ANANDA-RAJAH, Senator Michelle, Senator for Victoria, Commonwealth Parliament WHISH-WILSON, Senator Peter, Senator for Tasmania, Commonwealth Parliament Committee met at 11:15 CHAIR ( Mr Laxale ): I declare open this public hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for the inquiry into the 2025 federal election. In accordance with the committee's resolutions of 4 August 2025, this hearing will be broadcast on the parliament's website, and the proof and official transcripts of proceedings will be published on the parliament's website. I remind members of the media who may be present or listening on the web of the need to fairly and accurately report the proceedings of this committee. I now welcome Senator Peter Whish-Wilson and Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah to give evidence today. Senators, do you have anything to say about the capacity in which you appear before the committee? Senator Whish-Wilson: I am the previous chair of the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy. Senator Ananda-Rajah:   And I was the deputy chair of the same committee. CHAIR: Thank you. Although the committee does not require you to give evidence under oath, I should advise you that this hearing is a legal proceeding of the parliament and therefore has the same standing as proceedings of the respective houses. The giving of false or misleading evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as a contempt of parliament. The evidence given today will be recorded by Hansard and attracts parliamentary privilege. We've got you until midday today—just to give you a bit of time awareness. I now invite you to make a brief opening statement before we proceed to discussion. Senator Whish-Wilson: I'm just going to make a very brief opening statement. We're appearing here as the ex-chair and ex-deputy chair of the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, which no longer exists. The committee report made specific recommendations that we would like JSCEM to follow up. We're happy to go through those in detail today. I just wanted to say that the majority report was a majority report. It had support from government senators, Greens senators, Independent senators and LNP senators. Essentially the key thing that we note with JSCEM is electoral interference. We consider influence campaigns, especially hidden influence campaigns, to be electoral interference, and we received significant evidence in that regard. Senator Ananda-Rajah: And that's been turbocharged in the era of AI, which we'll talk about. CHAIR: Do you want to talk about some of that stuff? Does anyone have any questions before we get into some of that specific advice? Senator CAROL BROWN: I just wondered how your former committee distinguished between disinformation and information that was out there for political interference. Senator Whish-Wilson: It's a big question. There are a couple of specific things we wanted to go through today. If you look at recommendation 4 in the majority report, it was quite broad. It was: The committee recommends the Australian Government explore ways to ensure greater transparency of campaign activities, such as the creation of third parties, that are resourced by commercial/corporate interests in the lead up to a federal election. There were a number of recommendations under Greens additional comments that went into a bit more detail in terms of specific recommendations around that. We wanted JSCEM to follow it up. We heard evidence that establishing what I suppose are often referred to as astroturfing groups to hide influence was a form of misinformation and disinformation in itself. If those funding those groups didn't disclose their identity at the time of election, it was deceptive conduct and a form of misinformation. However, when you look at the content of some of these groups that you may say was election advertising content, it may well have fallen under the category of specific misinformation or disinformation in relation to areas like climate change and energy. Senator Ananda-Rajah: I'll give you an example, just to make it concrete. There was one group—just one of many groups—called Australians for Prosperity. It was majority funded—like, 94 per cent funded—by Coal Australia, which is a breakaway group from the Minerals Council of Australia. Basically, it was funded to the tune of millions. They recruited a well-respected journalist, a social media influencer and a bunch of other people, and they pushed a message into the community. The problem is the Australian public were receiving these messages and were completely unaware who this group was, the fact it was spun up just before an election and who was actually financially backing this group. That is deeply misleading for people, and I don't think they would be happy. CHAIR: So how do you know it was funded by Coal Australia? Senator Ananda-Rajah: It was actually revealed by the media. This speaks to the real importance of strengthening the media, making sure we have an independent and strong media, because right now they seem to be one of the few fortifications we have left to protect our democracy from this kind of stuff. CHAIR: So they didn't disclose that they were funded— Senator Ananda-Rajah: It was disclosed eventually. Senator Whish-Wilson: It was disclosed to the AEC. The ex-deputy chair is correct. Australians for Prosperity received $3.8 million in total political receipts in the 2024-25 financial year, which was disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission, of which $3.68 million—so, $3.68 million out of $3.89 million—came from Coal Australia, and that was disclosed. CHAIR: Afterwards, right? Senator Whish-Wilson: Six months after the election. Senator Ananda-Rajah: Yes, but not at the time of the election. Senator Whish-Wilson: So 94 per cent of their funding came from Coal Australia. We would urge the committee to call the previous executive officer of Australians for Prosperity, which is Jason Falinski, an ex-Liberal MP. When it was made public, our committee was holding its hearings and so we were able to put these questions to Coal Australia. Michelle and I would be happy to go through those with you. Mr Falinski, when asked about this disclosure, was quoted in the Guardian. He said: I knew we were getting some money [from Coal Australia] but I