Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

It is not up to the government via ACMA to decide or dictate what the truth actually is. I am proud that we, the coalition, oppose this Draconian legislation and will repeal it in government because freedom of speech is an absolute fundamental to our democracy. By contrast, it is the clear intent of the Labor government to censor, silence, control, find and punish Australians for our online content by imposing and enforcing obligations on digital platforms. This is the most antidemocratic, anti-free-speech legislation I have seen since coming into this parliament in 2007. I actually never thought I would see the day when in this country, a proud country that is globally acknowledged and highly respected as a liberal democratic society, we would be debating a bill that is explicitly designed to censor and silence the Australian people, to deny us our freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, to deny Australians the right to frank, fearless and honest debates.

We need to hear the views of people we disagree with. But what I believe Labor is really doing is preventing anyone who disagrees with the government from having their say, especially in the run to the election. The government will control what we read, see, hear and share online in the election campaign via ACMA. Labor is seeking to directly prevent anyone who disagrees with the government from having their say. This is a bill that strikes at the very heart of free speech, a key pillar of Australia's hard-fought-for and protected democratic freedoms and liberties. Over 103,000 Australian servicemen and women have fought and died for our democratic values. One of those was my sister's dad—my mother's husband—who was killed in Papua New Guinea in World War II. They fought to protect and preserve our healthy functioning democracy, a democracy that not only requires but should demand freedom of speech, where a diversity of ideas, views and opinions right across the ideological and political spectrum are encouraged, openly discussed, both agreed with and disagreed with.

However, the Labor government has decided to deliberately silence its own citizens, to legally enforce and silence debate, to shut down debate on issues that matter to Australians and to deny us the right to informed choice. Our informed choice will only be what the government approves of. This bill will deliberately suppress and remove online debate by Australians. Unfortunately, once again, Labor are determined to divide us as they tried to do with the Voice. However, this time, Labor is dividing us by the chosen ones who will have the right to freedom of speech online and those of us who will not have the right to freedom of speech online. Labor's special chosen ones, those who will have the right to freedom of speech no matter what they say will be academics, scientists, artists—the people who Labor clearly believe have a superior intellect to the rest of us. Labor's chosen ones will have the right to free speech on key and critical issues that matter to all Australians, even if it is misinformation and disinformation around critical political, health, social, economic and every other issue. Imagine not being able to disagree online about budget decisions, climate policies, Labor's renewable-only energy policy, women's safe spaces and anything else in fact. Those of us who are not the chosen ones will be bound by the Labor's broad definitions of misinformation and disinformation enforced by ACMA—Labor's truth police unit.

Misinformation is described as information that is reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive. Disinformation has the same definition but also adds the content 'with grounds to suspect the person sharing it intends that the content deceives or it involves inauthentic behaviour'. Well, good luck with that. The rules for this will be dictated by whatever the government and its truth police—ACMA—decide. Gone will be our right to share our genuinely and honestly held opinions through frank and fearless discussion and open access to the great contest of ideas and diversity of opinions online.

For practical purposes, the Labor government will direct and empower ACMA to force online platforms to remove content before Australians are actually allowed to see the content. Can you just imagine how the Chinese government will be rubbing its hands at the opportunity it will have to instruct TikTok to remove massive amounts of Australians' legitimate content online? That will be content that the Chinese government doesn't approve of. It will be removed under the protection provided by this Labor legislation to curate China's own message or propaganda, and we will never know exactly what the Chinese government has removed because it will be gone before we see it. It's madness.

We will see the major American platforms controlling and removing Australians' content online, outsourced probably to factcheckers like the discredited politically biased RMIT factcheck. We will not be allowed to see, hear, read or share alternative views and opinions online. The online platforms will be forced by law to remove any of this before we're even allowed to see it.

I have great respect for Chris Merritt, the Vice President of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia, who said that 'good law must be clear and certain with requirements that are capable of being known in advance, not determined by officials'. He also said:

One of the fundamental features of Australia's system of government is that everyone has a responsibility to make their own assessments about public policy debates.

That means accepting that part of the price of living in a free society is that flawed ideas should be free to circulate alongside those that are worthy.

Telling the difference is the role of an informed citizenry, not governments and their officials.

