Lies, Law and Elections: Regulating Truth in Political Advertising

Can law and regulation achieve more truthful elections? Across Australia and internationally, the prevalence of falsehoods at election time has prompted a new wave of thinking and intense debates about one of the defining issues facing informed voting and electoral integrity today. This compelling panel brought together experts and thought leaders from academia and practice, and was moderated by Jon Faine.

This event was presented in association with the Electoral Regulation Forum 2024.

View the panel recording

Expert Panel:

• Yee-Fui Ng is an Associate Professor at Monash University who researches in the areas of public law and political integrity. She is the author of Combatting the Code: Regulating Automated Government Decision-Making in Comparative Context (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025), The Rise of Political Advisors in the Westminster System (Routledge, 2018) and Ministerial Advisers in Australia: The Modern Legal Context (Federation Press, 2016), which was a Holt Prize finalist. She has recently written a report on truth in political advertising, commissioned by the Susan McKinnon Foundation, incorporating interviews with former Ministers, MPs, electoral commissioners, party officials, and civil society groups.

• Lisa Hill is Professor of Politics at the University of Adelaide. She works on: democratic theory, electoralstudies and the intellectual history of the Western political tradition. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia, Program Director at the Stretton Institute for Public Policy, and Research Chair of the Centre for Public Integrty, an anti-corruption watch-dog.

• Louise Milligan is a multi-award-winning investigative reporter for the ABC TV Four Corners program and a best-selling author of two non-fiction books – Witness and Cardinal ― and her first novel, Pheasants Nest. Her investigation for ABC TV and for her Walkley-winning book, Cardinal, broke international news, leading to her being a witness in the George Pell case. Her story “I Am That Girl” led to changes in consent laws and her recent expose of The Cranbrook School sparked two government inquiries and the resignation of one of the country’s highest paid principals. Louise is a former NSW political reporter and a High Court Correspondent. Her journalism largely covers social justice, the law and politics.

• Jon Faine (moderator) is a failed shock jock and recovering lawyer and now a Vice Chancellors Fellow at the University of Melbourne, based in the Melbourne Law School. His recent book ‘Apollo & Thelma; A True Tall Tale’ is a thinly disguised memoir and has not been nominated for any literary awards.