had no idea of the quantum or what the percentage was. That's word for word. He said: Maybe I should have asked more questions. That was the direct quote that Mr Falinski gave the media. One of the other executive officers was an ex-Liberal staffer. I asked the head of Coal Australia, who obviously didn't deny they had given money to Australians for Prosperity. As then chair of the committee, I was trying to find out what the motivation for this was. This is really important. The evidence we had received—I do have a copy of a significant submission, which I was going to seek permission to table for you. Of course, this is from our inquiry and is also available on Hansard. This is from a cooperative research centre that has done a lot of work, the ADM submission. It goes into a number of case studies at the 2025 election. Australians for Prosperity wasn't one of them, but there is a whole heap of them in here that are very similar. I was going to seek permission to table that. I asked Coal Australia what their motivation was. They said, 'Well, this group has aligned values to ours,' which I took to mean was politically aligned to Coal Australia's objectives. They came as a one-stop shop. They were able to provide expertise and do the work of an advertising agency, do the consulting work and that kind of thing. Senator Ananda-Rajah: They're not the only group though. There were others, like Mums for Nuclear. Senator Whish-Wilson: And Australians for Natural Gas. The names sound like they are a grassroots movement, and this is the motivation I was asking about because, in the evidence we'd received, including in this submission, if they appear as a community group, as a grassroots group, they get more uptake. If Coal Australia—if they were happy to spend $3.68 million advertising against the Greens and Labor, which they did, which is their right to do, through Australians for Prosperity, and they declared it was Coal Australia, that's fine. They're big enough and ugly enough with all the money in the world to do that kind of thing. But why would you go through a community group to hide your identity. They claimed they weren't trying to hide their identity. I find that very hard to believe, and I said that publicly. Senator Ananda-Rajah: I think the Australian people would have been really upset to find that they were getting these messages and not really knowing who was behind them or how they were funded. That's the key, isn't it? We're not talking about censorship here; it's an open democracy. People can say things, right, within the limits of the law, but really we need transparency. We need to know why we're seeing this stuff, who's behind it, how it's been funded and what their political agenda is. Senator CAROL BROWN: Do you find they were mostly issues based or were they actually advocating for No. 1 votes for a particular party? Senator Ananda-Rajah: Oh, no, it was issues. Senator Whish-Wilson: It was issues based, but very much aligned—anti-Green and anti-Labor. I suggest the committee has a look at some of the content. Senator Ananda-Rajah: And not necessarily grounded in evidence, as you can imagine. Senator Whish-Wilson: They did get pulled up by the Electoral Commission around disclosures at the time, as have ADVANCE and other groups that I understand your committee will be looking at. The issue is that these third-party groups are popping up a lot before state elections and federal elections. Some of them may be registered at different times out from an election. They don't become active until election time, and then they get wound up after elections. They do spend significant amounts of funds to influence elections, so you could classify that as interference if you're not genuinely saying who's behind these ads. That became clear to us, as a committee. If a company or an industry specifically advertise on something like climate change—they're promoting natural gas or nuclear or coal or undermining renewable energy, which happens in some cases—they can potentially get pulled up by the ACCC around greenwashing, which may be another motivation for going through these astroturfing groups. CHAIR: Because it's political communication they're exempt—is that what you're saying? Senator Whish-Wilson: Correct. CHAIR: I'll go to the deputy chair first, and then to you, Dr Ryan. Senator COLBECK: Senator Ananda-Rajah was just going to add something to what Peter was saying. Senator Ananda-Rajah: I was just going to draw Pete's attention to a recommendation we didn't get up, but which you put in your additional comments, around beneficial ownership and disclosure of beneficial ownership interests and a register covering companies, trusts, partnerships that might go some way towards uncovering this kind of activity in the lead-up to elections. Senator Whish-Wilson: Indeed, that's recommendation 6 on page 190, item 1.36. There are a number of detailed recommendations we had there in relation to how we could get better disclosure at election time. At least people know who's behind the electoral advertisements. Senator Ananda-Rajah: We need to follow the money. Basically, we need to follow the money. We need to know who is funding these outfits, because that's really where you get to the hard truth of what the agenda is. Senator COLBECK: In terms of registration of interested third parties, which is, I suppose, the structure that we would look at it from the electoral process side, how do you see that would be best met? You've made mention of organisations critical of Labor and the Greens. I could probably think of a few that would raise the hackles on the back of my neck that would, again, create the appearance of being a community based organisation, yet they are really almost an arm of one of the political parties. CHAIR: I think the Liberal Party's submission has identified a few of those, from memory. Senator COLBECK: Yes. It's an across-the-board exercise. The point Senator Ananda-Rajah is making, understanding where the information comes from, is an important part of the process because, with that information, people can then make their minds up about the information that has been placed in front of them. So how do we facilitate that in terms of the way the electoral system works? You're talking about how it was disclosed. It took some time to disclose— Senator