified Truth Social account, which has never posted.

Senator Antic’s verified Gettr account currently has no posts or bio. According to data indexed by Open Measures, however, the account bio once read:

Authorised by Senator Alex Antic Liberal Party of Australia (South Australian Division) Adelaide SA.

Senator Antic’s verified account on Gettr.

Interestingly, its posting history appears to have been erased. Despite the Gettr account currently showing no posts, our historical data shows that from January 2022 to April 2023, Senator Antic posted regularly, authoring 257 posts. It remains unclear why all the account’s posts were erased.

*Graph of Senator Antic’s posting activity on Gettr from January 2022 through December 2024. All of Antic’s posts have since been removed from the account.*

Conclusion

Unlike US politicians, very few Australian politicians have accounts on Truth Social and Gettr. Even so, the handful of accounts we uncovered suggest that Gettr is the more popular platform.

Posting activity on these platforms appears to have peaked in 2022 and 2023, around the time these accounts were being created. Though 2025 is an election year and the election is now less than two weeks away, the only politician Open Measures researchers found actively posting on these platforms was UAP Senator Ralph Babet.

Despite Babet’s close ties and frequent promotion of the Trumpet of Patriots party, neither the Trumpet of Patriots’ Chairperson Clive Palmer nor party leader Suellen Wrightson have accounts on either platform. Further, the same is true for prominent far-right figures such as Senator Pauline Hanson and Senator Malcolm Roberts.

This research suggests that alt-tech platforms that have gained popularity with far-right politicians in the US have yet to do the same in Australia. However, that may be starting to change. Gina Rinehart — Australia’s richest person — and her company Hancock Prospecting recently invested over $2 billion into US stocks, including Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social.⁸ Rinehart is a vocal proponent of Trump-style politics in Australia, and has been cultivating ties with Trump-aligned leader Peter Dutton.⁹ Gina Rinehart via her Hancock Prospecting company is also a major donor to Dutton’s Coalition, an alliance of the center-right and right-wing parties in Australia.

The upcoming election could be a telling moment for Australian far-right politics and it’s worth considering how this moment plays out in online spaces.

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