Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

'The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.' So said George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. That was written in 1949, in post World War II Britain, about a dystopian future in 1984. This might be a surprise: I was around in 1984, and it didn't happen then.

Who, in this place and in this country, would have thought that part of that dystopian work of fiction—the 'Ministry of Truth'—would be implemented by the Albanese Labor government? The idea, even the concept, that a public servant in a department would determine what a fact is and whether someone can have an opinion or a reasonable belief is a yawning chasm. It is incredibly dangerous to this country. I, for one, cannot believe this is being put forward; I really can't.

This nation—in fact, Western democracies, for centuries—has been built on freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. It also has centuries of law to protect individuals, to ensure they can't be vilified. The better approach would be to find a way for those centuries of law, those centuries of precedent, those centuries of other cases to be utilised in what is now a normal platform, a digital platform. I think that would be completely understandable.

But one must ask the question as to why the urgency for this bill now? In what is clearly the last days of the Albanese government, as they come towards the end of this term, why the urgency to put this bill through? Well, if you look at some of the components, things that could be considered to 'cause serious harm', the material that might be captured in those elements, include, would you believe, misinformation in elections.

If the Labor Party were so concerned about misinformation in elections, perhaps they might have taken action against their own party in Queensland. I want to give some examples as to where this applies. In the last Queensland election we saw what I found to be an absolutely disgraceful campaign around abortion. This is something so sensitive, so personal, and yet we saw the Labor member for Bundaberg utilise campaign slogans which were, firstly, completely untrue; secondly, false; and, thirdly, absolutely disturbing for many of the female voters. The ALP would use lines like, 'Don't let the LNP jail women for having an abortion.' There is no need to implement legislation like this to stop that behaviour. The Labor Party could have done it.

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