Whish-Wilson: Well after the election, yes. Senator COLBECK: and so it was part of the— Senator Ananda-Rajah: We need to have real-time disclosure for these sorts of interests, these astroturfing groups or community groups or whatever you want to call them groups, when they are established. We also need to empower the AEC to ensure that there is standardisation around the messaging. For example, if something pops up on your social media feed, from one of these groups, it's actually labelled that it's come from this group. People shouldn't have to go back to click on the original page, for example, to find that labelling. For example, we had testimony from the Minerals Council of Australia. We pulled them up on this. To be fair, they have been transparent. If they are running a pro-nuclear campaign in the run-up a federal election they'll own it; it's on their Facebook page, for example. But the actual ad that is run does not have that disclosure. We need to get into the nitty-gritty of the messaging people are receiving, bearing in mind that, and we heard this, 70 per cent of people under the age of 35 are not consuming traditional media. They are, in fact, avoiding media. They've got news fatigue. They've got burnout. It's affecting their mental health. So where are they getting their information from? They're getting it from online sources. They're getting it from social media. And that is only on an incidental basis as they're scrolling. So we've got to do a bit of work around labelling of content, as well. CHAIR: Dr Ryan. Dr RYAN: The committee has heard, on lots of occasions, about involvement of the sorts of third-party groups that you've mentioned. There are others, obviously. There's Nuclear for Australia, Mums for Nuclear, Repeal the Teal and Australian Taxpayers' Alliance. All of these are organisations which were not registered with the AEC as third-party entities and have not submitted any data to the AEC around their spending or the source of their donations. Was this something that you took up with the AEC at all? Senator Whish-Wilson: We didn't take it up with the AEC. We were aware that Australians for Prosperity, for example, were forced by the AEC to take down a number of posts because they weren't labelled, but we never called the AEC as a witness. Although this area was an important part of our inquiry, it was only one of many, many things that we looked at. We ran out of time. Senator Ananda-Rajah: We did. We went down a rabbit hole. Senator Whish-Wilson: This is why we recommended JSCEM take this up. Senator Ananda-Rajah: Yes, we didn't have the capacity to do this. Senator Whish-Wilson: For example, with Senator Colbeck's last question, we had a very specific recommendation on how we could get real-time disclosure. I'll refer you again to recommendation 6 on page 190. I won't go through it now, but there's very specific, detailed recommendations on how we can get a real-time, publicly accessible political advertising register that would require significant donors to be declared around these advertisements. Senator Ananda-Rajah: I think the challenge will be that these groups will spin up and say, 'We're community groups; we're not political groups,' even though they possibly have a political agenda behind them and donors—either corporates or wealthy high-net-worth individuals—who want to influence. I think the challenge will be boxing them into a political law when they're maybe legitimately saying, 'No, we're not; we're reflecting community attitudes and we're going to amplify those attitudes.' I do wonder whether there are other acts like the Charities Act. I'm assuming that these groups, for example, are not-for-profits when they are established, and I wonder whether they would fall in under the Charities Act and whether there are levers within that act that can capture some of this activity. Dr RYAN: Just on that—I may have misspoken earlier. I think the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance actually did register with the AEC as a third-party entity. And I note that it had very significant spending on Meta but, in its AEC declaration for spending in 2024-25, declared $0 spent. Would it be your position that another way of getting insight into these third parties' activities in real time might be transparent information about the extent of spending on Meta and other internet platforms during the election period? Senator Whish-Wilson: One of our recommendations in the majority report—and we went into more detail in additional comments—was having an internet observatory established to do exactly that. It does exist in a kind of bare bones form at the moment, and there are several models you could use to have real-time monitoring of these kinds of things. It was one of the key recommendations we got from a number of civil society groups and researchers already working in this area. We had hundreds and hundreds of submissions from people all around the world: social scientists, universities, academic institutions, organisations, not-for-profits from the UN and even some commercial entities that do this kind of work. There's a big body out there that you could focus into a specific organisation that would do this. Senator Ananda-Rajah: There are some incredible people out there in civic society, these groups that Chair just mentioned, who have deep expertise in studying social media platforms and messaging and all kinds of things—campaigning strategies et cetera. What we wanted to do with some of these recommendations was to try and formalise this network. We already have some of these entities—some are not-for-profits; others are in universities—who are funded by the Australian Research Council, for example, but are facing a funding cliff. Obviously, these grants run out. But we were interested in maybe formalising this kind of network because this group, again, adds a fortification—an oversight mechanism—for our democracy. It complements the work the media does, for example, and the work we all try to do. But we can't beat the algorithms, as politicians. These groups are separate and they're valued and they're important because they're trusted by the Australian people. Australian people trust their academics. They trust not-for-profits, right? So I think it would be really useful for this committee to look at ways of empowering