M.A.D. MAD. This is the nickname cleverly given to the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill. My only regret is that I appear to be the last one to the acronym party – well, me and the wonderful Senator Alex Antic, whom I was discussing this with on Friday.
This publication, The Spectator Australia, has been fighting against censorship since the misinformation bill was first placed in the Liberal Party cradle and rocked by the party wets.
We have been fighting on the side of liberty long before this bill was conceived… This includes when the Liberal Party used the excuse of ‘public health’ and ‘child protection’ to muddy the waters on domestic terrorism and expand the digital powers of the Australian Federal Police through the Identify and Disrupt Bill of 2020, supported by Peter Dutton, which ushered in a new system of digital warrants open to abuse.
The question we keep asking is, how many true criminals have been caught and prosecuted under this new system of laws? Where is the review process to justify these extraordinary reaches of power? The review is not set to take place until after the powers sunset in 2026. That’s a long time to leave the question hanging open.
How will these powers interact with the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill? No one knows. No one has asked.
Given those arguing on behalf of medical freedom were wrongly classified as domestic terrorists, fined, imprisoned, covered in pepper spray, and shot with rubber bullets only a few years ago – concerns regarding government misuse are perfectly valid.
Our State Premiers enjoy apologising for the supposed crimes of convicts and free settlers who came to Australia in peace several centuries ago. It remains a notable insult that there hasn’t been so much as an admission, let alone apology, for the political wrongdoings of the pandemic when its scars live on through the continuing collapse of the business community, ruined friendships, lost careers, and serious vaccine injuries.
The government is the largest perpetrator and conveyor of misinformation and disinformation.
The machine of politics uses public money to lie, coerce, abuse, and threaten the public.
Government has shown itself capable of drafting policy to manipulate and corrupt the… pic.twitter.com/KAENECniM8
— Alexandra Marshall (@ellymelly) September 27, 2024
On Friday, finally, it appears the Federal Liberal Party have finally listened to their base.
Or at least, acknowledged the outrage amongst their voters.
If we skip back in time for a moment, on August 1, 2023, the Liberal Party website posted comments by Opposition Communications spokesman David Coleman.
Mr Coleman said:
‘This is a very bad bill. The government should rip it up. Freedom of speech is fundamental to our democracy, and the Coalition will always fight for it.’
It has taken far too long for the rest of the Liberal Party to agree with this sentiment and formally commit, as they have done on Friday, to opposing Labor’s version of the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill.
Mr Coleman has added:
‘The bill gives digital platforms an enormous financial incentive to censor statements made by everyday Australians. If the government decides that they have not censored enough ‘misinformation’, they can face large fines.
‘Digital platforms don’t care about the free speech of Australians – but they do care about their profits. [The bill proposes to fine companies up to 5 per cent of global revenue.] So they will censor large amounts of material in order to avoid the risk of fines. Digital platforms cannot be fined for censoring too much material – but they can be fined if they do not censor enough material.’
I do not particularly like Mr Coleman’s sentiment.
It feels a bit like criticising a prisoner for lying under torture as their fingernails are ripped out. Of course social media companies will err on the side of silence if a failure to placate the government leads to fines that pose an existential threat to their business.
If nothing else, Elon Musk, owner of X (formally Twitter), has shown that free speech is the one thing he does care about. He was prepared to pay $44 billion to protect online speech and has invested in legal battles against various governments, including Australia, when they act like emotionally brittle communists instead of the representatives of democracy.
Find me a politician – any politician – that would part with a personal fortune to further freedom of speech?
Besides, it is not as if government, as a species, has proven itself to be either the defenders or lovers of free speech. We have thousands of years of human history to demonstrate that politicians fear the speech of their citizens far more than they value honest feedback from taxpayers.
We need only look at Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, the man heading an old and respectable party that pledges, with its first breath, to value civil liberty. At every turn, we find his numerous opinions and actions directed against social media to be heavy-handed in nature where the intersection of perceived ‘safety’ seems to short-circuit his moral reasoning, leaving Mr Dutton to fall down on the side of ‘control’ every single time.
