Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Honourable senators, Senator Cadell has submitted a proposal under standing order 75:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Senate to acknowledge the shocking flaws in Labor's misinformation bill, and for the Government to categorically rule out reintroducing it"

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Senate to acknowledge the shocking flaws in Labor's misinformation bill, and for the Government to categorically rule out reintroducing it

Today we had the withdrawal of a bill that should never have seen the light of day. I heard speakers earlier today talk about what it was meant to be but what it wasn't. It all comes down to a confluence of many things. The bill, in reality, ended up being three things. It ended up being a bill on disinformation, a bill on misinformation and a bill on accessing data on social media platforms. One of those things had merit. What I hear in this place is exactly one of the problems we had with it: misinformation and disinformation merging; people's real views out there in the world—people's freedom of political expression—and freedom of information merged with inauthentic, unreal bot disinformation.

That was just the beginning of what we saw. This bill tried to fix a credible area around disinformation and inauthentic and non-state actors doing things, but it tried to do it by silencing people at home, people out there with true beliefs, people who want to progress thought in this country. I have many signs around my office walls to annoy my staff. I have Sun Tzu, I have Patton—I have all these things. I think of the George Patton one in my conference room: 'When everyone is thinking the same, someone isn't thinking.' That's what we had in this bill—the absolute predominance of groupthink. If you had any thought that was different from the mainstream, it wasn't wanted.

We hear that in this bill opinion was not excluded, but Senator Sharma, who's behind me in the chamber, pointed out during the committee inquiry that the EM explicitly said opinion, even invective, was included in what could be seen as contributing to serious harm. These are things that the other side will say weren't included. We hear that the bill wasn't censorship, that the government never wanted to censor anything, but under this bill the government wanted to impose such harsh penalties on the platforms that they would have had no choice but to censor. When you are faced with global fines of up to $12 billion if you allow misinformation to continue on your platform, what do you do? You shut down thought. You shut down speech. You shut down the capacity for people to express their opinion. Nations are at their very best when people can think. Nations are at their very best when people can challenge the status quo.

When we are all here and we hear the views of those dialling in, emailing in and writing in and telling us their views, it is only the weak of mind and the weak of thought—only the weak—who are challenged and offended by having that put upon them. That is why freedom of speech should be not only implied in the Constitution. We should look at having it enshrined in the Constitution, because I love it when I can have a conversation with someone where I can hear new information, where I can make a new decision and where I can be challenged.

There were many, many reasons we heard for the bill. They wanted to link it to disinformation all the time. They wanted to link it to the worst of the worst. But, when it comes down to opinion, when it comes to silencing those at home and the penalties it proposed, this had to stop. I raise this MPI today because it should never come back. It is okay that it has been withdrawn. I had second thoughts when I saw Senator Roberts trying to withdraw this bill by himself from the Notice Paper last week. I though that maybe I wanted it brought into this chamber and voted down, because what the government achieved with this bill was something they couldn't achieve last year with the Voice. They unified all of Australia apart from themselves, because they did haven't another vote in this chamber other than that of the government. The Greens, the crossbenchers and every other party here were unanimous. This, as it stood, was not good enough.

It didn't just go in the chamber; it went to the witnesses over three days of hearings, led ably—I must say, very well—by Senator Grogan across the road. Only one witness that was a government agency, the Emergency Management Authority, said the bill should pass, and they put greater stress on the disinformation than the misinformation component. Every other witness had a problem with it on the way through.

I think it is great this bill is gone. I think it should never, ever see the light of day again. I know that Australia is better when thoughts are out there and can be debated and challenged and when people can air their views without fear of persecution.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are debating a bill that has been discharged from the Notice Paper. Why is that? I think it's just so that some people can have another kick at this bill and perpetuate more and more mis- and disinformation about this bill. Seriously! That's all we've heard from the very beginning until right now, as my respected colleague Senator Cadell has been pointing out his views. We hear over and over again questions about things that are not actually in the bill. We hear about issues that people have with the bill that are not contained in the bill. All I can say is this total approach has been politicised. It's been a completely political exercise, as opposed to an exercise in unpacking the actual detail of a piece of legislation and looking at the reality of it.