civic groups in our country. It's not just about the astroturfing. It's also about—and I hope we get time to talk about this in some depth—holding the social media giants to account. Because, right now, they have a voluntary kind-of self-managed model through the DIGI code. It's a joke. It's weak. It's not working. A lot of the weaknesses around our social media regulation have been revealed by civic groups, so we need to strengthen their arm. Senator Whish-Wilson: We have a very specific recommendation we'd like to talk to you about on that particular issue. But can I just come back to Monique and Richard's question. One reason we wanted to talk to you about the Australians for Prosperity example in particular was because we'd noticed that Peabody—the big US coal company Peabody Energy—in their 2025 sustainability report stated that Coal Australia provided direct financial support for third-party organisations to campaign in support of pro-coalmining policies. Then we found that that came in the form of undisclosed funding at the time, with no identity attached to it, for Australians for Prosperity to influence election. It was heavily targeted at the Hunter area, I understand, and towards the Labor MP in the Hunter. You could say it's foreign interference. It's certainly foreign influence—the fact that this is coming from a very large international coal company, funding a member of the Australian coal industry alliance. It is a clear example of the question of where you draw the line on where you get disclosure. That's what you asked, Richard. You say that it just happens on all sides. I would certainly say that, where commercial interests are at stake, I think the Greens would like to see all advertising of fossil fuel industry banned anyway, per se, but that's probably not going to happen. But, nevertheless, I think commercial interests should be disclosed and made clear— Senator Ananda-Rajah: And civic groups empowered to scan the horizon. CHAIR: Senator Hodgins-May, do you have any questions? Senator HODGINS-MAY: Yes. I think you've covered a number of my questions regarding astroturfing. Going back to foreign interference and AI, your additional comments refer to threats from both foreign and domestic interference. We've heard evidence in this inquiry that there was no identified foreign interference in the 2025 election. Does that mean that there wasn't a problem, or are there maybe some forms of influence that our current systems just simply aren't good at detecting and investigating? I know that you've talked about the committee recommendation that Australia's national security agencies investigate the AI enabled disinformation campaign uncovered by ABC NEWS verify. Why did your committee think that that was relevant, and what does this tell you about Australia's preparedness to detect and follow-up on interference? Senator Ananda-Rajah: I think when we think about foreign interference, we think of nefarious state based actors. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The landscape has completely evolved. What we are seeing are non-political actors who are financially motivated—that is, basically poor—in poor countries a lot of the time, who are using the monetisation system that social media companies have to make money. They have worked that out. This is a model that was tested and proven to be very successful in the UK around the former Labour prime minister Keir Starmer. It was used to some degree in Europe—and I've got some reports here to share with you—and now it's arrived in Australia. It's arrived in Australia, and it's basically content creators in countries like Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia—basically, if you go looking for them, you'll find them—who have worked out that they can now create AI slop, synthetically generated content at scale, without even really knowing much about the cultural norms of a country or anything about its history. Why? It's because they've got access to AI, which has a universe of knowledge about humanity. They're using that now to deploy at scale social media accounts on Meta, on TikTok and on YouTube, and they are garnering eyeballs and they are making money. On that topic, this was like pulling a thread. It was incredibly—boy, did we go deep here. Senator Whish-Wilson: It still keeps me awake at night, to be honest. I think this is going to be the biggest challenge in the next federal election in this country. Michelle's right, in the sense that there's definitely engagement hacking occurring to monetise the algorithm. That's how you get eyeballs on your posts and you get advertising dollars, and the social media companies reward that through their monetisation processes, which themselves need to be reviewed. We understand Japan's looking at doing that around natural disasters, for example. ABC NEWS Verify looked at two accounts with 400 posts in a week, which were all deepfake AI, mostly promoting Pauline Hanson's One Nation and painting the government in a bad light, especially Anthony Albanese. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of these things out there. They are available. You can buy this like real estate now. You can go and these people will produce content for you. AI allows industrial-scale, endless disinformation and political propaganda. How do you label that? Senator Ananda-Rajah: The social media giants, particularly Meta, who is the biggest problem child out of a bad lot, are turning a blind eye to this. Why? It's because it is in their interest to continue with this model because it makes them money, and the amount of money is eye watering. Senator HODGINS-MAY: They're meant to take down inauthentic behaviour. Senator Ananda-Rajah: They're supposed to do that. It's part of their terms of use, but they intentionally turn a blind eye to it. This is based not just on the evidence we heard but on evidence from Facebook whistleblowers. Jeff Horwitz put out a report last year which said that in 2024 Meta made over 10 per cent of its revenue from scams. That is $16 billion at a conservative estimate. No-one really knows, because Meta doesn't tell anyone, but that's $16 billion in one year. That amount of money has gone up since 2024. Why? It's because AI is now here. Senator Whish-Wilson: After ABC NEWS Verify contacted Meta, they eventually did take down some