Greens caught out for making up a fictional attack ad against their own party

The Greens have been caught out for making up an attack ad against their own party, in a bid for donations. 

Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Greens MP for Ryan, Queensland, posted the fabricated attack ad to social media on Tuesday.

It showed a menacing green goblin with the words, ‘The Greens are coming to get you’. 

The photo depicted the ad plastered on a political advertising truck parked outside Ms Watson-Brown’s Taringa office.  

‘Do you know who’s funding attack ads on the Greens?’ she wrote in the accompanying post. 

‘It turns out far right groups with close links to billionaires, coal and gas corporations and the Liberal Party are spending big to stop the Greens and me.’

She included a link for donations to her campaign, urging her followers to ‘please chip in to my fightback fund’.

But the attack ad in the post did not exist.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown, Greens MP for Ryan, Queensland, posted the doctored ad to social media on Tuesday

A client did take out ads with a truck owned by SST Advertising parked outside Ms Watson-Brown’s office, but the company has confirmed the green goblin ad was of the Greens’ own making.

Instead the truck included the words, ‘The Greens will tax your inheritance,’ and ‘The Greens will increase immigration in a housing crisis’. 

Ms Watson-Brown’s followers appeared to take the goblin ad seriously, however.

‘Says a lot that these false scare campaigns are best these groups can come up with. Vote Greens,’ one wrote.

Larissa Waters, Greens senator for Queensland, also shared the fake ad earlier this week and received supportive comments. 

‘That’s what conservatives do. Attack anyone on the left,’ one said.  

The party was unapologetic when asked about the image on Thursday, claiming they were ‘spoofs’ satirising real ads. 

Ms Watson-Brown included a link for donations to her campaign, urging her followers to ‘please chip in to my fightback fund’

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and Greens leader Adam Bandt at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra

‘It’s absolutely true that billionaire-backed right wing lobby groups are attacking the Greens because they know we’ll push to tax billionaires to fund things like dental into Medicare,’ a Greens spokesperson told the Courier Mail. 

‘If these Liberal Party front groups are really concerned that our gremlin-inspired spoofs might be mistaken for their real ads, that shows just how silly their ads are.’