BUSINESS

Ms LE (Fowler) (12:12): I second the motion. As the member said, and as you also mentioned, Mr Speaker, today is International Day of Democracy. The member for Warringah's Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Voter Protections in Political Advertising) Bill 2026 rests on a simple principle: that Australians deserve the truth when they are being asked to cast their vote.

That should not be a hard question for our political leaders. The fact that it even needs to be made in 2026 is quite extraordinary. Our democracy depends on healthy, robust debate.

It needs competing ideas and competing visions about who's best able to shoulder the responsibility of representing their community. But, for democracy to work and to thrive, what is put before voters must be honest. Too often, campaigns become a race to debunk claims that should never have been made in the first place.

When the member for Warringah first introduced this bill, she shared stories of community independents being targeted by third-party campaigns during the 2025 federal election. I can tell this House that my community was also targeted. I found out, by chance, at the end of a prepoll day.

Going home at night, I listen to meditation. I turned on my YouTube channel, and what did I see? I saw photos of me next to the then opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and the words 'a vote for Dai Le is a vote for Dutton'.

There were many untruths in that ad. At prepoll booths, posters were displayed falsely claiming I was preferencing the Liberals over Labor. I did not preference anyone, but that mattered little.

I gave my community a guide and I told them to number the boxes as they saw fit, because that is their right and choice. As a matter of fact, on the how-to-vote card Labor was above the Liberals, therefore that was already false—because, if the number was going downwards, I would have preferenced Labor before the Liberals. My team challenged the posters the day before the election.

The wording was changed from 'a vote for'; it became 'a risk of'. It was still misleading but apparently close enough to be allowed. Social media advertisements kept running, and so did the targeted disinformation campaign aimed to confuse the people least equipped to test it.

The member for Warringah and I represent very different communities in very different parts of Sydney with different challenges and vulnerabilities. That is precisely why I support this motion. If an effective disinformation campaign including AI generated material that people struggle to distinguish from the real thing has a damaging impact in one of Australia's most highly educated electorates, imagine the consequences in a community like mine in Fowler.

For many of my constituents, English is a second language. Working out how to complete a ballot paper without support in their first language is very challenging already. It cannot also be a burden for them to work out whether what they read about a candidate has been fabricated.

As the member said, it is our responsibility to make things simpler so that, when people cast their vote, they know what they're casting and who they're casting it for. In a community as rich and vibrant as Fowler, we cannot allow diversity to be exploited as a weakness. It is unacceptable for multicultural communities to be targeted through closed social media groups, which are often their only accessible source of news.

As a proud democracy, we must do better than prove the mistrust right. The only way to do that is to start with the truth. This bill proposes that political advertising be truthful and factually accurate, that substantially AI generated content be clearly labelled and that an independent political advertising standards board be established to uphold those standards.

This is not an extraordinary ask. It is a bare minimum. Australian Consumer Law already prohibits businesses from making false or misleading claims about a product.

Surely we can extend the same protection to the foundations of our democracy. My message to the government is simple. Do not take the public for granted.

Do not assume that a slogan repeated often enough is a substitute for earning someone's vote. I support the member for Warringah's motion so that this House can properly debate a bill that puts truth at the core of Australia's democratic process. As today is the International Day of Democracy, the least we can do is actually have a democratic process in this House and call on a debate and actually have a conversation and talk about what is truth and what can be used, especially during the campaigning period, where emotions are high and where members are trying to win votes but to win votes in an honest and democratic way.

I really commend this motion to the House.