of the posts that were featured in the article from the fake accounts in Vietnam. This is the thing: inauthentic behaviour doesn't have a proper definition under our code. It should be bots and trolls, which is inauthentic behaviour, but often that's just seen as part of the landscape now by social media companies. But that's what you're employing when you go to these bot and troll farms. For a certain amount of money, they'll run comments on articles that we might post as politicians, and I see them every day on my climate comments, especially around the fires in Europe at the moment. The kind of content they spew out is very predictable. Plus, they're now generating their own original content. You can buy this stuff. How do you label that? Is it advertising? It's between elections. What happens if you get flooded with, literally, an infinite number of posts in two years time, given how quickly this stuff is moving? How is JSCEM going to label this? Is it election advertising if it's coming from a farm in Vietnam and it's promoting Pauline Hanson's One Nation, which it essentially is? Experts have said, 'We can't prove the motivation or whether One Nation or a third party that they have some distance from is paying for this,' but you do need to look at who is benefiting from this. CHAIR: There are two theories. Either they're being directed to pay that or being engaged to do it or the monetisation of the post is the motivation. Senator Whish-Wilson: It's almost certainly both. Senator Ananda-Rajah: If you get, say, 10,000 or 100,000 subscribers or followers, whether it be on TikTok, Meta or whatever, you start getting paid. For people in these countries, these content creators, this is significant money. There is some data that I've got that I want to share with you. It was shared with me by Dr Rys Farthing, from the University of Canberra, who was an excellent witness at our hearing multiple times. She also works for Reset Tech, which is a not-for-profit based out of the EU. She is an Australian researcher who is unable to research what is going on in Australia in Australia, because there is a lack of legal protection around researchers in Australia to uncover this kind of work. They are fearful of being coerced by the tech platforms. This also extends to journalists. We have on Hansard testimony from her where she describes journalists asking legitimate questions to Meta and basically being given the run-around and feeling like they are threatened. We have a recommendation in our report to strengthen legal safeguards for civic groups and journalists. I'm just going to table this report. It's called Monetise Slopaganda. I'll give it to the committee for you to review, but it will be under embargo until next month. It is revealing. I'll just take some liberty here to read out some names of politicians who are currently subject to this AI slop. In terms of impersonated videos—AI slop videos—we have the Prime Minister, Pauline Hanson, Fatima Payman, Peter Dutton, Jim Chalmers, Tony Burke, Scott Morrison, John Howard, Holly Hughes, Jacinta Allen, Anika Wells, Angus Taylor, Susan Ley, Mark Dreyfus, Richard Marles, Mehreen Faruqi, Robert Menzies—there you go, that's interesting—Chris Bowen, Barnaby Joyce, David Pocock, Larissa Waters, Lidia Thorpe, Jason Clare, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong, Malcolm Turnbull, Tammy Tyrrell, Bill Shorten, the 2022 cabinet—all of them—and TV presenter Natalie Barr. Then there are AI slop images which are impersonating politicians: Ben Carroll, Chris Minns, Peter Malinauskas, Ed Husic, Jacqui Lambie, Matt Canavan, Andrew Hastie, Cory Bernardi and Allegra Spender. These are just the named ones, but I received an email from this researcher saying that I was featured in a Sri Lankan post. I don't know in what context, whether it was sexualised—I almost don't want to know—or whether it was in some other context, but when I find out I'll be referring this stuff to the AFP. There is a much, much bigger problem here. I'm going to give this to you to have a read. CHAIR: I wouldn't table it if it's embargoed, because if you table it then it becomes— Senator Ananda-Rajah: Will it become public? CHAIR: Yes, if it's tabled it becomes public. Why don't you send us a copy? Senator Ananda-Rajah: I'll also table previous reports that have also been done by Reset Tech which preceded this and started the ball rolling on this. Senator Whish-Wilson: Could I raise two other matters very briefly in relation to what the Senator said there. We also had evidence provided by Anthropic—they appeared in person. We had all the social media platforms appear in person. Some we had to threaten to compel, but they nevertheless appeared. Anthropic gave us an example which we weren't aware of that was published in their intelligence report of March 2025; they detected the use of Claude by actors to run what was called an 'influencer service operation'. It was very similar to what we suspect is happening with some of this foreign slopaganda. These are Anthropic's words: In that campaign, Claude was used in violation of our policies to basically orchestrate the operation of multiple social media accounts. This was less about the generation of the content itself. It was a really novel attack where Claude was misused to dictate posting schedules and to dictate who these accounts should interact with. AI is already starting to generate this kind of thing, even though Anthropic is, I think, a fairly good corporate actor. They've detected the use of this already. The second thing I wanted to say was we had a confidential briefing. Even though we have absolute privilege in these committees, we did have a confidential briefing from our security agencies in relation to this, because the committee was very keen to find out how we combat this. I would strongly recommend, Chair, that JSCEM also seek a confidential briefing from security agencies. Overall, though, while they had the capacity to deal with this, they're not set up for this. This is evolving very quickly for them, as it is for us. They tend to see foreign interference as physical harm to Australian citizens— Senator Ananda-Rajah: Or state actors. Senator Whish-Wilson: or foreign state actors. They're familiar with some bad faith actors overseas. By the way, the day our report dropped, Admiral Chris Barrie's climate security group dropped their own report. They said to me, personally: 'Senator, you're not going hard enough in your language on your report. This is information warfare.' That's in their report. They said, 'This has to be viewed through the lens of traditional information warfare.' We're used to talking about China and Russia and Iran, but he said this is coming out of the US, our ally. He has been very upfront about this in his public statements as well. We can question the agendas—are they commercial? Are they ideological? Are they political?