Australia’s first inquiry into climate misinformation finds a systemic problem distorting public debate – but its strongest solutions sit outside the main report.

Australia’s first parliamentary inquiry into climate and energy misinformation and disinformation has landed but its most significant solutions aren’t found in its headline recommendations.

That’s not because a majority of senators didn’t want action. Far from it.

Over 11 days of hearings and hundreds of submissions, the inquiry assembled a substantial body of evidence pointing to a growing “information integrity gap” that is distorting public debate, delaying policy, undermining trust in science and institutions, and posing a real threat to Australian democracy.

The inquiry heard extensive evidence that misinformation and disinformation are not isolated incidents but systemic and increasingly sophisticated.

Multiple submissions detailed coordinated “astroturfing” campaigns, including fake social media accounts impersonating real Australians to manufacture opposition to renewable energy projects, alongside widespread use of misleading political advertising.

Experts warned that digital platforms are amplifying false and distorted claims through opaque algorithms, while the rapid rise of artificial intelligence is accelerating an explosion of deceptive content.

The inquiry’s main recommendations set out a broad, whole-of-government approach to improving ‘information integrity’ across climate and energy.

They call for adopting international frameworks, boosting funding for regulators, research and media, improving transparency around political and corporate influence, strengthening digital literacy, and enhancing oversight of digital platforms.

All sensible. All necessary. All important.

But largely high-level.

They sketch the architecture of a response, rather than the detailed blueprint needed to deliver it.

And that is the central tension of this report.

Because it’s only when you move beyond the main body of the report, and into the additional comments from senators across the political spectrum, that a more concrete legislative and regulatory roadmap begins to emerge.

A majority of the committee – including Greens chair Peter Whish-Wilson, the two Labor senators, independent David Pocock and Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan – used their additional comments to make clear that the main report does not go far enough.

Having reached the shared conclusion that “Australia is confronting a systemic failure in the integrity of our information environment,” Pocock and McLachlan were blunt in their assessment: “The committee’s report stops short of recommending the structural reforms needed to address underlying problems.”

From there, they, along with the Greens, set out a series of more specific proposals.

At the top of that list is the urgent need for truth in political advertising laws.

“Australians continue to see misleading political advertising deployed with impunity,” write Pocock and McLachlan.

This concern was echoed across submissions, including from the Centre for Public Integrity, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Climate Council, all of which identified misleading political advertising as a critical weakness in Australia’s democratic system, particularly in the context of climate and energy.

Yet despite a 2024 federal bill that would have introduced enforceable standards, the reform was abandoned and has not been revived.

The additional comments also shine a light on a major gap in Australia’s regulations: the absence of enforceable rules governing ‘inauthentic behaviour’ online.

The inquiry heard direct evidence of coordinated campaigns designed to manipulate public perception. Farmers for Climate Action, for example, detailed the use of fake social media profiles impersonating real Australians to create the illusion of widespread opposition to renewable energy.

The inquiry found Australia’s current approach to regulating online platforms relies heavily on voluntary industry codes and lacks enforceable obligations, leaving a significant gap in the ability to deal with false and misleading content.

Nor is there a clear legal obligation for platforms to remove bot accounts or label automated content – a gap that experts warned will become more dangerous as AI tools advance.

“This regulatory gap is indefensible,” write Pocock and McLachlan, who argue that legislation is needed to force platforms to detect and remove bots, and to provide transparency around the algorithms that shape public discourse.

“The algorithms on which they base their business models now determine what millions of Australians see, hear and read.”

The Greens go further still, taking direct aim at the sources of misinformation: “The fossil fuel industry knew, lied, and denied catastrophic climate change, and then sabotaged climate action for decades, all the while raking in billions of dollars in profits every year.”

They argue misinformation is “undermining our electoral and democratic processes and slowing the urgently required transition to clean and renewable energy.”

Their additional comments include a detailed suite of proposals: a real-time public register of political advertising, limits or bans on fossil fuel advertising, stronger disclosure requirements for online advertisers, expanded lobbying rules, and tougher regulatory oversight of digital platforms, including powers to compel transparency, label AI-generated content, and penalise the amplification of false information.

They also call for independent monitoring of digital influence, greater powers for regulators, and stronger support for regional media and national security agencies investigating coordinated campaigns.

If the main report appears cautious, the politics of the inquiry explain why. This was never a unified committee.

Three conservative senators issued dissenting reports that not only reject the report’s main recommendations, but question the legitimacy of the inquiry itself.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan describes it as “an attempt to bully and cajole people into silence. I have never seen a greater abuse of the Senate’s purpose.”

He argues it was “nothing more than a means to silence, shun and ignore those in the community who dare to question the man-made impact of climate change and the Labor government’s obsession with net zero.”

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts is even more scathing, writing that “this is far and away the worst senate inquiry I have experienced.”

He adds: “The biggest sources of climate and energy mis-disinformation are government and the UN” and “there is no rational basis for proposing mis-disinformation laws to control speech and thought.”

These dissenting views underline just how contested the terrain is, not just the solutions but the very premise that misinformation represents a systemic problem that requires intervention.

For all the limitations imposed on the inquiry, it remains a significant milestone. It is believed to be the first parliamentary inquiry anywhere in the world to examine the issue of information integrity in climate and energy, a problem now recognised by the United Nations as a major barrier to effective climate action.

It has brought to light compelling evidence that misinformation and disinformation are not fringe phenomena, but structural features of today’s information ecosystem, amplified by digital platforms, political incentives and coordinated campaigns.

But while the inquiry has done a service in documenting the problem, its main report offers only a partial roadmap for solving it.

The more ambitious, targeted solutions – those that could impose real obligations on political actors, digital platforms and corporate interests – sit outside the main recommendations, somewhat buried in the appendices.

But still available for everyone to see.

And they are well worth reading. 

Republished from Renew Economy, 30 March 2026