Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second this bill introduced by the member for Warringah and commend her for the hard work she's done in this area over several years. We've seen a steady decline over 20 years in voter satisfaction with democracy, trust in government and political efficacy. Liberal democracies around the world face significant challenges as lies in political advertising have become more shameless and their delivery more sophisticated. We saw this in the referendum debate but we've seen scare campaigns before from both sides of politics, such as those involving Medicare and death taxes.

Until now, we've been willing to mandate strong protections for consumers against lies and deception in business but not in political communications. Voters deserve protection from lies in politics, too. Banning lies in political ads has broad support. An exit poll on referendum day shows an overwhelming majority of Australians support truth in political advertising laws, regardless of their referendum vote or their political affiliation. Voters don't want to be lied to. It's obvious.

In his submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Professor George Williams argued:

Truth is fundamental to democracy. When citizens cannot tell fact from fiction, and leaders spread falsehoods for political advantage, society as a whole is damaged.

The Australia Institute said:

… voters should go to the polls armed with the facts. It is perfectly legal to lie in a political ad & it shouldn't be.

Stopping lies in political communications was supported by the ALP in its submission to the JSCEM inquiry, the Australian Greens and many on the crossbench. So, who is against this? Who is openly arguing against the idea of banning lies? Advance Australia is currently running a scare campaign claiming the regulation of lies and political advertising will 'hit solid citizens with unfair criminal convictions'. They say, ' Faceless bureaucrats and big tech will decide what's true and what isn't'. This position is backed by the Liberals and Nationals who are increasingly occupying the space at the Trumpy end of the political spectrum. But making findings of fact is not a new concept; our judicial system does it every day. Giving up on the ability to make determinations of fact would seriously erode trust in our system of government.

We must balance freedom of speech against a democratic right to be informed by focusing our regulation on purported statements of fact rather than opinions or ideas in contested areas. The best response to the objection that it's all too hard is that this has been operating successfully in South Australia since 1985. It makes politicians think twice about what they say. The government now has a choice: progress reforms like this with the support of the crossbench or accept Advance Australia's premise, backed by the opposition, that protecting the right to tell lies is more important than protecting Australian voters and their democratic right to be informed. I will continue to work constructively in the interests of protecting and improving our democracy through reforms like this one.

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