Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take the interjection from the helpful member across the chamber. It is correct, that as I stand here, I am—I think—the first person in this federal parliament that has actually been banned from posting things to Facebook. Some people may disagree with what I've been posting; I'm sure some people do. The fact is, we would hope that those on the other side of the chamber may agree with the concept that I may disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to my death your right to say it. It is the importance of freedom of speech that we should protect here and not be so flippant about it. It was one of Australia's greatest ever Prime Ministers, Sir Robert Menzies, who said:

… today's truth is frequently tomorrow's error. There is nothing absolute about the truth … if truth is to emerge and in the long run be triumphant, the process of free debate—the untrammelled clash of opinion—must go on.

In terms of these social media platforms, I've heard it said that anything posted contrary to World Health Organization advice should be taken down. But the problem with that is that we've had advice from the World Health Organization during this pandemic that has changed 180 degrees. Originally, we had the World Health Organization saying that masks were not necessary. That was the original advice. If someone had posted that the World Health Organization is incorrect and you can protect yourself from coronavirus by wearing a mask, at the start of the pandemic, that would have been ruled by these social media giants as misinformation and taken down. Yet now it's commonly accepted wisdom. Similarly, when we in Australia first decided that we would ban flights from China, the World Health Organization at that stage said there was no need to ban flights from China, from Wuhan Province. They said that was not needed. If someone had gone to a social media platform to argue the case that, because of the scale of the infections in China, especially in Wuhan Province, we should stop flights, that would have been contrary to World Health Organization advice. It would have been taken down, and that debate wouldn't have gone on. Now we see, to use Menzies's words, that what was today's truth was tomorrow's error. The truth that the World Health Organization once said we know now was error. That's why we are on a very slippery slope when we have people from these social media giants being the arbiters of truth and of what can and cannot be posted.

In my case, I have been banned because of four posts out of over 1,000 posts I posted in recent months. One of those posts was nothing more than an article that I had copied and pasted from The Spectator magazine—a credible magazine that is available online and is available in every newsagent in this country, that you can go and buy—written by a highly credentialed and credible journalist about Australia's Professor Tom Borody. In that speech, Professor Borody recommended ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. Facebook have ruled that as dangerous misinformation and had to remove that post and give it as the reason I should be banned. Yet what Professor Borody wrote is accepted by health authorities in many countries around the world. If I were in India in the state of West Bengal, in their official recommendations about how they should treat COVID is what Professor Borody recommends, yet here we have Facebook deciding that this was dangerous misinformation. What is dangerous about this is someone from one of these social media giants deciding that that issue should not be debated or should not be publicly discussed. If Professor Borody is wrong, the way to do that is not to censor him and to cancel his views, but to do it with an opposing point of view. Argue the facts. That is the way we get the best result in a society.

The second post that they decided must be 'taken down' was again a direct quote from a professor of immunology out of Ireland, Professor Dolores Cahill, talking about vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Recent studies show that Professor Cahill is most likely 100 per cent correct. So, again, the real danger is not the views themselves but the censoring of these views. The third one was again a direct cut and paste from a Dr Hodkinson in Canada. Yes, he did express views that were contrary to the current accepted wisdom of the World Health Organization, but who is to say that he is wrong and the World Health Organization is right when we have seen example after example of the World Health Organization changing their position 180 degrees.

The fourth example is that I put on my Facebook page a German study on mask wearing by children. That study found—beyond all reasonable doubt—that forcing young children to wear masks caused them significant psychological and physical harm. Causing children psychological and physical harm is, in itself, a definition of child abuse. The World Health Organization themselves say that when you make a recommendation or a government makes a decision on whether masks should be compulsory for children between six and 12 years of age, you have to consider those sociological and psychological facts. That is exactly what this study does.

I don't know if the conclusions of that study are 100 per cent right, but we must be free to debate these issues. If we're not, this is a very dark day for freedom of speech. I may be banned today—and it may be my colleagues next week or next month or next year or next decade who are banned because they may have a point of view that is contrary, at that time, to accepted common wisdom—but we have to remember that every single bit of progress we have made in our society, over the last several hundred ideas, has come about because someone has said the accepted wisdom of doing something is wrong and there's a better way of doing it.

That is why we must protect freedom of speech. We know from our history how important it is. I would hope that as we develop the legislation—and there'll be more legislation required to govern the impact of these large social media organisations that are developing almost a monopoly position in the marketplace—we do so in a way that, if they are going to have that position in our society, guarantees and protects freedom of speech. We must protect the clash of ideas. We must protect open and free debate, because, at the moment, the social media companies are failing to do so. And that may well require further government intervention down the track. I thank the House.

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