Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Someone laughs? Yes, that's a kind of a difference of opinion. That says it straight away—we can't have a difference of opinion. I will read out Voltaire. Voltaire, a French philosopher, said: 'I disagree with everything you have said but I will defend every day your right to say it.' Members opposite might want to dwell on that because that is what this bill is undermining—I disagree with everything you say but I will defend your right to say it. What this Labor radical left-wing government is doing is abandoning that principle. This government does not want to defend our right to say things that they disagree with and that is what this is about, so why would you want to do that?

I'm surprised that we are debating this issue at this level in Australia. You might want to say, 'What is the motivation of a government to do this?' In this radical left-wing government, their motivation on this bill is control. When you want to clamp down on free speech in this country, you are about control. They do not want everyone necessarily to be able to say what that person believes is the truth, because, at the end of the day, one person's misinformation is another person's opinion. We always say great ceremonial things about our diggers and veterans, as we should, across both sides of this chamber but our diggers fought for stuff like this. The basis of free speech in this country has always been respected, and I cannot believe we are debating this right in this chamber today.

This is a very slippery slope. The other side will get up and say, 'ACMA is independent. It is a government body. It is just looking for misinformation.' Well, how are you going to define it? How is somebody going to define what is misinformation? I assume a lot of people have read 1984 by George Orwell. This is all about the ministry of truth. Some anonymous person, if this bill goes through, is going to have the right to say and decide what individuals will be able to say on platforms, and this is a slippery, slippery slope.

Again, I think it is about control. One of the reasons that this government is so motivated about this at the moment is the Voice referendum. The government of the day—this government today—criticised people through the Voice referendum, saying that misinformation was being spread. What was the misinformation that was being spread? Was it because people disagreed with them? Was it because some people had legitimate concerns. Some people's opinion was that it was going to divide us by race. That was people's opinion. They say that is misinformation. Some people had huge constitutional questions about the Voice referendum—that it was going to have huge constitutional ramifications. Are we now not allowed to say that? The government of the day, the Prime Minister of the day, many members on that side have said that misinformation was spread about that. Is that what the person in ACMA is going to decide—that, if you have a difference of opinion on things, you can't say that? Is the person in ACMA going to decide that, if we had the Voice referendum and they had these powers, they would take down commentary on the Voice referendum that said that this is going to divide our country by race? Is that what the ACMA person's going to decide? That's what the government thinks it was. The government thinks it was misinformation. If you have constitutional concerns about it, and people say, 'Well, you shouldn't have constitutional concerns about it,' because of whatever their opinion was, is the ACMA person going to say, 'Well, I agree that that's misinformation,' because of their opinion on it, and clamp down on free speech in this country?

The member who spoke before me used the example of vaccines. Personally, I supported the vaccine rollout in Australia through COVID, but I don't want people who didn't agree with that to be quietened just because they disagreed with the conventional view from the medical profession. If a person did have that opinion, in this country they should have the right to say it. The member opposite used that as an example of something that they shouldn't have been able to say. Again, I refer to Voltaire: 'I disagree with everything you say, but I will defend every day your right to say it.' That is under threat in Australia.

Why do I say that this is a radical left-wing government that we have in Australia right now? Because there is no other Western country that has given a government entity this much power. The UK and the US don't have this type of law. No other Western country has this. Again, that's why this is a very dangerous, radical, extreme left-wing government that we have here.

Do you know what you can't do either? I could say something in this chamber, where I am protected by parliamentary privilege, thankfully. But, if I say something in the parliament and it's recorded, as it is, an individual may not be able to post that on a platform, because ACMA may decide that what I've said is misinformation. So, if an individual reposts what I've said in this chamber, ACMA could actually take that down off a platform. That hasn't been negated by the minister with this bill, because she's been asked a question about that in a briefing.

So that's how scary this is. You can say whatever you like as long as you agree with the radical left-wing government. That's what this rule is about. I'm not going to call it ACMA anymore. If this bill passes, ACMA no longer exists. It will be called the Ministry of Truth, like the entity in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, because those will be the powers they will have.

