Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

This could well be a bill that ought be renamed the 'chaos and contempt bill' from the Albanese Labor government. 'Chaos and contempt' is what has been shown throughout this whole very long and drawn out process, which ultimately has led to what we've just seen, which is the Albanese government taking the highly unusual step of moving to withdraw their own bill. Having been listed as the first bill of the day, with them having only a few days ago thought this was going to be what they'd prioritise and charge ahead, it's now to be dismissed and discharged instead. It's a chaotic process that didn't just have its start a few days ago; this is effectively two whole years of chaos from the Albanese government on this topic. All the way back to January last year, in 2023—that was when Minister Rowland and the Prime Minister were waxing lyrical about what it was they were going to do to address what indeed are serious issues in terms of the threats that misinformation and disinformation pose. We don't for a second deny that there are significant challenges there.

It's why as a government we put in place a range of different steps in terms of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme and the Foreign Arrangements Scheme—we made sure that we were on the front foot in those areas. But what we didn't do, Senator Ayres, was decide that the big-brother hand of government was the way to try to regulate what was or wasn't correct for people to say. Our concerns on this are hardly concerns that are isolated to the coalition.

So do the 24,000 people who responded to your public consultation process. Do you know how hard it is to get people to respond to a government consultation process?

Usually, when people respond to a government consultation process, you will get a few of the different organisations that will put their views in. Maybe you'll get a few dozen. If it's really big, you might get a few hundred. This bill had 24,000 people make submissions, overwhelmingly stating their objections to the bill and highlighting the flaws in the bill. Before Senator Ayres continues by trying to besmirch all those who oppose as being One Nation supporters or otherwise, let's understand that the opposition to this bill united everyone from the Australian Human Rights Commission through to religious leaders, civil liberties bodies, the Law Council, academics and others. Right across the ideological and political spectrum, the opposition to this bill was clear-cut, widespread and demonstrated the just how wrong the government had got it.

Having got it so wrong, having had the message through that consultation period with thousands upon thousands of people making submissions, you would have thought the government would have gone back to the drawing board at some stage. You would have thought they would have listened to those criticisms. You would have thought they would have tried to bring a different proposal forward. But no—not this government. They just kept digging deeper and deeper and deeper into the hole and into the trench until, ultimately, they were forced into this humiliating backdown today where they withdraw their legislation and they are left with no clear agenda in terms of the way forward.

There are questions unanswered. Having heard Senator McAllister's contribution, I don't know whether this legislation is still the government's policy or not. Will they come back with the same proposal all over again, or is this legislative retreat also a policy retreat by the Labor Party? Can we have some clarity around that from the government? Who knows what their policy is today as a result of this chaotic process. Having ignored the views of the people who made submissions, having failed to write the bill through its journey, they then got to the point of last week, clearly somehow thought they were going to do a grand deal and ram it through here, only to discover that from the Greens through the crossbench to the coalition, nobody supported it, just as in the public domain. It was a friendless bill right across the spectrum.

So what is Labor 's policy? What is their direction here? What is the alternative that they are going to develop in terms of how to tackle these issues without creating a situation where a minister or a bureaucracy is given some type of monopoly on the truth and assessment of how political debate and discourse is undertaken? That's the fundamental challenge that requires reconciliation in relation to this issue. Yes, you have misinformation and disinformation driven by state and nonstate actors in and outside of our country that do pose genuine threat. Equally, you have the need—as has always been the case in a robust democracy like ours—to enable free speech, free expression and the contest of free ideas to occur.

I don't know whether or not the government are going to proceed with it—I don't know—but they have debated and discussed 'truth in political advertising' laws with the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Their proposal is for something based on South Australia—my home state, the only state to have 'truth in political advertising' laws. I would love to stand here and tell the Senate that, as a result of those laws, state election campaigns in SA, with the Electoral Commission, are able to arbitrate over whether something is accurate or not, and that our election campaigns have a higher standard and loftier ambitions. But you can't tell the difference, aside from the fact that each political party has teams of lawyers who sit there and fire complaints against one another, and the poor Electoral Commissioner is caught and wedged in the middle, having to somehow try to navigate the terrain of whether or not these are honest, accurate statements and to judge these things.

Bureaucrats, public servants, shouldn't be put in those positions. They shouldn't be put in a situation where they are having to judge the political debate of our country, and yet that was what this government was headed towards. So we welcome their withdrawal of this bill.

In terms of chaos, it came on the weekend, when the same minister also had a big policy retreat when it came to action in relation to gambling harms. I understand that the government has now abandoned any hope or ambition of responding this year to parliamentary reports in relation to problem gambling and online gambling. The coalition know where we stand. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition, 18 months ago, announced our position in relation to a ban on gambling advertising during live sport, and we brought legislation to the Senate as well, which the Greens and the Labor Party combined to defeat. What do we have 18 months later? A government without a policy on mis- and disinformation and without a policy in relation to gambling bans and harms, and no action having been taken in relation to any of these issues because of the chaos that we see from those opposite.

Whilst we welcome this progress, the government stands condemned for its mishandling of this process and its failure to advance the types of reforms that could generate support because they would sensibly balance the competing interests at play here and would actually progress the public policy of our nation. Instead, we're left with a government with no policy, with no idea and, clearly, with nothing but a chaotic process and contemptuous policy ideas.