That's exactly what this government is trying to do. Make no mistake: this is complex and simply bad legislation. We actually won't know what's being removed and what we're missing out on because we won't see it at all. The platforms will have wiped it off before we see it. We won't even know when ACMA—Labor's 'truth police'—get it wrong and force platforms to remove information that later proves to be true. We won't even know what truthful original information was there because we won't see it in the first place.

I can't find any process or publication of removed information, no penalties or outcomes for the 'truth police', ACMA, when they get it wrong—which they will—or who or what will monitor, measure and report on ACMA's decisions. Who will adjudicate and decide that the government, ACMA, the platforms or the factcheckers have made a mistake in removing accurate information when later evidence proves that it was true? Will those posts and comments be reinstated and fines repaid? Who will represent the rights of ordinary Australians in this instance? What will the penalties be for the removal of accurate information? Will there be damages paid to the individuals and/or the platforms affected? Who will pay? Will it be Australian taxpayers? The legislation and definitions are so broad that you could drive what my family would call a D11 Dozer through them. They're so wideranging, open-ended and subjective. There are terms such as 'grounds to suspect', 'reasonably likely to cause, or contribute to, serious harm' or 'the intention to deceive'. I could not find any definition or test for what actually constitutes 'reasonably verifiable' or 'false, misleading or deceptive'. Simply put, the truth will be what the Labor government, via ACMA, says that it is.

What also concerns me is that Labor is doing this because they think Australians are stupid. They think that we are so stupid that we can't work out for ourselves whether what we see, read and hear online is accurate and reasonable or is extreme and wrong. I've done hundreds of cybersafety presentations to kids. I ask the kids, 'How many of you believe that everything you read, see and hear online is true?' Very few hands have ever gone up, no matter what the age group is. I encourage the kids to develop their own critical thinking. If kids understand this, why doesn't this current government? Why does the government think that we are really all so stupid that we don't understand that not everything we read, see and hear online is true? I think the government believes that we don't have the common sense.

Australia is a democracy, and that's something that I take very seriously. We actually have the right to freedom of speech and to use and develop our own critical thinking and judgement. It's part of our responsibility as adults to work out the difference between fact and fiction. We have the right to actively decide what games, platforms, apps, sites and digital technologies we use and which we stay away from. The importance of media and information literacy should be encouraged, not discouraged by simply cowering behind, and being controlled by, ACMA or Labor's truth police like zombies who can't think and act for themselves, who in fact need to have a Big Brother government on their shoulders every single minute of the day or whenever they're online. It is not up to the government to decide what the truth is.

I am very concerned about this legislation. It is not right that we only see what the government believes we have a right to see. I don't want to be living in a vacuum—a political vacuum or any other form of vacuum. I don't want to see anything designed to suppress alternative political opinions or other opinions or to filter out alternative views. I don't want to see anything designed to stop us disagreeing online with the government of the day. Unfortunately, Labor want to make sure, by controlling what information we get to see, that any future referendum they propose is probably never defeated again by a 60-to-40 majority by the Australian people.

We will never see those alternative views or the truth online, again creating division in Australia: the chosen ones, who can express all of their views online, and the rest of us, who cannot. It is not okay that the Labor government are dividing us into those they think are smart or intelligent enough to know what is accurate online—the media, academics, scientists, artists and those involved in parody or satire. They must all have superior intelligence. These people can say what they like online, right or wrong. Whether or not it's Labor's definition of misinformation or disinformation, they can share it. Academics can have two opposing opinions, but ordinary Australians can't discuss this online. If you're a neurosurgeon, doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, heavy-duty mechanic, nurse, teacher, retail worker, aged-care worker, childcare worker or one of so many others—who will have the right? But, unfortunately, we are the ones to whom the Labor government believes it can dictate what we can and can't read, see, hear or share online.

Unfortunately, we will see Canberra based bureaucrats setting up a totally new bureaucracy to police this. I take great exception to Australians' freedom of speech being compromised in any way, shape or form. I don't want to see Australians living in an information bubble that is controlled by Canberra based bureaucrats. I'm not quite sure what qualifies those in ACMA to be the only ones who know what the truth actually is. I really object to this. I cannot imagine what would have happened in Western Australia, under what was the then Labor government's horrendous Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, if this legislation were enforced and the people who highlighted the many problems that were embedded in that act weren't able to air them online. This is the risk, that the information we get will be only that which the government of the day wants us to have. I would have to ask: are we living in Australia or China?

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