—nevertheless, these kind of this kind of information warfare that is influencing elections, specifically around issues like climate change, renewable energy rollout, clean energy rollout and these kinds of things, we have to view it with that lens. Therefore, I do believe our intelligence agencies, who have the ability to look at metadata and a whole range of things, need to play a much more active role with social media platforms. Now, they do—social media platforms meet with our security agencies regularly; they are taking down inauthentic behaviour. But I'll tell you what: last time I checked, it was over— Senator Ananda-Rajah: We need to be careful here, because what social media platforms want us to do is to go down the route of content moderation. Do not go down this road. This is an invitation into complexity and into culture wars and into discussions on censorship or not. That is exactly where they want us to go, and we need to avoid it. Senator Whish-Wilson: More transparency, right? Senator Ananda-Rajah: Where I think we need to go— Senator Whish-Wilson: Disclosure—totally. Senator Ananda-Rajah: is into disclosure and transparency. Senator Whish-Wilson: Transparency—yes. Senator Ananda-Rajah: But ultimately where we need to go—and we had long discussions about this, didn't we, Chair?—is to a digital duty of care, and modelled on the European Digital Services Act. Broadly speaking, what this is about is that the parliament—the elected representatives of the Australian people—determines what the harms are that you want to mitigate. The harms might be election interference, public health misinformation, gender based violence, scams, or harms to youth mental health, psychosocial harms—whatever those harms are, the parliament determines what those harms are. You then go to the platforms and you say: 'Right, these are the harms. You mitigate them. You tell us how you are mitigating them. Are you dealing with deepfake interference? Are you dealing with algorithmic bias? Are you dealing with recommender systems or with slop or with foreign interference? Why are your monetisation systems incentivising this? How are you turning those things off or dialling them down?' And, right after doing that, you then empower civic groups and regulators to mark their homework. Right now, they mark their own homework and they come to the Australian Parliament and say: 'Look how great we are. Look: we've taken down 700 million accounts'—this is what Meta said to us—'in one quarter,' as if to say, 'Job done. Aren't we great?' And we were like, 'Well, what's the denominator? Is it one billion, two billion, three billion?' No idea! Senator Whish-Wilson: 'How did you miss 400 posts from two websites from one spot in Vietnam?' They're clearly missing them, right? Senator Ananda-Rajah: So, ultimately, we need to go there. As a middle power, this is challenging for us, because these companies are protected, right? They've got the biggest bodyguard in the world, in the US President and his administration, protecting them. But we, as a middle power—we've seen how effective we can be, with regard to the social media ban. I strongly, strongly believe that we need to continue forming those kinds of partnerships, coalitions, right around the world, with like-minded countries, and to drive this forward, because we can't be in a situation where we are beholden to these companies, and they are running— CHAIR: I'm going to stop you there. I've got Mr Small on the phone. I just want to give him the opportunity to ask some questions. Mr SMALL: I'll address this question to both senators. In the context of your investigations and report, the difference between disinformation and misinformation—do you think it's actually important, or should the whole spectre of information that is not correct, whether intentionally or otherwise, be just thrown in one bucket? Senator Whish-Wilson: Michelle will probably want to answer this as well. Obviously, disinformation is what the World Economic Forum have said, two years in a row, is the biggest threat to humanity, and the biggest long-term threat to humanity is disinformation coupled with the physical effects of climate change. I think that's what you need to target, because that's where it's generated, and it's generated because it's deceptive, it's not true, and there are agendas attached to it. Of course, it gets shared, and when people share it without understanding it's wrong, that's misinformation. And that's obviously very common. So I think you do need to distinguish between the two. How you do that—for example, on the social media platforms—is: you look at whether it's inauthentic behaviour or not, and that needs a much stronger definition than it's already got. By that I mean that there's a massive amount of fake activity on social media, to try and generate the look of a grassroots groundswell of community outrage on a particular issue. The social media companies can detect whether these things are bots and trolls. Senator Ananda-Rajah: A hundred percent. Senator Whish-Wilson: They can. They have the ability to do that. We don't. Our intelligence agencies might, but, once again, we don't. So, once again, they're the gatekeepers, and they're not being regulated— Senator Ananda-Rajah: And they're not telling us how much money they're making from this content, from these content creators, whether they be coordinated networks, or just individuals who are trying to make a buck, around the world. They don't tell us how many networks, how many pages, how many accounts there are. They want us talking about content moderation and censorship, but that's not where we need to go. We need to go systemically upstream to the financial and technical architecture that they have created that fuels this kind