Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity in the Senate to reach out to the millions of Australians who supported the 'yes' vote for the referendum for a voice to the parliament to be enshrined in the Constitution. I take this opportunity to say thank you to each and every one of you who were involved with the campaign—to the volunteers and Yes23 coordinators across the country—for an incredibly comprehensive and passionate campaign. From knocking on thousands of doors to making phone calls and speaking to people on the streets, your campaigning sparked conversations and reached Australians in the cities, regions, towns and remote bush communities, and even to Australian communities overseas.

For many volunteers, it was their first campaign and one done with incredible enthusiasm, energy and goodwill. I'm thankful for people like Professor Megan Davis, a constitutional lawyer who has been involved in the journey for many years and who no doubt will continue to be. Professor Davis helped design the regional dialogues with communities right across Australia which led to the gathering at the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017 on Anangu country. Thank you to Dean Parkin, who led the campaign for Yes23, for your unwavering commitment in leading one of the biggest grassroots campaigns this country has ever seen, with around 60,000 volunteers. It was an awesome job, Dean. Pat Anderson is an Alyawarre woman who has made an immense contribution to Indigenous health. Thank you, Aunty Pat, for seeing through this process for so many years, including your time as co-chair of the Referendum Council. It released its final report in 2017 to the then coalition government.

And, of course, the former Indigenous Australian's minister Ken Wyatt has remained dedicated to the cause and had the courage to take a detailed report of voice-modelling to the former coalition government, not only once but twice. Noel Pearson has for many decades advocated for structural reforms to empower Indigenous people, including through a voice to parliament. And Thomas Mayo trekked through all corners of Australia for years to tell the story of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. He carried its message, but not just in the statement itself. Thank you, Thomas, for your incredible advocacy and your continued work, that will go on. Your books and your storytelling, especially to our children across the country—all young children—are beautiful reminders of a message that still resonates very strongly in the hearts of so many millions of Australians.

Thank you to the coalition members who showed their support, including former Nationals member Andrew Gee, and everyone involved in Liberals for Yes, including Senator Andrew Bragg, as well as Julian Leeser and Bridget Archer. Your courage, advocacy and support, and the dignity in which you carried through your advocacy and your firm belief throughout the campaign, were incredibly admirable. You certainly called out the commentary, and you certainly reminded all Australians that we are a democracy—and that in order to have our debates we must do so in a manner that is respectful. I appreciate the advocacy by the coalition members of Liberals for Yes—your advocacy in that space with us.

I would like to point out and mention to the Senate the First Nations Referendum Engagement Group members, who were so significant in their support but also in reaching out and giving guidance to our government, including to Minister Linda Burney, Senator Patrick Dodson, Mark Dreyfus as Attorney-General and me. I thank Councillor Ross Andrews, Nathan Appo, Professor Muriel Bamblett AO, Jennifer Beale, Professor Jack Beetson, Dameyon Bonson, Wendy Brabham, Paul Briggs OAM, Gavin Brown, Selwyn Button, Nicholas Cameron, Shirleen Campbell, Councillor Danny Chapman, Fiona Cornforth, Dr Josie Douglas, Katrina Fanning, Tyronne Garstone, Mick Gooda, Damian Griffis, Tanya Hosch, Paul House, Gibson Farmer Illortaminni, Deborah Katona, Councillor Esma Livermore, Jamie Lowe, Dr Hannah McGlade, Wayne Miller, Phillemon Mosby, Kado Muir, Karen Mundine, Teela Reid, Councillor Matthew Ryan, Shane Sturgiss, Ian Trust AO, Les Turner, Dr Tracy Westerman AM, Richard Weston, Sammy Wilson, Scott Wilson, Professor Asmi Wood and, of course, the late Mr T Amagula, who was the deputy chair of Anindilyakwa Land Council and who we buried last week.

