Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Combating misinformation and disinformation is one of the Albanese government's top priorities. Our democracy relies on a strong and robust economy of ideas, but around the world we've witnessed the scourge of misinformation and disinformation surrounding some of the most important issues in our time, issues like the efficacy of vaccines during the toughest days of the COVID-19 pandemic—issues where the spread of misinformation, whether inadvertent or deliberate, can cause real harm to people and to democracy. We've witnessed a change in the way that information is shared and disseminated in our national polity. The purpose of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 is to respond to that change. Not doing anything, not responding, would allow further decay of our democratic polity. It would enable misinformation to continue to affect our democracy.

The criticisms of this bill have included that the definition of misinformation is unnecessarily broad. That is not true. The bill defines misinformation clearly as online content that is false, misleading or deceptive and that is shared or created without an intent to deceive but can cause and contribute to serious harm. Hence, disinformation is the intentional spread of misinformation aimed to deceive or cause serious harm.

The Liberal Party are more interested in playing politics than engaging with serious debate on this issue. Indeed, the Liberal Party website currently states that a re-elected Liberal coalition government will introduce 'stronger laws to combat harmful disinformation and misinformation online by giving the media regulator stronger information-gathering and enforcement powers'. Yet, when the draft bill was put out for consultation, instead of making constructive suggestions to improve the bill, instead of sitting down and working out how we could deliver a solution together on this important issue, all the opposition could offer up was the idea that the bill could be stopped, or binned. 'Bin the bill', the perfect three-word slogan for the misinformation age: no constructive engagement, no solutions to this real problem, just a slogan made to be shared online.

Something needs to be done. Misinformation can interfere with our democratic process, and we've already witnessed the potential consequences if misinformation goes viral and unchecked. Leading democracies around the world have endured polarisation of communities, enacted by politicians desperate for power. It's been dubbed by one New York Times columnist as the normalisation of social hysteria. None of us want to see Australia go down that path, and this bill will help ensure that we won't. Not only do misinformation and disinformation threaten our democracy; they can inflict real harm on real people. Last year ACMA released research revealing that four out of five Australians had been exposed to misinformation about COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic—four out of five. This was mostly experienced on digital platforms like YouTube and social media. One paper published by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information described misinformation as:

… a powerfully destructive force in this era of global communication, when one false idea can spread instantly to many vulnerable ears.

Who knows how many lives could have been saved here in Australia and around the world if not for the scourge of misinformation?

I commend the Minister for Communications for her work in this space. This bill would give greater powers to ACMA, and under these proposed changes ACMA would be able to gather information from digital platform providers and keep records on misinformation and disinformation, they would be able to enforce a code of practice to reduce misinformation and disinformation shared on these platforms and they could establish even stronger regulation through an industry standard if a code is deemed inadequate. The bill also follows recommendations by ACMA to improve transparency and hold digital platforms to account. There is a consensus in the community that there needs to be a joint effort to combat misinformation and disinformation, and ACMA's 2021 misinformation report also uncovered that Australians see joint responsibility in doing this. This responsibility is shared between government, platforms and their users. That's why this bill is important. That's why the government is taking action in this vital area.

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