“Some of the worst ones are even trying to impersonate the ALP on Google ad search results to try and directly mislead voters about policy.”

Light’s email said the party would use donations to send targeted ads to “persuadable voters in marginal seats”.

A Google spokesman said the ad referred to in Light’s email “had been reviewed and appropriate action taken” but would not specify which ad it was or if it breached any policies, citing privacy policies.

A government spokesman said it had not run any misleading ads, adding there was a disclaimer at the bottom of its search ads, which are logged in Google’s transparency library, to make clear its source.

“It is disappointing that Labor continues to deceive voters and those whom it seeks to raise funds from,” he said, pointing to other Labor ads where remarks from Prime Minister Scott Morrison are taken out of context and “non-existent” cuts to Medicare are claimed.

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Both major parties are investing heavily in Google search ads, with Google Trends data showing spiking interest in terms like “Labor policies” as the election enters its final days.

Public administration professor Ariadne Vromen, from the Australian National University, said the email was a textbook example of micro-donation fundraising, where political parties tap into current events to solicit small amounts from many benefactors.

Vromen said where once political groups asked for these donations with largely optimistic messages, increasingly they were saying “give us more money so we can fight the other side, because they represent this danger to Australian politics and society”.

Independent ACT Senate candidate David Pocock said Advance Australia should be prosecuted for its ads, which he said had misled and confused some Canberrans into incorrectly believing he had been a Greens member.

“It says a lot about my opponents that they are relying on false and misleading advertising to try and scare people instead of presenting their own ideas for the future of our great city,” Pocock said in a statement.

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Advance’s executive director Matthew Sheahan said the AEC had backflipped and made the wrong decision, which Advance would take legal advice on. Advance made “no apology” for pointing out the similarity of policy positions between some independent candidates and the Greens, he said.

The AEC has also threatened legal action against the Back Beetaloo campaign if it doesn’t remove political video advertisements or update them with an authorisation.

The group, which is pushing gas mining in the Northern Territory and was exposed last year as a fake grassroots campaign set up by a former Liberal staffer in Sydney, has paid to promote pro-Coalition and anti-Greens content mainly to men over age 45 in Queensland. It did not respond to a request for comment.

With Caitlin Fitzsimmons

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