Thank you to all the First Nations Referendum Working Group members: Dale Agius, Pat Anderson AO, Geraldine Atkinson, Professor Tom Calma AO, Professor Megan Davis, Rodney Dillon, Sean Gordon—for your outstanding advocacy, Dr Jackie Huggins AM, Professor Dr Marcia Langton AO—for your incredible wisdom throughout this and for giving us support, even when you were under incredibly sustained attack, Thomas Mayor, Tony McAvoy SC, June Oscar AO, Dean Parkin, Noel Pearson, Sally Scales, Napau Pedro Stephen AM, Marcus Stewart, Pat Turner AM, the Hon. Ken Wyatt AM, Professor Peter Yu AM and, of course, the late Mr Yunupingu, who was the chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation and who was represented at times by Denise Bowden.

We saw the referendum results and we know that 9.4 million Australians voted no to the Voice constitutional reform and that 6.2 million Australians voted yes. I reach out to each and every 'yes' voter and say thank you. Thank you so much for the letters, phone calls and texts I've received from so many hundreds, if not millions, of Australians who've reached out to show your support and your love. I also thank those who assisted the 'yes' campaign through these past few weeks.

We, of course, respect and accept the decision of the Australian people, and it's wonderful that we do live in a democracy where we can have a say and participate fully in our system of government. We know how difficult constitutional change is in Australia—now only eight out of 45 referendums have been successful, and none have ever succeeded without bipartisan support. We knew that it was never going to be easy once the Nationals moved away in November-December last year, which was certainly a deep disappointment. Later, to have the Leader of the Opposition put forward his firm position not to support the First Nations people who met at Uluru in their aim to have a Voice recognised in the Constitution was a double blow. This was clearly a deep disappointment for so many.

I am very pleased to note and to share with the Senate that 80 to 90 per cent of our First Nations people supported the vote in all of those communities right across Australia, including over 90 per cent in Wadeye—figures I've never seen before—and from Palm Island to Far North Queensland to Western Australia and down throughout parts of South Australia and into the southern parts of the country. I give a huge thankyou to all of those First Nations people who stood with us all the way. We will remain firm, strong and focused, and we'll continue on.

This has been an interesting time on many levels for me personally, but I've also been deeply inspired by so many—by the leadership with such dignity and the way in which you carried yourselves throughout the horrific onslaught that we received, through social media at various times and through hate and really resentful prejudice. I certainly hope that we can move forward in a way that strengthens where we can go as First Nations people in this country. I thank especially the Prime Minister for having the courage to follow through on taking our country through the referendum at the request of those First Nations people who asked us on such a long journey, over many, many years. I thank Linda Burney and Senator Pat Dodson. We fight on. I also give a special mention to Senator Cox and the Greens and the Independents who stood very firmly and strongly in this cause. We fight on. We will fight on.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about misinformation, and I particularly rise to talk about Labor's draft Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 in light of the recent Voice referendum. I think we can have a look at a real-life experiment in what is branded as misinformation and would potentially be labelled as misinformation under this misguided, poorly drafted, poorly thought through Labor misinformation bill. In fact, on the night of the referendum result, we had Labor ministers talking about the impact of misinformation on the vote. I think the day after the referendum we had the Greens leader talking about how misinformation legislation was now urgent and how we had to pass misinformation laws because of what had happened in the referendum. The Australian people can now judge Labor's misinformation bill against what occurred in the referendum.

Let's use as our source a journalistic outfit that I don't think anyone would say leans to the right of politics. Let's look at the Guardian. They happened to publish an article called 'Voice referendum: factchecking the seven biggest pieces of misinformation pushed by the no side'. Here we have from the Guardian a list of what they consider to be the seven biggest pieces of misinformation out there. I won't go through them all, for the sake of time, but I'll go through the top four. To be perfectly honest, I think the other three are pretty marginal—a long bow to draw—and certainly were never raised with me once throughout the referendum campaign. But let's have a look at the others that the Guardian call misinformation, which, therefore, are at risk of falling foul of Labor's misinformation bill. Let's see if they would fall foul of that bill and if they should rightly be characterised as misinformation.

