David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Sunday a very sad and sorry 18-month saga came to an end with the government's formal abandonment of its shocking misinformation bill, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024. This was one of the worst bills ever put forward by any government of Australia. This was a shocking attack on free speech from a government that wanted to censor the honestly held opinions of Australians. This government wanted to exempt some people, like academics, from its misinformation bill, but not everyday Australians.

The minister went all the way to Brussels to talk about how important this misinformation bill was, to give a speech to European Union bureaucrats. But what about the impact on ordinary Australians? The minister wanted to be able to—believe it or not—personally order misinformation investigations and personally order misinformation hearings here in one of the greatest democracies on earth—an absolute disgrace.

The bill included politics and referendums expressly, and it united just about everyone against it, from the Human Rights Commission to civil liberties groups to the Catholic Bishops Conference to the Shia Muslim community to the Anglican Church to Victorian Bar to Professor Anne Twomey. An extraordinary group of people united against the bill, and they were united because it was a shocking attack on free speech. It was a humiliating backdown. This bill must never be brought back in any form by this government.