In most elections in Australia, political candidates and parties can deploy deliberately deceptive and misleading advertising without facing legal penalties.

While this has troubling consequences for democracy in what has increasingly become a ‘post-truth’ era, policymakers have multiple options available to them to increase truthfulness in election campaigns.

For this RSA Webinar, Bill Browne will present on how momentum is gathering pace in many jurisdictions for political advertising reforms and what may happen at the federal level in the next term of parliament.

Mr Browne is Senior Researcher in the Democracy and Accountability Program at The Australia Institute. He authored the 2019 report We can handle the truth: Opportunities for truth in political advertising.

He will also share his insights on the current laws operating in the ACT and South Australia, and discuss the challenges of legislating for truth in political advertising.