Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

A journalist's job is to hunt the truth. That means following the evidence, wherever it leads, and faithfully reporting their findings to the public. The pursuit of truth is a vital service to our common good. The truth keeps tyranny at bay and provides facts in the face of propaganda. Before 2020, I think a lot of Australians assumed that we had at least something of a free and truthful press. But that myth has been blown apart, and the trust in the fourth estate has never ever been lower.

The fear propaganda surrounding COVID-19 exposed the rot at the core of the censorship industrial complex, otherwise known as the mainstream media. Throughout this period, the censorship industrial complex ensured that any rational, reasonable, thoughtful discussion about case fatality rates, the origin of the virus, the ineffectiveness of the masks or the criticism of the state governments' draconian lockdowns and restrictions was shut down, and that remains true today. The will of the elites was enforced ruthlessly by their handmaiden media assets. Those who didn't accept the ABC news or the latest CHO press conference and assume that they had it right were demonised.

What does this tell us about the connection between the media, the government, and big business? Few journalists have remained faithful to their duty to pursue the truth for Australians, and, despite the frustration aimed at parliaments like this, the censorship industrial complex was at least as culpable. To the media-release-transcribing employees of the mainstream media, which is basically all of you, I say: is doing the bidding of your corporate overlords really why you took this career? Are you satisfied by being the narrative enforcers of the big end of town? Don't kid yourselves—that's what you've become.