Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of Senator Roberts's motion that freedom of speech and peaceful freedom of assembly are inalienable rights which the Senate must defend. I'll touch on the freedom of assembly first of all. I know that we had a very big rally here a couple of years ago at the front of Parliament House. I think we had well over 100,000 people here. That was a very peaceful assembly, and I acknowledge everyone that turned out that day and travelled from across the country to attend that rally here in Canberra. I must admit that at the start of that day I thought we'd be lucky to get through this without some arrests, but my understanding is that they got through the whole day without any arrests—there may have been one, at worst.

But, yes, freedom of speech is very important. As we found out last week, that itself is being attacked by the Labor government through the misinformation and disinformation bill. I'll always say that we must treat people with respect—that is very important—but we also must defend the right to debate different points of view in a respectful manner. This misinformation and disinformation bill is not even a cloak-and-dagger type bill. It outwardly says that governments, the media and education institutions are all exempt from the bill. Well, that in itself raises the obvious questions: why are these particular organisations exempt from the bill, and, in particular, how are you meant to raise objections against the government of the day if you can't criticise it for the information that it puts out?

The whole point of a democracy is, effectively, to protect free speech and protect people's rights to engage in conversation. It's also about accountability of the bureaucracy within that government. If you're not allowed to criticise the government, because they claim that this may be misinformation or disinformation, how are we meant to properly scrutinise the government? Of course, there are the usual qualifications in there which say you can't question the health advice. I've touched on that so many times I won't bother raising it again, but, long story short, we were banned on social media for saying that the COVID vaccine didn't stop transmission when, in actual fact, it didn't stop transmission.

The other thing that really caught my eye over the weekend was the fact that you've got to be careful about criticising the banking sector and the financial markets. I'm absolutely intrigued as to how that little provision got in there, because the day you can't do a bit of bank bashing is the day that Australia loses its culture indeed. There's no more Australian a pastime than bashing the banks. I think we are pretty much on a 'uniticket' there. I know that, during the recent Senate RRAT inquiry, all the parties were into bashing the banks. So it's a crazy bill but definitely a great motion.

Question agreed to.

(Quorum formed)