One Nation Reportedly Screens AI Video With Racist Tropes at Victorian Campaign Launch

One Nation reportedly played an AI-generated video featuring racist tropes at its Victorian campaign launch over the weekend, according to the Guardian. The party also published the clip online, where its fictional scenes of people embracing One Nation have sparked a backlash that Australia’s election and broadcast watchdogs have limited powers to address.

Fictional converts, familiar stereotypes

Titled “It’s ok to come out … as a One Nation voter”, the video turns invented characters into advocates for the party. It opens with a family eating “vegan mung beans” as a young man declares himself conservative. The premise carries through scenes of people abandoning their social or political allegiances.

Other scenes depict a man of African appearance wielding a machete and a man of Middle Eastern appearance wearing what looks like an explosives vest. The clip also addresses migration, bail laws, gender identity, power prices and funding for Indigenous Australians framed around “identity”. These are generated campaign scenes, not footage of those events.

Offensive content is not an electoral-process violation

The Guardian’s Josh Butler distinguishes the clip from a deception intended to convince voters that a real leftwing family changed sides. But that does not give regulators a clear route to intervene. Electoral commissions can police misinformation about the electoral process, rather than falsehoods or offensive campaign content more generally.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority cannot act against this online-only video under its current powers, the Guardian reports. It also cites News Corp reporting that a One Nation spokesperson said another version was being prepared for broadcast. A broadcast version could fall within the authority’s remit; that would not automatically establish a rules breach.

Calls for election restrictions predate this clip. Senator David Pocock has pushed for action for two years, and his petition seeking a ban on election deepfakes—synthetic media that impersonates people—has attracted 35,000 signatures. The federal Labor government has not acted on calls to ban AI-generated content during election periods.

Any money spent by a member of one nation will be donated directly to Tasmanian Greens.

Richmond Reading Room social-media post, quoted by ABC News

A cafe’s protest becomes a dispute over inclusion

ABC News reported on October 6 that Richmond Reading Room, north-east of Hobart, had expressed disgust at the video on social media. Its post made an unnamed reference to regular customer Lee Hanson, a One Nation candidate and Pauline Hanson’s daughter, alongside the pledge to donate members’ spending to the Greens.

Lee Hanson said the post came as a “complete shock” and left her “genuinely hurt”. She argued that political disagreement should not determine whether a customer is welcome. She said she would keep supporting local Tasmanian businesses, but not those that publicly made people feel unwelcome because of their political views.