The political fringes dominate social media. How is your MP doing?

Right-wing firebrands and independent MPs are winning the fight for Australian social media dominance, leaving the major parties behind as politicians attempt to create election-winning brands online.

From the quasi-influencers of the crossbench to powerful ministers who fly under the radar, dancing dolphin trainers to shirtless rugby players, this masthead has collated the online followings of all 226 members of federal parliament.

Pulled from Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok during the first parliamentary fortnight that ended on July 31, the data shows the rise of the right, the power of the Senate, and the lacklustre online performance of some of our most senior politicians.

The numbers

Australia’s federal politicians collectively have 17 million followers across the four platforms. That’s an average of 74,000 per politician. US President Donald Trump has 108 million followers on X alone, though he posts primarily on his own network, Truth Social.

Overseas, political figures such as New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, UK conservative justice spokesman Robert Jenrick, and a swath of Republican figures in the United States have built political careers through constant social media posts.

Every Australian federal parliamentarian is active on at least one platform, with 99.5 per cent of politicians using Facebook and Instagram. X comes next, with 68 per cent using Elon Musk’s platform that was once known as Twitter, followed by TikTok, which 45 per cent use despite security concerns.

Government ministers average 149,000 followers each, substantially more than shadow ministers, who average 44,000. Backbenchers and members of the crossbench average around 60,000 followers each.

Ministers have larger staff than most parliamentarians, with more capacity to produce social content, and tend to have been in parliament for longer. They also have policies they can claim personal credit for, providing a steady flow of talking points to turn into TikToks and reels.

Senators, on average, have almost double the followers of House of Representatives members, with around 105,000 for the upper house, and 58,000 for the lower. The Senate hosts eight of the top 10 most followed politicians, despite being half the size of the House of Representatives.

Senators have much larger constituencies than House of Reps members, and for those representing states, are elected for six-year terms. That’s less time spent campaigning and more time on the apps.

Representatives from the ACT and the Northern Territory have the highest average follower counts. However, those numbers are heavily skewed by the popularity of David Pocock and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Including Pocock, the ACT average is 186,000. Without him, it’s 55,000. With Price, the NT average is 110,000. Without her, it’s 26,000.

Ed Coper, political strategist at campaign agency Populares, which has worked with teal campaigns, said there were two paths to success on social media.

“You can either be authentic or you can be angry … it’s a bit like a sugar hit,” he said. “The easiest and quickest and cheapest way to get that sugar hit is through the emotion of anger.”

The successful ...

With almost 2 million followers, Anthony Albanese is the most followed politician in parliament. His team posts professionally produced content across all four platforms, often posting multiple times a day.

However, his following may be less of a ringing endorsement and more of a perk of the job. Scott Morrison has 1.5 million followers, without having a TikTok account. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, who has only been in the job since after the May election, has only 71,000 followers.

Trailing a million followers behind the PM is Pauline Hanson, whose 600,000 Facebook followers push her into second place. Hanson said she liked using social media because it gave her a chance to show “another side” of herself. The side that knits sweaters and has run ins with non-venomous snakes on the back deck of her Queensland home.

“People might meet me and say, ‘Gee, I feel as if I’ve known you all my life, and it’s the first time I’ve ever met you’,” Hanson said. “It’s a way of connecting with people.”

Her accounts are also a home for the animated series Please Explain, which sends up left-wing politics. It is highly popular but has been met with accusations of being offensive.

Hanson said she is regularly approached by fans of the series, especially children. “I want to engage people in politics, to empower them into understanding politics because they’ve got to decide, and vote for the right people that’s going to represent them,” she said.

On average, federal One Nation representatives are the most followed of any party on average, with 375,000 followers each. However, the party only has four members. New senators Tyron Whitten and Warwick Stacey significantly drag down the party’s average with their respective 5000 and 800 followers.

At the last election, the party received just 5.7 per cent of the first preference vote in the Senate.

Hanson said she used the platforms because they offered her direct communication to constituents without “the opinions of some of the journalists out there that put a spin on it”.

The Greens – with 11 members – have a more uniform success as the second most followed party with 137,000 followers per representative.

Liberal senator Alex Antic, who has channelled US-style culture wars online, is the most followed opposition backbencher. More than half of his 280,000 followers are on Facebook, the most successful platform for the conservative wings of parliament.

“When it comes to social media, I have never really considered a particular strategy,” Antic said. “I just address topics like the net zero scam, the corrosive diversity, equity and inclusion agenda and the war on masculinity. There are clearly many Australians who agree with me.”

