Craig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise this afternoon to speak on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Foreign Influences and Offences) Bill 2022, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Authorisations) Bill 2022 and the Electoral Legislation Amendment (COVID Enfranchisement) Bill 2022. Before I do, I note that during this debate the member for Perth, specifically when talking about the importance of fair and free elections, made a gratuitous attack on the United Australia Party, which I would like, of course, to respond to. At this next election, it will not just be the two old major parties contesting it. This will be one of the first elections in Australia's history where there will be a real third choice. Australians at this next election will have a real third choice, not just the two major parties, and this is even despite how the system is rigged against the smaller and minor parties. In our entire electoral system, which we've been talking about and debating this morning, the cards are stacked against new and minor parties.

Let's just take a couple of examples. The incumbent members of a major party, the Labor or Liberal party, when they go out to campaign at this next election campaign, of course, are on full freight—they are being paid a wage by the taxpayer and will have their staff paid for by the taxpayer. If they go to a railway station in the morning, the transport—the car that they have—will be paid for by the taxpayer. But the new party, someone that's trying to break into politics, doesn't have any of those advantages. They must fund everything out of their pocket. Their volunteers must be genuine volunteers—not the paid volunteers that we as elected members of parliament have. New parties don't have access to these community grants schemes, which are little more—as we all know—than local pork-barrelling before an election. We know the media covers our election campaigns as a presidential race, giving millions of dollars of free advertising to the old parties. And that is how it has been in past election after past election after past election. But at this election there is truly a third choice. These will be fair elections; we know there are no Dominion voting machines in Australia. So I would encourage every Australian to get onto the rolls and make your voice count. Don't listen to the nonsense. Make your voice count at this next election: a big change can be made.

With that, at this coming election, it's very disappointing to hear that the AEC has gone down a road of superstition, ignorance and sheer stupidity by mandating vaccine mandates for those that will work on election day. Let's be very clear: you are free to turn up and vote at this next election whether you've been injected with one, two, three, or now maybe even four shots of the COVID vaccines. But if you want to work as an AEC official in the election booth on election day, you will have had to submit to being so-called fully vaccinated. Now, it is not yet clear whether that that will mean two injections or whether it will mean three injections that you have had to undergo.

Dr Robert Malone has described such mandates as 'pointless and idiotic'. Professor McCullough has called for all these mandates to end. And yet here we have the Australian Electoral Commission going down the track of mandating injections. And there is simply no cause for this. Free and fair elections should allow any Australian to put their name forward to work for the AEC on election day. For the data is clear. In the latest data from the UK, the COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report for week 6, 10 February, we go to table 13 and it clearly shows that those in the 30 to 39 age bracket who have been injected three times have a 140 per cent greater chance of being COVID-positive. The 40- to 49-year-olds have a 172 per cent greater chance of testing positive for COVID if they've been triple vaccinated, and those in the 50 to 59 age group have a 127 per cent greater probability. That is what the data shows. So the AEC is, clearly, missing the boat. The AEC is, clearly, adopting the policies of superstition, ignorance and stupidity, and its vaccine mandates for employees at this next election should be called off and should be suspended.

One of the great concerns that I have about having fair and free elections is not just the voting system but the influence that our large foreign social media tech giants—Facebook, Twitter, Google and TikTok—have on the Australian political landscape. The other day, the member for Dawson moved a very wise private member's bill seeking to stop these foreign tech giants from censoring and removing political posts that are not illegal. It should be the principle in this country that, if you can say something on a soapbox in the town square on a political issue, and that is lawful speech, it should be unlawful for a foreign tech giant to censor and delete that speech. Doing so is foreign interference in the Australian electoral system. Our democracy is being threatened by the censorship policies of these tech giants. I commend the good work of the member for Dawson. That's why I have moved a third reading amendment to this bill, expanding on the good work from the member for Dawson, to ensure that there are greater protections in our democracy from foreign interference from these large tech giants.

We also need to draw a line between what is foreign interference and what is a genuine free debate and criticism from other nations. We should rightly be free to call out human rights abuses in other countries where they occur. Likewise, other countries should be free to call out abuses of human rights that occur in our country. Those of us who witnessed it were able to see through the censored media the scenes of Victorian police officers opening fire with rubber bullets, shooting into the backs of fleeing demonstrators in the shadow at the Shrine of Remembrance. Acts like that deserve to be condemned. That is not foreign interference in Australian election campaigns. Likewise, when we see abuses of human rights in other countries, Australia has the right to call them out.

We have a very special relationship with Canada. Australian and Canadian troops served together in the Boer War, World War I and Korea, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, to fight against tyranny and for freedom. It was Australian troops, working side by side with Canadian troops, that brought about what the Germans called their darkest day during World War I. It was the Australian and Canadian troops that turned the tide on World War I, fighting for freedom. Today, all Australians look at what is happening in Canada and at what Prime Minister Trudeau is doing to the Canadian people and the truckers in Ottawa. We should call that out as an abuse of human rights—loudly and clearly. This is the shame of what is happening to our great Canadian brothers.

An issue that greatly concerns me about the interference of these foreign tech giants is that in this parliament we have parliamentary privilege, and we should be free to stand up here and debate whatever issue comes to us without fear of censorship, without fear of impeachment, and without fear of being de-platformed or struck off by these large foreign tech giants. But that is not happening. I declare a vested interest in this because it has happened to me. But this is not about me. This is about this parliament going forward to enable whoever comes into this parliament in the years and decades ahead to stand at the dispatch box or rise in their place and speak with their conscience without having to worry that their speech will be questioned, impeached or de-platformed by someone from a foreign country, a large tech giant. But that is exactly what is happening today. Speeches that I have made in this parliament, the proceedings of the Australian parliament, are being censored and removed from YouTube’s platform. That should shock every single Australian.

Freedom of speech in this place goes back to the Bill of Rights in 1688. Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 provides:

That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.

For centuries, that has been the principle. And the way that came about, the historical reason for that act in 1688, goes back to the reign of King Charles I. In 1629, three members of the UK parliament—Eliot, Holles and Valentine—were thrown into the Tower of London for making speeches concerning complaints about allegedly illegal taxation. The monarch of the day imprisoned them in the Tower of London. Sir John Eliot died there in 1632 and the two other members of parliament were detained in the Tower of London for 11 years. In 1668, Eliot's conviction was reversed by the House of Lords. It was regarded as illegal and against the freedom and privilege of parliament. This was followed by the Bill of Rights of 1688, which simply says that the proceedings of parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament.

Yet today we have large foreign tech giants questioning the proceedings of this parliament and if it doesn't comply with their so-called community standards—not the community standards of the community but the community standards and interests of these large tech giants—they will impeach that speech, they will take it off their platform, they will threaten the member of parliament that if he makes another speech such as that he'll be struck off their platform altogether. Allowing this to happen gives the tech giants of today—the Facebooks, Googles, YouTubes, and TikToks—greater power to censor parliament than the King of England had in the late 1600s. We need to take action against this, and that is what the amendment that I'll be moving in the third reading will address.

Our elections are important. The integrity of our elections are important. They are continually are under threat. We need to be ever vigilant on foreign actors who are trying to undermine Australia's democracy and Australia's election campaign. I support these bills. They make further enhancements to our democracy. However, I will be moving an amendment in the third reading stage.

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