You might say: 'Okay, how is it going to work in practice? What will ACMA have the power to do?' Take podcasts. Suppose you have a podcast, and someone thinks that podcast contains misinformation. The dangerous thing about this is that the platform owners will always lean on the side of taking the information down rather than leaving it there, because the penalties and fines that ACMA will impose on them are severe. If you're a platform, you will say, 'Well, I don't want ACMA to come along and say: "You've left up this podcast by this individual, or this interview that we did with someone. We're not going to let that stay up."' Platforms are going to lean towards taking it down because of the severity of the fines that ACMA will impose on them.

This is very dangerous stuff. It takes in podcasts, message boards and aggregate news. There's no other word to describe it except 'censorship'. Again, should this surprise me? Maybe not, because any radical and extreme government wants control. If you look at history, you will see that any extreme right-wing or left-wing government always wants to control the press and the information that is out there.

Again—I will do it a couple of times through this speech—I refer to a great philosopher and to the great saying 'I disagree with everything you say, but every day I will protect the right for you to say that.' But that's not the essence of this bill. That is not how the minister thinks about this. I'm assuming that the whole of the Labor Party will vote for this bill. When you talk about free speech, there is not a lot of free speech within the Labor caucus, because, if you have a difference of opinion publicly and you're in caucus, you get kicked out of the party. That says something about their ideas about free speech. I'm assuming the Greens will do so as well. So free speech doesn't come easily to them in some ways.

I just want to talk about some people's comments. You would say this, because you're a partisan politician on the other side of the chamber, Deputy Speaker, but I want to give you some quotes from some third parties. The NSW Solicitor General said this bill is 'based on the patronising assumption that members of the community cannot make a judgement about those opinions but must be protected from the obvious inadequacies of their judgement'. That's a good point. They're basically saying: 'We can't trust you to see through things that are mistruths. We don't trust you as individuals to be able to see what is truth and what is not truth, so we'll protect you from it.' That's just justifying, again, shutting down free speech. The Victorian Bar Association have said:

The bill's interference with the self-fulfilment of free expression will occur primarily by the chilling self-censorship it will inevitably bring about in the individual users of the relevant services.

Again, free will is gone under this. There have been some minor adjustments to this bill. Victorian barrister Peter A Clarke said, 'It's like lipstick on a pig.' He said: 'To capture political content was a change for the worst. Politics involves a lot of commentary and a lot of loose language. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's disinformation or misinformation.' The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties have said:

… this bill is unsatisfactory. If the government says there are deficiencies—

because, again, the other thing here is we have laws already that have prohibitions on some things you can and can't say. You can't defame people. If you go out and say something about someone that is untrue, there are defamation laws already that protect people. You can't go out and say X about someone and just get away with that. They can take you through a defamation process. To go back, the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties have said, 'This bill is unsatisfactory.' Professor Nick Coatsworth, the former deputy chief health officer, said:

The terms "misinformation" and "disinformation" have become overused in public discourse …

The Australian Christian Lobby have said:

There is no excuse for what's proposed in this bill.

…   …   …

Where the government should be safeguarding the free speech of Australians, it will instead require social media to control our public discourse.

Again I make the point that there are protections already in our legal system. You can't go out and incite violence in our country. There are existing laws about that and to clamp down on that. You can't go out and defame people, because there are laws about defaming people. But this law is about clamping down on free speech in Australia. It's the most radical legislation on this issue around the Western world.

I understand that Labor were disappointed that they lost the Voice referendum. I understand that they don't like the fact that people disagree with them. I understand the fact that the Prime Minister doesn't like memes of him that look silly. But this is a democracy. Our diggers fought for free speech. I've heard politicians on both sides of this parliament say, 'I disagree with everything you say but will defend your right to say it.' That has now been abandoned by this radical left-wing government.

This bill will obviously pass this chamber in the next 24 hours because Labor have no choice. Labor have to lock in, and they can't have a difference of opinion in this chamber and across the floor. But shame on this government. You have started us down a very slippery slope where some faceless bureaucrat, who we will now call the ministry for truth, will decide what individuals can or can't say on social media platforms. When this legislation goes through, I think it's probably the saddest day and the saddest piece of legislation I've seen for the freedoms and liberties of our country, and everyone who votes for this should be absolutely ashamed of what they are doing.

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