Antic primarily posts videos of him appearing on Sky News programs or speaking in the Senate, alongside clips from his podcast, Based, which he says is all about “cutting-edge conservatism” free of “woke nonsense”. On Facebook, Instagram and X, Antic follows only one person: Donald Trump.

The Coalition’s top performers all come from their right wing. Alongside Antic and Price in the Coalition’s top five are opposition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie, Jason Wood, the Coaliton’s spokesman for international development and the Pacific, and senator Matthew Canavan.

On the other side of the aisle, dolphin-trainer-turned-politician Sam Lim is the most followed government backbencher. He has taken a softer approach to social media.

On Facebook, the West Australian MP for the affluent Perth seat of Tangney has a series of videos called “tastes of Tangney”, where he tours restaurants in his electorate. On TikTok, he dances in a Christmas hat, celebrates being gifted novelty plates with pictures of dolphins, and poses alongside cartoon character Bluey.

“I think a lot of followers are maybe curious about me,” Lim said. “So maybe they come and have a look. I want to bring happiness, joy and peace to people. And I think people relate. I’m a normal human being and I might be a politician, but I also do real things.”

Welcoming his followers to a second term in parliament, Lim filmed himself cooking sambal salmon and eggs in an electric frying pan at his office kitchenette. The video conjured memories from last term when Labor senator Helen Polley posted a viral TikTok video of her hard-boiling eggs wrapped in foil in her office’s microwave.

Coper, who has also worked with Labor on strategy, said: “The things that make you successful on social media are in some ways anathema to how political parties work, which are tightly controlled, centralised structures.”

Coper said that for politicians, social media was a push-and-pull action dictated by the electoral cycle.

“To be successful, you need to build a movement, you need to persuade people ... but when you’re trying to win an election, you need to reach people who either have never heard of you or disagree with you and convince them. And so those are two completely different challenges.”

One politician who has made an art of this process is Pocock, the former rugby union international turned ACT senator. Before he announced his intentions to run for the Senate at the 2022 election, Pocock had about 220,000 followers on Instagram. His following has now grown to 352,000, second only to Albanese on the platform, after adding 50,000 during the 2025 election campaign.

With 712,000 total followers, he is the fourth-most followed politician in parliament, though only 6 per cent of his following lives in Canberra.

Pocock’s team provided a breakdown of where the accounts of his followers are located. About 15 per cent of the senator’s followers came from Sydney, and a further 10 per cent from Melbourne. Overseas followers, particularly in the rugby-mad Pacific Islands, comprise 38 per cent of his following.

“I still see value if you’re actually talking about things that you think matter, and you’re really genuinely trying to engage,” Pocock said of his broader following. “If you’re listening to the community and talking about issues, they generally resonate across the country.”

Many of the independents swept into parliament at the 2022 election have made a habit of regularly posting to social media, particularly Instagram, to explain policy or consult their constituents.

Allegra Spender, MP for Wentworth in Sydney, cuts up a cake to explain the federal tax system. Monique Ryan, the MP for Kooyong in Melbourne, sits in her car and asks her followers to tell her their experience with unpaid prac placements during university. Mackellar MP Sophie Scamps goes for a walk in her electorate on Sydney’s northern beaches to talk about cost-of-living pressures.

Despite Pocock’s success on the platforms – bolstered by the occasional “thirst trap” of the senator exercising shirtless – he said any MPs who overfocused on social media would do so “at your peril”.

“We see it as just part of the job,” he said. “It’s fun trying to work out how you engage people. What are other ways that you can make politics interesting and meaningful to people, because it is.”

… and not so successful

Despite senators having more followers on average, a seat in the chamber doesn’t ensure social media success. Four of the five least-followed parliamentarians are senators. At the bottom of the pack are newly elected Tasmanian Labor senators Josh Dolega and Richard Dowling, who have about 500 and 600 followers respectively.

For those with titles, newly selected senator Leah Blyth has the smallest following of any shadow minister, with just under 1200 followers. South Australian senator Don Farrell – who has 15 more years in parliament than Blyth – has the fewest of any minister, with 10,000 followers, despite being a major factional powerbroker and leading negotiations with foreign powers as trade minister.

Coalition MPs have an average of 41,00 followers, the lowest of any party, in part because of the loss of high-profile MPs at the election and the lack of ministerial positions.

With 104 followers on Instagram, Labor’s Tony Zappia isn’t even followed by his party’s whole caucus.

Other shortcomings are less data-driven. Labor senator Dorinda Cox, for example, falls somewhere in the middle of the pack. Her TikTok is yet to be updated to reflect that she is no longer a member of the Greens.

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