Standing up for integrity in politics 

With the federal election just around the corner, incumbent politicians and new candidates are promoting their policies and vision for their electorates and Australia. When democracy is at its best, we see a strong and vocal contest of ideas – and the best of the best are ultimately decided at the ballot box. But the reality is a little murkier – with fear, smear and misinformation providing an unhelpful diversion from a sensible debate on how to truly take Australia forward. 

You’ve probably already seen a flyer in your letterbox twisting the facts, or a social media ad designed to mislead and discredit. With AI tools now being used to generate fake content, the threat is growing fast. These are coming from many sources, often the old parties trying to hold on to power through misinformation but also third-party organisations, mostly backed by oil and gas with Liberal members at their helm, like Advance Australia, Australians for Prosperity and Australians for Natural Gas. 

This term, for every piece of legislation that I have voted on, I’ve considered each on its merits and sought to represent Warringah. This means I have voted with Labor 51% of the time, the Coalition 52% of the time and the Greens 55% of the time. However, the Liberal Party’s promotional material misleadingly cherry picks the votes it includes. Also, I attend 91% of votes compared to Peter Dutton’s 41%. 

Right now, Australia has no federal laws to stop political advertising from being deceptive or misleading. The Government had the opportunity to fix this, in fact it was a 2022 election promise. Yet they lacked the political will to make it happen and preferred to do a deal with the Coalition to shelf political advertising reform in exchange for donation reform that seeks to embed old party advantage and limit competition. 

We know it is possible to outlaw misleading political advertising because South Australia has done it for over forty years – and they enjoy a better quality of political debate because of it.

As your Independent MP, I’ve been working to strengthen our democracy, ensuring truth and accountability are at the heart of political debate. I introduced Voter Protections Bills which would ban misleading political advertising. We protect consumers from being scammed by misleading and deceptive advertising, we need to protect voters. 

In the face of the old parties voting to keep lying in their ads, I have also launched the voluntary Ethical Political Advertising Code. EPAC calls on all political candidates and campaigners to commit that political advertising material must be: 

1. Accurate, not misleading or deceptive
2. Precise and substantiated
3. Credible endorsements (including clearly labelling any AI generated or manipulated content)

At a time when trust in politics is low, I believe we can raise the standard. So, if you see something that doesn’t look right this election season, ask questions, seek facts and visit trusted sources. And know that I’ll keep fighting to ensure truth in political advertising isn’t the exception – it’s the rule.