of material. CHAIR: I've got two questions I'd like to ask, if that's okay. You mentioned Australians for Prosperity. They registered as a significant third party, and we found out six months later. Did your committee apply the key changes coming in from 1 January 2027, in regard to new electoral laws and disclosures, to that example? Would disclosure be a lot quicker under the new laws? Is that something that you considered? Senator Whish-Wilson: No, we didn't. We did try to call Australians for Prosperity, but they were unavailable. CHAIR: Okay. My understanding is that it might be quicker, but I just wanted to see if that's something you’d put forward. I'll verify that. Senator Whish-Wilson: It's a good point, but I don't know that answer to that. Senator Ananda-Rajah: Can we just mention the ad libraries and the content libraries? This is technical stuff, but it was raised by so many witnesses. Senator Whish-Wilson: Perhaps after—that's a good idea, I think. CHAIR: I want your opinion, based on the evidence you've received, of the definition of 'electoral matter'. It's been something that I've been thinking about since getting evidence on this committee. What is it now in a world where we have influencers, podcasters and AI slop able to be generated? Is that something that this committee should consider and the government should, perhaps, update? So what is an 'electoral matter' and, also, what is the length of time that it's regulated? You mentioned before, Senator Whish-Wilson, that, with tools like AI and with the distribution channel of social media, which is very cost effective, you could just bombard— Senator Ananda-Rajah: A hundred per cent. CHAIR: electorates and voters with information for a relatively low cost for two years before the regulated period starts. Senator Ananda-Rajah: Yes. That's a really good question. CHAIR: Do you think that the period of regulation and the definition of 'electoral matter' need review in the context of how society consumes information now? Senator Ananda-Rajah: With 'electoral matter', I would just sign a note of caution here, because this, again, has shades of content moderation. We spent ages—so much time—in this committee debating what misinformation is and what disinformation is. There are already definitions the AEC has on misinformation and disinformation, but that's not the point. The point is that we need transparency. Senator Whish-Wilson: An understanding, yes. Senator Ananda-Rajah: We need labelling of AI generated content. We need to know where this stuff has come from. I would argue it's less about the definition of 'electoral matter', because I think you're going to go down a rabbit hole and end up debating for hours on end on the type of content, which is going to go nowhere. That's not the point. The point is to identify the risk. What is the risk here is and what is the issue? The issue, I think, is one of misleading and deceptive content that may be coming from a coordinated source, like a disinformation campaign. If that's the case, then we need transparency, we need labelling and we need to actually hold these social media companies to account. Senator Whish-Wilson: I have a slightly different view to the previous deputy chair on that. I think we, the Australian Greens, did recommend that. We did look at this matter of 'What is an electoral matter?' and we recommended the ACT model. I'd have to find that for you. CHAIR: The ACT model? Senator Whish-Wilson: Yes. I think it's one of our recommendations. I do feel like this is the elephant in the room, really, for the next election. If we look at election advertising, whether it's on TV or whether it's on at the cinema or whether it's on our Meta accounts, and it's authorised and we have real time disclosure of whether corporations are funding it et cetera, that's one thing. But if we're getting flooded millions of posts by fake accounts that are essentially looking exactly like a Hollywood produced election advertising campaign—they're already doing that now, not to mention all the deepfake stuff, like Anthony Albanese's press conferences all around Parliament House where could not have told the difference between the real one and the fake ones that were produced, which were saying things that were completely wrong. We have to grapple, and the deputy chair has provided a way forward, but I do think we need to have this discussion very soon because this is already— Senator Ananda-Rajah: The genie's already out now. Senator Whish-Wilson: John Howard's old saying, 'You can't fatten a pig on market day'—I mean, the election campaign has well and truly begun. One Nation's rise in the polls is a really good example of that. I think we do need to decide whether going into an election is a period of time when we need to have a lens applied to this kind of material. How you do that is another matter, as Michelle said. But we do need to have this discussion because I think this is what Australians are asking themselves now. They're getting flooded with this slopaganda. It's really professional 'content'. There's, potentially, millions of dollars behind it, being made out of it or funding it. We've seen the Epstein leaks, where Steve Bannon phoned Clive Palmer. Of course, Clive Palmer wouldn't disclose the conversation, but what was in those leaks was Steve Bannon saying, 'You give me a billion dollars, and I'll smash the two-party system; days of thunder—we'll flood the room like we've done in the US.' This model of flooding the room with a lot of slop and disinformation has worked really well for Trump in the US. Unfortunately, it's on us now, and it's only going to get a hell of a lot worse. Senator Ananda-Rajah: There's also this paradox in Australia. A survey done by the University of Canberra last year found that Australians, out of 42 countries, have the highest worry regarding misinformation. Out of 42 countries, we ranked number one. Yet also Australians tend to avoid the news for lots of reasons, particularly young people, under 35. This news avoidance that people have—and it's because of the relentless negativity on traditional news—has basically meant that Australians are also highly vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation, because if the only way you're going to get your news, particularly if you're a young person, is by scrolling