Support for truth in political advertising has been reaffirmed despite Labor shelving it, as concerns about deepfakes and artificial intelligence plague the election run-up.
Labor flagged legislating truth in political advertising as part of a suite of electoral reforms but put it on ice while it focused on political donation and expenditure.
It drew the ire of independents who were pushing for stronger truth protections ahead of the election.
The government agreed truth in political advertising would strengthen the integrity of elections in its response to recommendations from an inquiry into the 2022 election.
"The introduction of truth in political advertising laws would ensure that Australian voters can trust the information they receive during elections," the government's response said.
ACT senator David Pocock branded it "the height of hypocrisy to support this recommendation while simultaneously failing to progress legislation to enact it".
Instead, the government rammed through electoral expenditure caps that stack the field toward major parties and away from independents due to how party expenditure works, Senator Pocock said.
"They completely ignored the opportunity to act to protect our democracy," he told AAP.
The inquiry recommended the government review increasing the number of MPs in the lower house to improve the ratio of parliamentarians to voters and upping the number of senators in territories from two to four to boost representation.
Both were noted, meaning they weren't supported or rejected.
Senator Pocock said he was "astounded" the government didn't support extra territory senators despite it being in the Labor Party's national policy platform.
He accused Labor of failing to have the courage to stand behind its convictions.
"The ACT is a mature jurisdiction and denying us fair representation is outrageous," he said.
The government rejected recommendations for on-the-day enrolments and increasing access to over-the-phone voting.
Senator Pocock has also raised concerns about the impacts of deepfakes and Artificial Intelligence on the election, with no legal guardrails.
Deepfakes refer to digitally altered images and videos.
But as the Australian Electoral Commission is preparing for a federal election, which is set to be called in the coming weeks, there's hope that overseas elections proved AI and deepfakes won't sway electoral outcomes.
The United States presidential election hadn't shown it to be a major influence, acting electoral commissioner Jeff Pope said.
"Artificial intelligence actually didn't have a huge impact at all - in fact, there was very little of it detected in the year of elections of 2024," he told ABC radio on Friday, in reference to more than 60 countries going to the polls that year.
Analysis of its timing showed its impact was short-lived, with there being a big spike when it was released on social media and then a complete drop off the next day, he said.
"We haven't seen in any of the overseas elections yet - the UK, France, US and Indian election last year - any significant artificial intelligence that impacted the electoral process or the electoral result."
While spotting AI was a challenge, the commission has put out tips to help Australians spot fakes, he said.
"Have a healthy degree of scepticism around where you might be getting that information from, see if you can verify it from other sources," he said.
The commission is limited in what it can do to tackle misinformation being spread by candidates, with its legal remit limited to taking action against material that impacts the voting process itself, rather than political statements.
"We're also not the internet police or the internet regulators and regulating the information environment ... is pretty challenging and pretty fraught," Mr Pope said.
