Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens have been at the forefront of fighting mis- and disinformation and we have been pushing for a very long time for truth in advertising laws in this country because we have a situation where there are exceptions as to who can tell untruths. You can't do it if you're trying to sell a product, but, when it comes to politics, apparently you can. A big part of the reason that we have seen an erosion in trust in our institutions is because of the spread of mis- and disinformation has been allowed to flourish in this country, indeed around the world. What we have also been at the forefront of saying in this place is that in Australia now, if you are serious about tackling misinformation and disinformation, you have to tackle Rupert Murdoch. You have to tackle Rupert Murdoch and the massive power that that man has over media in this country. Labor and the Liberals are Murdoch cowards and have refused point blank to take on the biggest source of mis- and disinformation over the last half century in this country. We have pointed out that this failure to take on Rupert Murdoch's untrammelled power to promote mis- and disinformation has led to Australia having the second-worst concentration of media ownership in the world.

As a result of allowing that to be our media landscape, which Labor and the Liberals have because neither of them have got the guts to take him on, we've seen the undermining of reputable journalism. Allowing that massive concentration of media ownership in this country undermines reputable journalism. It is also crystal clear that this man has used his power to fuel social division, to target vulnerable minorities, to delay climate action and, most terrifyingly, to undermine democracy.

Today in this place we are dealing with some of the consequences of that as we look at what is happening around the world and see the terrifying result in the United States, where now a dangerous demagogue is running the country again. There are people around the world right now, including in Australia, who are terrified about what that will mean for them, what that will mean for women, what that will mean for people of colour, what that will mean for the climate and what that will mean for democracy. We all watched and saw violent protests on the Capitol in the United States fuelled by mis- and disinformation that somehow the previous election result was stolen or rigged—that somehow voters deciding to end the first Trump presidency was somehow a fraud and a result of the election being stolen.

You know who propagated that, aside from Trump himself? Fox News promoted that. We're not talking about what a few people might tweet—although, of course, that is part of it. We are talking about a very powerful mainstream media empire promoting mis- and disinformation that leads to democracy itself being undermined. They were so far beyond the pale in what they said in these false and fraudulent claims—that somehow the US election had been stolen—that, even in America, where they have much more liberal legislation and laws than us, they ended up shelling out $800 million to the people who run the voting machines because that was clearly—

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