social media then you're only ever going to encounter mostly AI slop and/or partisan, polarising content. Or you're going to be only occasionally or incidentally receiving media from a reputable source—just incidental exposure to media. CHAIR: We're just at midday here. I'm going to go through each of the members here to see if they have any final questions that they might want to ask. I'll start with Senator Brown. You're good? Yes. Deputy Chair? Senator COLBECK: I keep on coming back to people understanding the source of the information that they're observing or having presented to them. In terms of a process of disclosure, and a requirement of the social media companies to do that, do you see a requirement for there to be a disclosure as part of what's being presented, and a requirement to monitor that, by the social media companies? Senator Whish-Wilson: And a process where the social media companies will have to respond to that, because right now, Richard, if you were to get flooded—let's say this is a month out from an election—with AI slopaganda, promoting One Nation, for example, and you were to then contact the tech platforms or go to ACMA as a regulator and say, 'Who's behind all this shit?'—pardon my French—the social media companies are under no obligation to respond. In fact, under the current code, they don't respond to individual posts. That's really restricted, as to what they have to respond to. That's got to change. They've got to be accountable. When anyone complains about the content they're receiving, they've got to be able to explain why they haven't taken it down and where it's coming from. They have the technology to do that. So yes, there needs to be disclosure, but there needs to be a process where citizens and senators and everyone else can hold the social media companies to account, because it's going to be very difficult for us to work out the motivations, who's behind these influence campaigns or interference campaigns, to put JSCEM's terms of reference in really clear perspective here. The social media platforms have the ability to do that, surely. Yes, they're under the pump. Michelle's right, I think they've taken down over a billion inauthentic accounts around the world— Senator Ananda-Rajah: It's a fraction. You'll read this report and it's a fraction out of the billions of pages that are out there— Senator Whish-Wilson: AI can generate it faster than they can take it down. It is an infinite, industrial scale— Senator Ananda-Rajah: But they don't want to, because it makes them money and— Senator Whish-Wilson: They profit from it. Senator Ananda-Rajah: they profit from it. Senator COLBECK: I understand what you're saying in that context. Going to a process of how we, as a community or society, provide the overlay: you talked about security agencies having the capacity to review this, and how we know exactly what the companies are doing or not doing. My preference is that, in preserving our democracy, our democracy plays a part or has a role in actually asking these questions and providing this information. Therefore, parliamentary oversight is the ultimate process there. How might that manifest? It's a big task. We all understand the— Senator Ananda-Rajah: It's a whole-of-society effort, actually. Senator COLBECK: But, again, we are the ones representing the whole of society in that sense. So you can say, 'We'll appoint a committee.' We are the committee. So how does it manifest in that sense? I think we all have an interest in this. It might be from different perspectives, but we all have an interest in this if we want a properly functioning democracy. Senator Ananda-Rajah: You can have committees galore. But, at the end of the day, if the committees aren't getting the information from trusted civic groups or from competent regulators who have the means to compel these megacompanies, these multinational behemoths, to provide this sort of information, they're going to be in the dark. Senator Whish-Wilson: And AI can actually be used to detect AI, of course. There is that two-edged sword that we need to get more detail on. But, given the lack of time, Michelle, I'd say this is something JSCEM needs to play a role in. We don't know the answers, and the fact that none of us know the answers is not good enough. We need to work out a plan for this because, if we don't win this war, we lose everything. Senator Ananda-Rajah: We lose everything. And it's not just democracy at stake. I'm a former doctor. There are public health ramifications here. We're already seeing vaccine hesitancy. Measles is back, for goodness sake. Diphtheria is back. Senator HODGINS-MAY: Perhaps you can take on notice if there are any other jurisdictions that are getting this stuff right that we should be referring to, engaging with and calling as witnesses. I suspect it's in the very lengthy report. We're really grateful for your time today and for the enormous amount of work you put into this. It does sound like the biggest threat facing us ahead of the 2028 election based on what we've heard. Senator Whish-Wilson: Who knows? Two years is a long time in this world now. CHAIR: As you said, it's already started. Senator Ananda-Rajah: Thank you for taking an interest. Mr SMALL: I'm happy for this to be taken on notice, too. Could either of the senators point to any good evidence they took in terms of resolving the dilemma between a genuinely held belief and deliberate disinformation, because finding that threshold at law would be very difficult in terms of the deceptive conduct that someone mentioned. CHAIR: Thank you for your attendance and evidence here today. You'll be sent a copy of the transcript of your evidence to assist you with answering questions taken on notice today. You'll have an opportunity to request corrections to transcription errors. Once you've received the transcript, you're asked to provide any responses to any questions on notice within two weeks. Please forward these and any additional information that has been requested to the secretariat. The secretariat will confirm these arrangements when distributing the transcript. Please note that responses to questions on notice will be published on the committee's website as submissions to the inquiry. I thank you both for your work previously on your select committee but also for your time here today..