The Liberal Party has made history by releasing Australia’s first political advertisement fully created using artificial intelligence. While the ad will only be aired in Canberra, its potential ramifications could be significant, especially with a federal election on the horizon.
The creative force behind the ad is Topham Guerin, a digital agency known for its successful work on Scott Morrison’s 2019 election campaign. This time, the agency has employed AI-generated deepfake technology to portray ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr.
In the ad, an AI-generated voiceover states, “Every time it is time to vote, Bob votes for the same party. After 20 years of broken promises – we’re not happy, Andrew”.
The voice over was accompanied by an AI depiction of Barr and a number of news headlines, including “ED wait times languish at nation’s worst” and “Housing crisis set to intensify in ‘unhealthy’ market”.
The use of AI marks uncharted territory for political campaigns in Australia. By contrast, South Korea imposes penalties of up to seven years in prison for creating deepfake content to sway elections.
The use of AI and altered content has been hotly debated over the last few months but has primarily remained on social media platforms. Earlier this year, a video of The Liberal-National Party in Queensland came under fire after it posted a video to TikTok showing Queensland Premier Steven Miles dancing to a popular song.
@liberalnationalparty Wrong priorities. #stevenmiles #labor #lnp #queensland ♬ 오리지널 사운드 – 김모이 (Kim Moi)
The video, which was labelled with a disclaimer saying that it was created with AI, has led to calls for a crackdown on political advertising laws in Queensland to prevent misinformation or deception. Experts have said that although the video was labelled as AI, there was no guarantee that other fake content before the 26 October state election would do the same.
“No one benefits from a race to the bottom where fake content is used to ridicule political rivals,” director of the Australia Institute’s Democracy and Accountability program Bill Browne said.
The Liberal Party’s AI-generated political ad raises significant concerns about regulating misleading political content in Australia, particularly as AI advances rapidly. The lack of legislation governing political advertising has created a loophole that allows political parties to make false or misleading claims without consequence, as seen with the Labor Party’s 2022 ads about the Cashless Debit Card scheme that reportedly had no real basing in reality.
This contrasts sharply with penalties imposed on corporate advertising, such as Samsung Australia’s $14 million fine for misleading claims about its Galaxy handsets’ water resistance. In 2022, the Federal Court’s ruling against Samsung, alongside unprosecuted political ads, highlighted what many Australians suspect: there are two sets of rules—one for corporations and another for politicians.
Although corporate entities face strict penalties for false advertising, political parties continue to exploit the absence of federal laws prohibiting deceitful campaign messages.
Independent Senator David Pocock has warned of the threat this poses to democracy, especially as AI-generated content becomes more sophisticated and harder to regulate under existing laws.
“I think we should be taking this threat very seriously,” Pocock warned. “My concern is that the government and the parliament are asleep at the wheel.”
