Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

This is an important matter of urgency because we cannot and we should not forget that this Labor government has not abandoned its ideological commitment to censoring free speech. They haven't pulled this bill because they realised how dangerous and undemocratic it was; they've pulled it because they don't have the numbers in the Senate to undertake the crackdown on free speech that they have been saying for years is a top priority for them. But what about in the next parliament?

What is there to stop them doing a deal with the Greens to legislate even greater restrictions on what Australians can say? If the Labor government doesn't support this motion, then Australia will go to the next election with the live prospect of a law being passed by the next parliament that says Mr Albanese and Mr Bandt will be the arbiters of what is true and what is false, of what we can and cannot say on social media. That is a terrifying thought.

Just look at what the Minister for Communications has been saying about this bill:

The time to act on harmful misinformation and disinformation is now.

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The Australian Government's number one priority is keeping our citizens and our democracy safe from harm. These laws are an important step to ensure this.

This bill was no spur-of-the-moment thought bubble by the Labor government. It is a plan that they have been crafting and creating a narrative for throughout their entire time in power, and they have been planning for months to make this bill the priority of the last week of the parliament. The government is fully aware that it is engaging in exactly the type of behaviour practiced by authoritarian regimes around the world. On 12 July 2023, more than 16 months ago, I asked government officials in a Senate inquiry hearing whether they were aware that the term 'misinformation' is used by authoritarian regimes to censor information that they want to silence for political reasons. The response was that, yes, those government officials were aware of that, and yet the Albanese government pushed ahead with this bill, fully intending to ram the bill through this week to give itself these powers in advance of the election campaign next year.

Freedom of speech and the freedom to criticise the government of the day are fundamental to the protection of liberty. When the citizens are denied the right or the ability to do that, the door is open to appalling abuse and oppression. We have seen that throughout human history. Indeed, we see it today, in Tehran, in Kabul, in Moscow and Xinjiang. A government which seeks control over what you can say and even what is true and what is false is a dangerous government indeed.

Question agreed to.