Ms Liz Carolan:

I thank the Senator. Our existing electoral laws have three values that we care about. The first is that we limit money, the second is that we limit the franchise, and the third is that we demand openness, traceability and scrutiny in political campaigns. We do not live in a world where we can apply that for the eight or 12 weeks before an election, nor do we live in a world where we have X number of political parties and some Independents who are the only actors participating in the run-up to elections, never mind referendum campaigns. What the electoral commission could do, at a minimum, is enforce the openness and traceability piece in online discussions that happen all the time. I am referring to transparency not only in political advertising but also in all other advertising. There are many grey areas. For example, if one is selling feminist T-shirts, does that count as political activity or commercial activity? One can get into very murky territory. The more one imposes limits, however, the more one is just penalising the good actors and then keeping the bad actors and their activities hidden. I would like to see the electoral commission having a mandate and the ability to enforce openness and transparency on platforms. We cannot rely on their goodwill, especially when we do not know what the next big thing is going to be, or the big thing after that.

Advertisements are an issue because they are about money and financial transactions. This is something we regulate. The Internet is toxic; it is awful. It is an awful place. We need to be investing in public service broadcasting because we know that matters. It matters that people have reliable sources of information to counter bad information. If one spends too much time focusing on how to deal with the bad information and not enough on how to counter it with good-quality information, it is an issue. There are a few organisations internationally, such as First Draft and Data & Society, that have done some really good research on this. That is important.