Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers and Penny Wong breached election laws with undeclared paid promotions

The Labor Party paid for Anthony Albanese, and highly likely Jim Chalmers and Penny Wong, to do paid promotions with media company Diamantina Media which is the parent company of the Betoota Advocate website and Betoota Talks podcast.

In all three promotions, which was election advertising, with Anthony Albanese, Jim Chalmers and Penny Wong on the Betoota Talks podcast they failed to declare that Betoota Talks parent company was being paid for the promotions.

Nor did they comply with Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) laws and say who authorised the promotions at the end of the podcasts. For example, on TV ads at the end they say who authorised it and on posters at the bottom they say who authorised it. E.g. Authorised by Bob Smith for the Labor Party.

“Electoral content requires authorisation if it is designed to influence how someone votes and if it is paid for by a political party, candidate or “significant third party.””

For some reason the paid promotion on the Betoota Talks podcast with Anthony Albanese is not on their YouTube channel with Jim Chalmers, Penny Wong and other politicians.

Given Betoota Talks’ parent company Diamantina Media took payment from the ALP Secretariat for Anthony Albanese’s 39 minute promotion on their podcast you would have to assume Diamantina Media was also paid for the Jim Chalmers’ and Penny Wong’s podcasts.

Not declaring the payment for what is in effect paid advertising leaves the audience thinking they are listening to genuine interviews. 

The reason politicians pay the podcasters is to make sure they don’t get any hard questions like why labor set up a fake National Anti-Corruption Commission and why do Labor persecute whistleblowers etc.

If Diamantina Media CEO Antony Stockdale believed there was nothing wrong with the situation, then he would not have lied to the ABC in the first place.

But as you will see below Antony Stockdale has almost certainly lied again to cover-up the original lie.

The ABC reported on the 17th of April 2025:

Contract with ALP not disclosed due to ‘confidentiality’

Background Briefing (The ABC) was also told the people involved were asked to keep Diamantina Media’s role in organising interviews confidential.

When questioned by the ABC earlier this month, Diamantina Media CEO Antony Stockdale initially said it was only helping arrange interviews between Mr Albanese and podcast hosts from its own network.

“When it comes to podcasts on our network, yes, we are assisting,” Mr Stockdale said.

“We’ve had him [Mr Albanese] on The Circus [The Grade Cricketer], which is one of our podcasts. We’ve had him on Betoota Talks.”

Mr Stockdale denied there was any need to disclose any relationship at the time.

“This isn’t like a branded campaign on a social media platform where you have to declare a paid partnership or anything like that.

“We just go, look, this is the person to talk to on their end.”

Following that interview with Mr Stockdale, the ABC sighted correspondence with an external podcast host in which the Diamantina Media CEO divulged the company is running a podcast strategy for the PM.

When presented with that correspondence, Mr Stockdale admitted the ALP Secretariat has engaged Diamantina Media to provide advice on their engagement with “new media”, but said he was simply honouring his confidentiality agreement in his earlier comments.

“When you interviewed me I was respecting this confidentiality,” he said.

“In the interests of transparency I have sought approval from the ALP to reply to your questions now.”

Both the Prime Minister’s Office and Diamantina Media said the consultancy arrangement only started after the prime minister was interviewed on both Diamantina Media podcasts. (Click here to read more)

Diamantina Media CEO Antony Stockdale lied until he was presented with correspondence that showed he was lying and then said, “When you interviewed me I was respecting this confidentiality”.

He wasn’t respecting the confidentiality, he was lying. And why was there a confidentiality agreement anyhow? Obviously to conceal the fact that Labor was paying for adverting and they didn’t want to declare it.

Below is the Penny Wong promotion which they have titled “Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong – in her first ever podcast!” published on the 28th of April 2025.

It says in the description box, “Senator Penny Wong steps into the booth with Betoota this week, for her first ever podcast interview. The South Australian Labor heavyweight talks about her upbringing, family and what drew her to politics in the first place. How has Parliament changed since she was first elected? What are her greatest regrets in politics? The Foreign Minister explains what it’s like to juggle a Federal Election campaign and global trade wars at the same time. She also reveals her secret foodie past time, and her love of cricket.”. The podcast sounds a 42 minute advertisement to me.

AEC investigation into podcaster Abbie Chatfield’s interviews

The ABC reported on the 3rd of April 2025:

Podcast content shared by Abbie Chatfield of both Greens leader Adam Bandt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been given the all-clear by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), after it reviewed whether or not the content required authorisation.

But the AEC is continuing to look at whether the “cross-posting” of clips of the podcasts on Instagram between Ms Chatfield and the politicians’ own accounts means that they should be authorised by the parties and politicians.

The AEC said while Ms Chatfield’s podcasts could be seen as being made to influence how someone votes, there was no evidence there was any financial benefit to the podcaster.

“In addition, questions put to both interviewees were sourced from the podcast’s audience,” a spokesperson said.

“There is no evidence that either Mr Albanese or Mr Bandt had creative control in relation to the questions that were asked.”

and

Speaking generally, the AEC said content creators must authorise posts that are paid for or shared on behalf of a political entity. (Click here to read more)

The bottom line is there was no evidence that Abbie Chatfield was paid, so she was in the clear, unlike Diamantina Media.

Summary

Albanese’s office and “Diamantina Media said the consultancy arrangement only started after the prime minister was interviewed on both Diamantina Media podcasts.”

But the ABC story was published on the 17th of April and Penny Wong’s Betoota Talks podcast wasn’t published until the 28th of April which is after the agreement started and there was no declaration in her podcast. 

Does Anthony Albanese and Diamantina Media want us to believe that they were paid for podcasts for Albanese but not Albanese’s good friend Penny Wong? It doesn’t pass the pub test.

The reality is it is almost certain that Diamantina Media was being paid by Labor before Anthony Albanese did his interviews with Diamantina Media’s podcasts and was also paid for the Jim Chalmers and Penny Wong podcasts. It was only when they were caught out they started ducking and weaving.

If Anthony Albanese does an interview and then it says at the end “Authorised by Anthony Albanese for the Labor Party” the interview would lose all creditability and that is why Labor, and other political parties, try to avoid it if possible.

It is one thing to avoid making the proper declarations and it’s another to deliberately break election laws which I have no doubt was done by Prime Minster Anthony Albanese and his office.

If the above was a one-off situation you might cut them some slack but it is a concerted effort on an ongoing basis by the Labor Party and Prime Minister to manipulate the media and deceive voters during the election.

This article is a follow-up to previous articles where the Labor Party has been caught employing similar tactics.

On the 1st of December 2024 I published an article titled, Labor Party pays Friendlyjordies to promote Labor lies and propaganda” which starts off:

The Labor Party are using YouTuber Friendlyjordies, with 1.35 million followers on YouTube which averages about 250,000 views per video, to push Labor’s propaganda. (Click here to read more)

On the 27th of March 2025 I published an article titled, “Labor Party paid new media for budget propaganda” which starts off:

The Labor Party have paid travel costs for YouTube creators, independent journalists and so-called social media influencers, who were selected by the party and government ministers, and then given them preferential treatment not afforded other independent journalists. (Click here to read more)

It must be remembered the Labor Party only last year wanted to pass misinformation and disinformation laws to control what the public can and can’t say but what we really need is misinformation and disinformation laws to control the politicians.

Yes, most political parties do the same or similar, but it is always good to shine a light on their deception and it is next level when you can show the Prime Minister and/or his office are involved in breaking the law.