This has happened over and over again. We had a joke, actually, during the committee hearing, where I would say to people, 'No, we're not going to lock up your granny,' because that's where people kept going. This bill, as it stood, was not going to lock up anyone. The fact—not an interpretation and not an opinion but a printed fact—is that that piece of proposed legislation had no criminal penalties. We all know what that means. Obviously, some of you don't. But, fundamentally, it means there were no criminal penalties. It means no-one was going to get locked up. That is just one example of the kind of rubbish that was put over and over again while we were debating the passage of this bill. There was constant misinformation from my colleagues across the room.

So we have lost the opportunity to protect people online. We have lost the opportunity to make a better platform to stop that harmful information being spread at speed by people who are doing it with malintent. This is a real problem. Of everyone that wrote to the committee and that spoke to the committee, the vast majority accepted that we have a serious problem in this country with some of the information that is distributed—again, as I say—at speed and with malintent.

We are not talking about opinions. We're not talking about myself and, say, Senator Rennick having a disagreement about something. I'm allowed my opinion and he is allowed his opinion. We can have a debate. There was nothing proposed in the bill that would have ever stopped that, whether we did it in this chamber or online. This was not about opinion. A vast amount of the information that has circulated about this bill is just fundamentally wrong.

So now we're left in this situation where we had a perfect opportunity to bring forward this bill that was measured, balanced and would have made things better—but, no, we can't do that because there's too much political opportunity for those opposite. There's too much political opportunity for them to put it to one side and think about the people in this country, to think about the harm online and actually do something about it. But, no, we can't waste that political opportunity, can we? And so we stand here again.

I have lost count of the number of times I've stood in this chamber on a particular piece of legislation where the opposition didn't want any of it and our friends in the Greens want way, way more. The balanced approach, the compromise, is something that neither of those two groups in this chamber are prepared to come to the table on. That is a disgrace. This chamber should be better than that. We should be looking at this bill as a good and balanced piece of legislation that would genuinely go towards helping people out there in our country. It would protect people, not silence them. But we've wasted that opportunity, so I hope that you all feel deeply proud of yourselves.

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

Well, the misinformation and disinformation bill is dead. Rejoice! But the thing is it's not dead, because the threat of authoritarian governments is never-ending. What we've seen here with the attempted passing of this bill by the Labor government is a government that is more interested in control than serving the people. With the greatest of respect, Senator Grogan—through the chair—I do enjoy debating with you on opinions.

We know that while people may not have gone to jail because of this particular bill, the fact is that censorship can have devastating impacts on people's lives. I saw that. Almost the entirety of the back half of my Senate term has been dictated by the rubbish that was sprouted throughout COVID. I took a stand there. I was ridiculed at the time. I had posts censored, and people have been injured. One of the really sad things about this is a lot of people come and say to me, 'Senator Rennick, you've done a really good job on this', and I say, 'No, actually, I haven't.' I took the stand and I was ridiculed, and because of that I think it's been harder to get help for people on these vaccine injuries. If a mainstream party leader had led the charge and done the right thing, we probably would have got help. But, no, the slurs went on and on. When Facebook and those social media companies were censoring posts that were starting to question the narrative, it got shut down. Sure, we didn't go to jail, but people got hurt.

This is the problem when you shut down free speech. These people had good intentions and they had a healthy scepticism of government. At the end of the day, governments are the biggest purveyors of mistruths; everyone knows that. Trust in government has completely collapsed, and when you try and censor people you're only destroying that confidence even more.

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a gross distortion of priorities this piece of legislation has been. With all the challenges facing our country, from the cost-of-living crisis to anaemic economic performance, 12 consecutive interest rate rises, declining real GDP per capita and increased prices in fuel, electricity and gas, the government has spent countless hours and wasted thousands of hours of Australian citizens' time pursuing this ill-conceived piece of legislation.

The warning signs were there from the very beginning.

This government, in June 2023, almost 18 months ago now, announced the intent to pursue this legislation. In response to the exposure draft that they released, they received 20,000 submissions, an overwhelming number of which were highly critical. The legislation was withdrawn, but then the government decided to come back and have another go. They introduced a second exposure draft, which generated even more hostile submissions, some 28,000—far more than the committee could read, far more than the secretariat could process, far more that could ever be published and, again, overwhelmingly hostile.

