The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) does not have the suitable power and resources to investigate the origins of funding for political advertisements published on social media, an inquiry heard on Friday, months after a leading Australian media outlet alleged that a coal mining company was covertly funding social media campaigns that criticized renewable energy sources
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2019) The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) does not have the suitable power and resources to investigate the origins of funding for political advertisements published on social media, an inquiry heard on Friday, months after a leading Australian media outlet alleged that a coal mining company was covertly funding social media campaigns that criticized renewable energy sources."The challenge is a resourcing issue, and during a five-week election campaign and the volume of communications that are happening so we really are looking at that authorisation detail and the ability to look beyond is very difficult," AEC's chief legal officer Andrew Johnson told an inquiry, as quoted by The Guardian Australia.
Johnson's comments came at a hearing of the joint standing committee on electoral matters, and the legal officer stressed that the media has a greater role to play in investigating the origin of funds used to sponsor political and other campaign advertisements published on social media.
"And I think that comes back to the electoral commissioner's comments about the importance of our 'stop and consider' [campaign] and making that awareness among the public, but also the importance of the media in scrutinising, and the media having that extra ability to scrutinise and go beyond and put that out to the public about what those sources are, so that information is publicly available," Johnson added.
In March, The Guardian Australia published an investigation into covert funding provided by the mining company Glencore. The investigation, entitled Project Caeser, concluded that the mining giant spent millions of Dollars funding a social media campaign used to undermine environmental activists, influence politicians, and spread pro-coal messaging. According to The Guardian Australia report, Glencore insisted that all social media campaigns complied with Australian law.