The claim that the Guardian first says is misinformation is that the proposal was legally risky. Even proponents and people who said they were going to vote yes, with extensive legal backgrounds, said that there was legal risk involved. Malcolm McCusker KC, a very well known juris from Western Australia, made it very clear that, in his considered view, there were legal risks in the proposal in front of the Australian people. But who said it wasn't legally risky? Let's consider this for a moment: the Solicitor-General. Under Labor's misinformation bill, a source that comes from the government cannot be misinformation, but a source that comes from anywhere else in the community, like from a private citizen, can. Those social media platforms, when assessing whether the Voice was legally risky—or whether the proposition that the Voice was legally risky is a piece of misinformation—would say: 'There's a government solicitor saying that it's not. Governments can't say misinformation; therefore it must be misinformation.'

They are going to tend to trust, under the government's own legislation, the government source, so suddenly the claim that the voice was legally risky has the potential to become misinformation, which is just a nonsense. There were clear legal risks involved. It was clearly an important point that needed to be highlighted in the debate. It was clear from jurists—even jurists who supported the 'yes' case—that there were legal risks involved. So how could it possibly be that that would be misinformation?

The second piece of supposed misinformation that the Guardian puts forward is that the Voice was divisive. Well, that is a political argument. It's not a piece of misinformation. You can say it's not a divisive proposal—fine. You can argue the point, as Senator Scarr said. It's an opinion. But to label it as misinformation, particularly if a government source then put out something to say that it wasn't divisive—suddenly then the social media platforms would have to think very hard about taking down any comment from anyone such as Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as saying that the voice is divisive would potentially fall foul, would potentially be misinformation as the Guardian labels it.

The third piece of supposed misinformation that the Guardian puts out is that the Voice would lead to treaty. Well, the slogan was 'voice, treaty, truth'. You can argue if you want to it wasn't a foregone conclusion, but the idea that this wasn't part of the thinking, part of overall process that was being put forward, again, is a political debating point. It's not a statement of whether something is misinformation or whether it isn't. Yet, again, to go back to Labor's misinformation bill, something from a government source is protected. It's assumed to be truth. The Prime Minister said this wasn't leading to treaty, so, therefore, the opposite case suddenly becomes misinformation. Suddenly you can't make the argument. It's going to be taken down on social media.

The last one—point No. 4—is almost the most humorous. The Guardian article puts forward as misinformation that the Voice had no detail. Well, to me that was an absolute statement of fact. The government said that they weren't going to put forward the detail, because that was up to the parliament to decide. They said that there was no detail there. To say that that is a piece of misinformation is, I think, the height of hypocrisy.

We can see with these examples very clearly how labelling something as misinformation, particularly when protections are put in this draft bill that make government sources of information protected, and then relying on social media companies to judge the question of misinformation versus truth against an arbitrary standard but one where the government speaks the truth—what is that social media platform inevitably going to default to? It's going to default to the safe position, which is that the government said it and the government doesn't speak misinformation; therefore, everybody else's opinion is misinformation. That, if you think about it for just a few seconds, is an extremely dangerous world and an extremely dangerous proposition to put forward in a democratic society.

The fact is we did have a referendum. The Australian people did get to speak. They spoke with a clear voice and a very loud voice that this proposal wasn't to be supported. But, in doing so, it is also very clear that the government's misinformation bill, if it had been in place prior to the referendum going forward, would have shut down numerous voices, would have shut down numerous key, reasonable arguments for why this Voice was opposed and should have been opposed by the Australian people.

The fact is many Australians who I spoke to in the course of the last four or five months did consider this proposal to be legally risky. No matter the opinion of the solicitor-general, they did believe that the Voice was divisive. No matter the statements from government ministers, they did believe that there was a link between, as the slogan goes, voice, treaty, truth, and it was quite reasonable for those issues to be discussed in a political context. Any legislation that threatens that discussion is a dagger pointed at the heart of democracy and that is why we should all be staunchly opposed to Labor's misinformation bill. In fact, it should never see the light of day in this place.