This isn't a case of the opposition playing politics. This is a case of widespread public discontent and mistrust in what the purpose of this legislation was. Senator Grogan in her comments, ironically or otherwise, highlighted this. In her remarks just then, she talked about 'constant misinformation from my colleagues across the room', referring to us. Now, if our opinions disagreeing with hers are characterised as misinformation, then of course, under the terms of this piece of legislation, it would fall within the scope of the mis- and disinformation act. We have seen far too much willingness by people to characterise opinions with which they disagree as misinformation. Senator Grogan, the chair of the committee who looked into this, did just this.

Senator Grogan also said, 'We're not talking about opinions.' She said we're not talking about opinions. The explanatory memorandum attached to this bill makes very clear that the definition of misinformation includes opinions, claims, commentary and invective, again undermining what Senator Grogan, the chair of the committee, just asserted about this.

We have seen countless Australians express their opposition to and mistrust of this piece of legislation. The Victorian Bar Council, for instance, said:

… the Bill's interference with the self-fulfilment of free expression will occur primarily by the chilling self-censorship it will inevitably bring about in the individual users of the relevant services …

The Human Rights Commission said:

… it … needs to be recognised that information may be opportunistically labelled as 'misinformation' or 'disinformation'—

I wonder who's guilty of that here!—

to delegitimise alternative opinions, and limit open discussion about issues of public importance.

Professor Nick Coatsworth said, 'The terms "misinformation" and "disinformation" have become overused in public discourse,' often employed 'as a way to dismiss opposing viewpoints without engaging in debate'. Well, this is what this legislation was about. It was about shutting down opposing viewpoints by introducing a system of incentives and punishments for the modern marketplace of ideas—global tech platforms—and not only encouraging them but coercing them to take down opinion that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. And this, I think, really gets to the heart of why this bill is so problematic.

As a free and liberal society since the Enlightenment, the way our society has progressed is through the open contestation of ideas and opinions. Scientific breakthroughs come about because conventional wisdom can be challenged openly, but even society advances in its own values by permitting challenges to the prevailing orthodoxy. As I said in the committee's hearing, if you were Copernicus or Galileo and this legislation existed back in the 16th or 17th century, what you said would be misinformation. If you were arguing against slavery in the 18th century or for extending the franchise to women in the 19th century, again you would be outside the realm of conventional wisdom and orthodoxy and, more than likely—it being opinion, commentary or invective—you would have fallen foul of this misinformation legislation.

This legislation's most pernicious threat to our society was its stifling of free debate, its imposition of orthodoxy and the removal of our ability to progress as a society. I'm glad this bill has been withdrawn; it should never return.

Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian people have emerged victorious in our fight for free speech, a fight against our very own government. This version of the misinformation bill is dead, but only a fool would believe that the Labor government's love affair with censorship is finished. The problem, unfortunately, goes much deeper than the Australian Labor Party. The public must never forget that the misinformation bill was first promoted by the Liberal Party. Former Liberal communications minister Paul Fletcher was the first to announce the introduction of the misinformation and disinformation bill, back in 2022.

Whether Liberal or Labor and whether in Australia or in other parts of the Western world, major political parties are in lockstep in attempting to censor free speech. It doesn't matter whether you're in the UK, France, Canada or New Zealand, they're all singing from the same songbook. Here's the problem: government bureaucrats across the world are determined to stifle free speech. By controlling information, globalist interests can be free to impose their utopian vision upon unsuspecting populations. Yes, the misinformation bill is dead here in Australia, but will it come back? That's the question. And what form will it take?

Those of us committed to freedom of speech have won a battle, but the war for the West is far from won. The major parties have turned their efforts towards social media bans coupled with mandatory identification. I will face that battle, too. For as long as I am in this Senate, I will continue to, in the words of the great Donald J Trump, fight, fight, fight. And, as Argentina's President, Javier Milei, likes to say, long live freedom!

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in support of this urgency motion. In 1949, George Orwell wrote the dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four, and many generations of students since then have studied this in their English classes. I think there is nothing that more distinguishes those opposite, both the Greens and Labor, from those on this side of the chamber than our respective responses to this book. Those opposite clearly, from the evidence of this bill, read Nineteen Eighty-Four and thought at the time: 'Wow. What a great system this is!' Those on this side of the chamber were horrified and have continued to be horrified by the concept of the Thinkpol, who control thoughts, free speech and actions on behalf of Big Brother.

