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

The Albanese Labor government's latest attempt to legislate censorship under the guise of protecting us from misinformation is just as Orwellian and authoritarian as its first effort. What this government is doing is trading away the free speech of ordinary Australians, not to protect us as they claim but to protect themselves from criticism. The Albanese government's first attempt at a censorship bill was roundly criticised for restricting free speech and putting the power in the hands of bureaucrats and big tech to decide what is true and what is false. This second attempt may be even worse. Once again, it is based on the principle that government and the bureaucracy and big tech will decide for you what is true or false and what is right or wrong and tell you that your opinions are harmful and dangerous but only of course if your opinion is different to that of the government, because what the government says will, of course, be exempt from being considered misinformation.

The Labor government can't even get their story straight about why they're doing this and who will be making censorship decisions if this bill passes. One minute, they're rightly pointing out that big tech companies are not to be trusted. The next minute, they're saying, 'Don't worry—it won't be us censoring individual posts; it'll be the big tech companies doing that.' They forget to tell you that those same big tech companies will, if this legislation passes, have government standing over their shoulder threatening them with massive fines if they don't censor what the government considers to be misinformation. In fact, in this version of the bill, if the government doesn't think social media companies are censoring enough of the content they don't like, the minister will be able to personally order investigations and even public hearings on any misinformation topic determined by the minister.

We know governments put pressure on social media companies to censor content for their political advantage. We've seen it happen, and we've had it confirmed in Senate committee hearings in this parliament. We know that social media companies respond to such requests from government by censoring information that's claimed to be false and misleading but which turns out eventually to be accurate. And we know that this government is exactly the type of government which claims opposing views are dangerous and must be silenced. This is a government which, this very sitting fortnight, claimed it was too dangerous for a senator in this chamber to be allowed to introduce and debate a bill to amend the Sex Discrimination Act. They claimed repeatedly that the logical concerns of Australians about their divisive Voice proposal were misinformation, only for a huge majority of Australians to say, 'No, we've looked at your proposal, and we agree that your proposal is dangerous, expensive and divisive.'

This is a Labor Party which, in opposition, claimed it would reduce your power bills by hundreds of dollars and, in government, had its members circulate images of three-eyed fish in response to the coalition's proposal to lift the ban on nuclear energy. But they want to tell you, the average Australian, that it's your views and your opinions which are harmful and dangerous—even your views on the banking system or the health system.

Let's be very clear. Everybody knows that people are regularly going to be wrong on the internet, just as they are regularly going to be wrong in parliament or in the pages of a newspaper. But 26 million Australians don't have the luxury of coming into this place, this parliament, to have their say. They don't have a regular newspaper column they can publish to express their opinions. What this legislation is saying to Australians is that there is one rule for the media and another rule for Australians who want to have their say on the platform that's available to them. The constant attacks on freedom of speech that come from this Labor government are a huge concern. The risk of people being allowed to speak freely, and maybe get their facts wrong from time to time, pales in comparison with the risks of government and big tech telling you what you can say and when you can say it. That is why sensible people have understood for centuries that freedom of thought and freedom of speech are fundamental to protecting the rights of the individual against the power of the state. The government's second attempt at its censorship bill does nothing to protect those rights. Indeed, it just undermines them even further.