Teal MP launches truth in political ads campaign, with support from adland execs
Teal MP Zali Steggall has called on political advertising to pass the same “truth tests” as commercial advertising, teaming up with adland’s Michael McConville to push the campaign.
The Member for Warringah has written the “Ethical Political Advertising Code,” which asks politicians, candidates, adland, marketing executives, and “real people” to commit to truth in political advertising.
(Midjourney)
The push comes after recent research from Ideally found that only 17% of Australians truly understand that political ads are not legally required to be truthful. An overwhelming majority (94%) think it should be illegal to publish ads that are inaccurate or misleading.
It is the latest in an ongoing campaign for greater regulation in political advertising for Steggall, who previously introduced the Stop the Lies Bill in 2021, and again in 2022 with amendments to include referendums. Then, in 2023 she proposed it again as the Voters Protections Bill.
Now she believes that with the help of advertising executives, her campaign has a better chance of making change.
Speaking with Mumbrella, Steggall said it’s time to “close the loophole”.
“Voters make a decision based on the information available to them. And if they’re getting misleading and defective information, then they’re getting scammed essentially,” she said. “And it’s a classic case where political parties, when they’re in opposition, will say they support it. But look, Labor now in Government have completely failed to act on this.
“The new code is voluntary, but it’s a commitment for those who accept it, that advertising will be accurate, not misleading. It will be precise and substantiated.”
Steggall has teamed up with advertising executive Michael McConville, former global CEO of Cummins and Partners. McConville — who officially launched his new creative shop Free Studio last month — is now attempting to rally the troops, having conversations with agency bosses and marketing executives to get behind the code.
So far, Ideally, creative agency Brains Design — who helped McConville develop the code — and Thinkerbell’s Adam Ferrier have thrown their support behind it.
(L-R): Teal MP Zali Steggall, Free Studio’s Michael McConville
McConville argued this is a space where “there are two sets of rules — haves and haves nots — and the people that are supposed to be held to the highest standard are actually being held to the lowest possible standard of advertising” in Australia.
He said the onus lies on adland, just as much as it does on politicians, to change this.
“Most people in our industry are really positive, good players, and work their socks off to uphold truth in the things they communicate … But we’re also now sitting here waiting for the rules to change. We could do that forever though, maybe it’s time that we inform ourselves and undertake some of that change on our own.”
Politicians and academics have long pointed to the deep problems with regulating political communication.
Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication at La Trobe University, said she commends Steggall for what she is trying to achieve, but admitted it is a complex field with no straightforward answers.
“Across Australia, it’s a fairly polarised debate on truth in political advertising. You’ve got really strong advocates for it, and you’ve got those that are less supportive of it. When you start to look at what is a lie, who determines where truth is, all those things, it’s really complex,” she told Mumbrella.
“The devil will be in the details.”
One of Carson’s arguments is that political communication has too broad a definition, and some mediums are “not necessarily testable” in terms of whether they’re factual or not.
“Not everything can be verified. Some of it is opinion. And then you get into who’s the arbitrator of whether something is truthful or not. And that’s highly problematic, it’s not easily measurable.”
Steggall said her code is not about restricting opinion.
“Opinion is legitimate, opinion forms part of a society where we have freedom of speech, but opinion has to be clearly marked as that, rather than presented as fact,” she said.
“A question of opinion is something quite different. And the High Court has always said freedom of speech is not freedom to lie.”
Federally, there are currently very limited laws when it comes to truth and political advertising. The only truth requirement in federal electoral advertising falls under Section 329 of the Electoral Act, which addresses misleading or deceptive communication specific to the act of casting a vote.
On a State Government level, South Australia and the ACT have their own truth in political advertising legislation.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) instead requires authorisation statements on all political content to help voters identify the source of what they’re seeing, hearing, or reading. Beyond that, there is no national regulation.
Political authorisation is required
The discourse around truth in political communication has been raised on a number of occasions to the AEC, including during Parliamentary hearings.
“We’ve provided consistent commentary and assistance on this topic when asked, especially on the question of how these laws could be administered to preserve the AEC’s strong reputation for political neutrality,” an AEC spokesperson wrote in a statement sent to Mumbrella.
“While putting forward the view that the AEC should not be the body responsible for administering any truth in political advertising laws, we have always emphasised that our first responsibility is to enact electoral laws set by the Parliament, whatever they may be.”
At the end of last year, the Albanese Government did attempt to legislate federal truth in political advertising laws, but they did not pass.
“To this end, the AEC was engaged in the development of the legislation to provide advice from an operational perspective, to assist the Government in its deliberation of these potential laws last term,” the AEC spokesperson wrote to Mumbrella.
The Ethical Political Advertising Code addresses several key issues, including the absence of requirements for factual accuracy, and safeguards against AI-generated content that can mislead voters.
Monica Attard, Professor of Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney, and co-director of the Centre for Media Transition shared her concerns of how generative AI could change the equation.
In principle, generative AI is already advanced enough to be used at scale in election campaigns — for example, via mass distributed email or text, which some fringe parties are notorious for — and political candidates could potentially be taking advantage of that.
But the problem may go beyond that, according to Attard.
“Technically, they can even use generative AI chatbots to allow two-way communication with voters,” she told Mumbrella.
“That means that rather than voters being passive recipients of information, people can ask questions and LLM programmed bots can respond — and the responses can be in English or in any other targeted language across any demographic. But as always, much of how extensively chatbots are used depends on how personal data is regulated.”
(iStock/Boy Wirat)
So if the AEC does not believe it should be responsible for regulating truth in political advertising, like its state-based commissioner peers, who should be responsible instead?
For commercial advertising, The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) develops and reviews codes, while its independent arm Ad Standards administers them, managing the complaint resolution process.
Typically, an advertiser is given five days to respond to the Ad Standards decision. The case report is then published within 10 days of the Community Panel decision. If the advertiser does not comply, Ad Standards may choose to pursue other enforcement options.
Steggall proposed a similar body be established within the AEC to undertake the verification process. An independent, perhaps community-driven, body.
“That way you’re not putting in question the independence or the reputation of the AEC.”
Carson opposed this, saying if regulation falls under the auspices of the AEC, it will question its independence.
“Having an independent body is a good idea… But we’re talking about political communication, which is different to commercial products. It depends on how that independent body is formulated, who is on it, how often it’s refreshed, and what protections it has to stop it becoming politicised.”
Bottom line, according to Steggall, is that “if we decide we value our voting rights in the same way as we value our consumer rights, then we should offer the same protections”.
Mumbrella also contacted Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh for comment. Neither of the major parties responded prior to publication.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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I do not think any political party, especially a ‘Simon Says Teal’ have anything to say on “transparency”
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