This piece of legislation that the Labor Party put forward is not just one, two, 10 or 100 Winston Smiths sitting there in the bureaucracy, rewriting history according to the prevailing political party's truth—in that case Big Brother. Poor Mr Smith worked in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, and he not only had to rewrite history; he also had to identify people to ghost or, as we'd call it today, to cancel—with cancel culture. So, while this morning it was humiliating for this government to table the committee report and then exactly five seconds later withdraw this incomprehensibly bad legislation—actually, it's not incomprehensible, because it's one piece in a long line of appalling legislation that this government has tried to ram through this place.

As other speakers have said, this should be withdrawn permanently, and it's not just us on this side of the chamber saying that. All of us have been flooded with feedback from Australians all around the nation who have spoken up against this bill. One would have to wonder, if this bill had passed, what the thought police and the Winston Smiths of the Labor Party would have done to people who had expressed their point of view about this very legislation itself. No minister and no bureaucrat have a monopoly on truth, and we have debated many times in this chamber and in this place about what constitutes political truth. The last Labor speaker, I think, did absolutely bell the cat in terms of this legislation: what they think is the truth and what we think is misinformation—you just said it. But, as good as it is that this bill is going, it is not just those opposite that think this way.

For 18 months, since the government spoke about bringing this bill forward, Australians have voiced their concerns. In fact, the government received nearly 28,000 submissions against this bill and this gagging of free speech.

The Human Rights Commission itself sent forward a submission, and it warned that this bill needs it to be recognised that information may be opportunistically—politically opportunistically—labelled as misinformation or disinformation to delegitimise alternative opinions and to limit open discussion about issues of public importance. So I'm glad—I am so happy—that we fought to have this bill withdrawn. But it should never— (time expired)

Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Misinformation and disinformation are dangerous. In a time when information floods in with such velocity and volume that every news report feels suspicious, particularly during unfolding events, it can be difficult to pause and consider who is delivering the information and what agenda might be driving it. This bill, however, was not the answer. Voluntary programs, such as X's—formerly Twitter's—community notes, are often effective in addressing misinformation and disinformation. Through community notes, members of the community with the time and knowledge can assess the veracity and origin of a particular post and then present their view to the rest of the community, who may not have the time or knowledge. The risk of forcing platforms to crack down on suspected misinformation and disinformation could lead to these ideas moving underground, where no regulation or oversight from the wider community creates the hazard of this misinformation and disinformation going offline and having real-world effects. The public response to this bill has been phenomenal. We saw recent submissions during the short—very short—consultation period the government had allocated to this bill from groups like the Victorian Bar Association, the Australian Electoral Commission and even the Australian Human Rights Commission, who outlined their grave concerns with the bill.

Outside of the government, there were almost no supporters of the bill as it was drafted. While there are some who supported the bill, this support was always qualified with various requests for amendments. Like the Help to Buy Bill and the social media ban, the government has identified a problem but proposed the wrong solution. It was a bill that the government failed to adequately consult on, but they rightfully, after much handwringing and begging, abandoned it.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Removing the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 from the Notice Paper was a humanitarian act. It's said that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. If that's the case, I would like a paternity test on this vote, because many who are taking credit for voting down this bill only decided their vote last week. One Nation has opposed the bill since the Morrison-Liberal government first proposed this bill four years ago. One Nation has campaigned for years to raise public awareness of the human rights failures in this bill, to inspire public opinion, and we were successful. It should never have progressed to a point where democracy itself stood on a precipice. If that sounds dramatic, then you haven't read the submission to the Senate inquiry into the mad bill from the human rights and civil rights lawyers. They were scathing. How did committee members listen to three days of testimony with almost every witness calling for the bill to be scrapped yet still produce a report that said, 'Everything's fine; pass the bill.' The original decision of the committee to do just that flies in the face of the expert witnesses who the committee asked to testify. Such an action will make it harder to attract the high quality of witnesses this inquiry attracted. It's disrespectful to all concerned, and it's disrespectful to the Australian people, who expect better of this Senate.

I understand why the Prime Minister wants censorship—he has been community noted on X 10 times and certainly needs help with the truth. For One Nation and Australia, the Christmas present in this debacle was the way everyday Australians got involved. This was an extraordinary response and one of which Australia can be proud. I hope this is the start of an awakening to the realisation that our country, this country, is facing a bleak future of totalitarian government and economic decline unless everyday Australians take the government back from the self interests which stained this bill. One Nation will defend the human rights of every Australian—every Australian.

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

…   …   …

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.