Victoria's Main Parties Use AI-Generated Videos of Rival Leaders in Election Ads

On Saturday, Victorian Labor posted a Halloween-themed video showing an AI-generated version of Liberal leader Jess Wilson, with a voice that sounds like hers, warning of "Americanised healthcare" under a Liberal government, according to a report by The Guardian. In the clip, the synthetic Wilson holds a bill listing US-style prices, including $150,000 for a heart attack. Wilson never said this.

The case shows how cheap and easy it has become for mainstream parties, not just fringe groups, to put fabricated words in an opponent's mouth. Victoria, unlike South Australia, has no law requiring such content to be labelled or banning it.

The video draws on a press conference last month, at which Wilson announced a $1.27 billion plan to pay private hospitals to carry out public elective surgery. Asked whether it was bad to "Americanise" the health system, she replied "Not at all". Premier Ben Carroll defended the ad on ABC Radio Melbourne on Wednesday, saying "They're her words." Wilson called it a "desperate smear campaign", and the Liberal campaign described the video as "garbage".

The Liberals are also using the technology. Their posts include AI-generated videos of Carroll asleep at his desk, which followed a Herald Sun front page on October 24 in which unnamed sources accused him of napping on the job. A Labor campaign source told The Guardian that the Liberals had "threw the first brick".

Others have done the same. Last month the conservative lobby group Advance Australia released an AI-generated video imagining a Labor win on election night, featuring former premiers Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews. It is the only one of these videos to carry a disclaimer that it was made with AI. A video shown at One Nation's campaign launch used inflammatory ethnic tropes, the newspaper reported.

Clancy Moore, chief executive of Transparency International Australia, said deepfakes and AI-generated politicians in election ads would further erode voters' trust in politicians and democracy. He wants Victoria and the federal government to adopt truth in political advertising laws like those already in force in the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia. At a minimum, he said, parties should watermark AI content.

Under South Australia's law, using an AI deepfake in an electoral ad to show a person doing something they did not do is banned unless that person consents, with fines of up to $5,000. Any ad that uses AI must also be labelled.

Timothy Koskie, a media researcher at the University of Sydney, said the technology mainly makes weak arguments look more convincing, and that voters will not reward parties that hold back from using it. He argued that small, consistent penalties are more effective than trying to clean up misinformation once it has spread.

The Greens will on Thursday call on whichever party forms the next government to introduce South Australian-style laws. Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell has also asked parties to sign a memorandum on campaign conduct that includes a commitment not to use "deceptive AI content".