The Liberal party used pictures of the ACT government's tram project on signs, direct mail-outs and advertisements during the last week of the campaign to sway voters for Senator Zed Seselja.

At least one showed ACT senator and former chief minister Katy Gallagher and Shane Rattenbury signing a power-sharing arrangement in 2012 to deliver the tram, urging voters to punish them at the polling booth.

But spending on ACT election messaging is capped at $40,000 per candidate, which means major parties can spend up to $1 million should they field 25 candidates in October.

On Tuesday, ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green said the money spent on some but not all of the federal campaign would be considered as material designed to sway voters in the upcoming ACT election.

"Clearly light rail is an ACT election issue and Mr Rattenbury is an ACT MLA and a member of the government, so that puts those advertisements within our purview," he said.

Mr Hanson and Canberra Liberals campaign manager Simeon Duncan have argued light rail became a federal election issue once Greens senate candidate Christina Hobbs proposed a further investment of $400 million.

"We would argue strongly, very strongly, that if the ACT senator wants to campaign on what is a federal issue after The Greens clearly made it one, he is entitled to do that," he said.

Mr Hanson said he would be "surprised" and "disappointed" if the federal spending was included in Canberra Liberal's spending cap for the October election.

He would not say how much money Mr Seselja campaign has spent on the anti-tram advertisements, but insisted he was informed and the loss would not hurt the party's chances in October.

"It is obviously a complex situation when we have a federal senator responding to a federal issue, but that would somehow limit an ACT election party and what they are doing in an election three months later," he said.

Mr Hanson said Canberra voters were able to distinguish between federal and territory election issues. He said his party would accept and comply with the electoral commission's final decision.

On January 1, the commission tightened the amount of money political parties are able to spend on messaging from $60,000-per-candidate during the 2012 election campaign, to $40,000.

The total amount major political parties can spend on campaign messaging remains $1 million, given the number of ACT parliamentarians will increase from 17 to 25 this year.

Major political parties came close to the $1 million cap during the 2012 ACT election campaign.

Labor declared $919,191 of spending with close to half that amount spent on direct mail-outs, t-shirts and merchandise. Another $280,000 on television and radio advertisements, $87,000 on print ads and $75,000 on opinion polls.

The Liberals spent less at $736,669 but prioritised broadcast advertising with $480,000 on television or radio ads, $5000 on print ads, $140,000 on direct mailouts and $33,000 on opinion polls.

The ACT Greens spent $226,581 in 2012, about half on broadcast advertising.