Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Very important on election day. The bill will enable affected persons to apply to a relevant court for an injunction to prevent conduct in contravention of the new offences in the Criminal Code. As I'm reminded, it's important to note that the purpose of this power is to enable affected persons to act swiftly—as you need to, particularly online, and you saw that with the 'Mediscare' campaign; there needed to be an immediate and effective response—to prevent conduct amounting to false representation of a Commonwealth agency, which is what we saw. It was very cleverly targeted, unfortunately, at the most vulnerable. These amendments are critical to protecting Commonwealth bodies from what is and will be criminal misrepresentation—and it should be. It should be against the law to misrepresent a Commonwealth agency or body. The amendments will ensure that the public—those people out there who elect us to this place—can have confidence in all forms of communication that come from the Commonwealth government.

The people who live in our electorates take it very seriously when they get any form of communication claiming to be from a government agency. They take it seriously and they need to have confidence that that's who it's actually coming from. That's why this law is so important. We're committed to safeguarding the proper functioning of Australia's democracy—that's what this is about; it's not about anything other than safeguarding our democracy. Trust is so critical. Australian people need to have trust in the validity of communications from our Commonwealth bodies. After all, if you can't trust a Commonwealth body, who can you trust? That's what people say to me. They need to have that level of confidence, and we here are the guardians of that trust. That's why we take it so seriously, and we do, and why I'm very pleased to be speaking on this bill. This bill will strengthen public confidence in all such communications. Just as importantly, it will ensure that those who deliberately deceive the Australian public are ultimately captured by the law. What a great result that will be. I commend the minister for bringing the legislation to the House. It is important legislation. I commend the bill to the House. I'm pleased that my colleagues are here to support that endeavour.

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