He does so, apparently unaware that ‘control’ from the state makes the nation more dangerous. Examine any regime you wish. In any period of history you choose. Micro-managing governments have been a humanitarian disaster. The great tragedy is that even conservative politicians, with access to the full brief of political history, refuse to learn this lesson and believe their good intentions will trump lived experience. For the love of Australia, stop doing this. Politicians need to chill out, for lack of a better phrase. Civilisation is a machine. It needs room to breathe, feed, and grow or the results will look like Chinese footbinding.
All of that said, I will take what I can get.
I will take every baby step toward the protection of free speech.
If the Liberals and Nationals are going to vote against Labor’s bill – great. Thank you. Blood from a bloody stone.
I will take the news even if it comes with unfortunate slanders toward social media and what I perceive as misrepresentations of the emerging media landscape.
Besides, Mr Coleman has a point when he says:
‘The process of identifying … ‘misinformation’ is highly subjective and will lead to the suppression of the free speech of Australians.’
He adds that the common things that Australians say every day would be caught up in the bill. No kidding. Can you imagine fact-checking your mates down the pub? Fact-checking your parents over dinner?
The reason this bill presents a broad risk to ordinary speech is because the government’s focus on censorship is primarily the censorship of political speech regarding major global politically sensitive topics.
Mr Coleman adds:
‘Everyday Australians are captured by the bill, but some groups are excluded from its operation. For instance, any reasonable dissemination of material for an academic, scientific, or artistic purpose is excluded from the bill, but if an everyday Australian disagrees with an academic, that can be misinformation.’
Given how much outright nonsense is celebrated in academic circles, this would give a free pass to lunatics embedded within the grift of academia.
Instead of worrying about what the public are saying, the government should focus on running the country.
If people were happy with the performance of politicians… If we were free, safe, and prosperous… There would be no need for politicians to complain about people saying mean things about them.
Censorship is the natural consequence of political criticism.
It is the knee-jerk reaction of overly sensitive, child-like Parliaments who would rather shut the public up instead of listening to their complaints.
How telling it is that both Labor and Liberal have fantasised about this legislation when both parties are at their lowest historic popularity.
Our last federal election was a contest between losers. The victory of the least worst in an abysmal sea of ruin.
And yes, Mr Coleman is right when he says that the creation of two-tiered speech is outrageous – that any Misinformation and Disinformation bill is wide open to abuse. He is right that this level of censorship is an extraordinary power for any minister to want or possess.
But why, we ask, did it take so long for his Liberal Party colleagues to realise this?
Why was it that only last month, Peter Dutton was calling for facial recognition across social media – an action that lays the groundwork for government ‘permission’ to access online discussion – and the banning of teenagers from the most important modern tool of our civilisation? As far as we know, he still holds these views.
Of course, Labor is clinging on.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is clutching at the rotting corpse of this bill, saying:
‘The Albanese government has consulted extensively on the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, including with the release of an exposure draft for public comment, the publication of submissions, and further targeted consultation with experts.
‘Misinformation and disinformation threatens the safety and wellbeing of Australians, and undermines our society and democracy. Doing nothing is not an option – and 80 per cent of Australians agree on the need to act.’
What a load of misinformation and disinformation – of manipulative drivel cloaking a power grasp.
Ms Rowland, I am going to say this directly to you.
The government is the largest perpetrator and conveyor of misinformation and disinformation. The machine of politics uses public money to lie, coerce, abuse, and threaten the public. Government has shown itself capable of drafting policy to manipulate and corrupt the Australian economy to enrich its friends, feather its future employment beds, and reward those who helped it get elected.
Our country has become the hunting ground of charlatans, criminals, thugs, and ideological zealots – all of whom this bill seeks to protect from public ridicule.
To this I say, no…
You can make us poor, but you cannot shut us up.
We will remain free to criticise you and the Labor government. Your policies, your bills, and the idiotic thought bubbles of your minister will remain fodder for public contest.
And one day, Australia will have an Enlightened government that looks back on these days as the intellectual Dark Ages run by tyrants.
Alexandra Marshall is an independent writer. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
