Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely. We believe in freedom of speech on this side, and we certainly want to defend rights and we want to put this through the proper process. It certainly shouldn't be rushed through this place or the other.

Let me turn to some of the comments that have been made by stakeholders. There were many thousands of submissions made to the Senate inquiry, and only a fraction of those have been uploaded for public view. We know, of course, that this second take on the bill has only been open for consultation for a week, but we have had some interesting stakeholder feedback on many aspects of this bill. The Victorian Bar association has made a scathing submission, which warned the bill would undermine free speech by encouraging, 'chilling self-censorship' and stifling discussions of 'sensitive or controversial views'. The Australian Human Rights Commission has warned that the proposed law 'does not strike the appropriate balance' with respect to free speech, and it said:

… it also needs to be recognised that information may be opportunistically labelled as 'misinformation' or 'disinformation' to delegitimise alternative opinions, and limit open discussion about issues of public importance.

I think that's incredibly sound advice from the Australian Human Rights Commission on this front. A submission from combined faith leaders said:

… digital providers will be assessing whether the content of a religious belief is reasonable in determining whether or not it is misinformation. This is the same as saying that providers are empowered to determine whether the teaching is reasonable in itself.

Christian Schools Australia are another group that have outlined in their submission their opposition to this bill. They've said:

… social media companies are incentivised to broadly interpret the definition of 'misinformation' and narrowly interpret content that is reasonably disseminated for a religious purpose.

Christian Schools Australia also note:

… social media companies will be able to exercise discretion about how to interpret their obligations and whether content by faith-based schools is reasonable dissemination for a religious purpose.

Disputes under the misinformation bill are ultimately subject to court rulings. This creates the disturbing scenario where a court may determine whether or not a religious belief is reasonable. As outlined by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, the bishops have said in relation to this bill:

It also leaves open to a judicial authority to decide what is and is not "reasonable" when it comes to expressing a religious belief, and whether the expression of a religious belief is always for a "religious purpose."

They have gone on to extensively rip apart this bill. There have been a number of other stakeholders who've made similar comments in relation to the religious aspects of this bill and the concerns about what digital providers may or may not interpret as misinformation.

Ultimately, I think this comes down to a significant ideological difference between us and the government. We have faith in the Australian people to sort fact from fiction. We believe the Australian people should be the arbiters of what is truth when it comes to any public discourse in this country. We have faith that they've got the capacity to do that. We do not support this bill. This is a massive overreach. We ask the government to reconsider this. Go back to the drawing board.

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