The data-mining company Cambridge Analytica, one of the key backroom operatives of Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House, will meet on Thursday night with representatives of the Liberal party, government staff and parliamentarians, including the veterans’ affairs minister, Dan Tehan.
The company, which uses controversial “psychographic” methods to identify which particular messages are most persuasive to voters, is looking to set up shop in Australia, and Thursday night’s dinner has been organised by the Liberal party secretariat.
Sources are describing the soiree as a fact-finding exercise, given the firm was at the centre of the Trump campaign, and not any indication the Liberal party intends to move away from its longstanding campaign advisers, Crosby Textor.
While there is keen local interest in the company’s methods, senior officials from Australia’s major parties are also expressing caution about the operation.
One Liberal source told Guardian Australia: “Cultural cringe-style fascination with imported political techniques is something that rightly died 30 years ago in Australia – we have far more sophisticated data and messaging tools here, now, on all sides of politics, which are being successfully exported, not imported.”
Another said: “This is simple information gathering to see whether there is substance behind the company’s rhetoric.”
A Labor figure said party members had heard from data vendors in Australia that Cambridge Analytica had been suggesting during pitches it already had a relationship with the ALP. “These guys are trying to get a foot in the door but we are about as likely to work with them as we are likely to work with Steve Bannon’s other outlets.”
The US hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, a major financial backer of Trump, reportedly has a $10m stake in Cambridge Analytica, which has operations in the US. The parent company is based in the UK.
The reclusive Mercer is also an investor in Breitbart News. Bannon – Trump’s chief strategist – reportedly persuaded Mercer to invest both in Breitbart News and in the data analytics company.
Cambridge Analytica’s website says it collects up to 5,000 data points on more than 220 million Americans, “and use more than 100 data variables to model target audience groups and predict the behaviour of like-minded people”.
The firm uses personality profiling – measuring openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism – to design advertising and political messaging designed to appeal specifically to consumers.
It says it uses the personality profiling to “make unique connections between people who might look different to each other but who deep down are driven by the same needs and want the same things”.
The company’s chief executive, Alexander Nix, has reportedly said: “Persuading somebody to vote a certain way, is really very similar to persuading 14- to 25-year-old boys in Indonesia to not join al-Qaida.”
The firm initially worked for Ted Cruz’s campaign, which paid Cambridge Analytica more than $5m to help identify voters in the Iowa caucuses – before switching to the Trump campaign.
The Washington Post reported the Trump campaign was given data on a computerised dashboard that offered recommendations “such as where to hold rallies, where volunteers should knock on doors, where potential donors live and where television ads should be placed”.
Reports suggest the Trump camp also made a substantial investment, paying $5m to the company in one month alone.
But the methods have generated considerable controversy and not everyone in professional politics is sold on the methodology.
One Republican political consultant quoted by the Spectator in December, said: “Their thesis is people don’t know what they think about politics but we can anticipate what they will think based on their personality types.
“That’s nonsense.”
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