Australia Introduces Legislation to Outlaw Disagreeing With the Government – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

As Australia approaches its next cycle of state and federal elections, the radical Aussie Federal Government is pushing laws which could silence media criticism of their key policy positions.

‘Attack on our freedoms’: Government’s revised online misinformation bill slammed as ‘chilling assault’ on free speech

Labor’s new online misinformation bill has been slammed as a “chilling assault” on freedom of speech, with critics claiming the government’s definition of “serious harm” could capture “any difference of opinion”. 

Patrick Hannaford Digital Reporter
4 min read
September 12, 2024 – 5:00PM

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Communications Minister Michelle Rowland introduced the legislation to Parliament on Thursday, claiming misinformation and disinformation pose a “serious threat” to Australian’s  “safety and wellbeing” as well as “our democracy, society and economy”.

The Albanese government was forced to abandon a previous draft version of the laws after they were widely condemned by everyone from media organisations and tech companies to civil liberties groups and even the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Minister Rowland said the government had listened to the feedback and the new legislation had been revised to “carefully balance the public interest in combatting seriously harmful misinformation and disinformation with the freedom of expression that is so fundamental to our democracy”.

But critics are already lining up to attack the bill, with the Institute of Public Affairs describing the legislation as “the single biggest attack on freedom of speech in Australia’s peacetime history”.

“Misinformation legislation introduced into federal parliament today represents a chilling assault on every Australian’s right to free speech. The new Bill broadens provisions to censor speech, which even the government’s fatally flawed first draft did not include,” said John Storey, the Director of Law and Policy at the IPA.

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Read more: https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/attack-on-our-freedoms-governments-revised-online-misinformation-bill-slammed-as-chilling-assault-on-free-speech/news-story/03f202bf41f4255fd0f7c4b4c05682fe

The Institute of Public Affairs has this to say about the new laws.

Revised Misinformation Laws Amp Up Assault On Free Speech

Written by: John Storey
12 September 2024

“Misinformation legislation introduced into federal parliament today represents a chilling assault on every Australian’s right to free speech. The new Bill broadens provisions to censor speech, which even the government’s fatally flawed first draft did not include,” said John Storey, Director of Law and Policy at the Institute of Public Affairs.

The revised Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 grants the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) enormous power to fine social media companies if they are found to have failed to properly censor ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. The new Bill contains three fundamental flaws:

• A revised definition of ‘misinformation’ to mean content that is ‘verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive’ would create legal powers for politically biased fact-checkers to determine what is true and false (Clauses 13(1) and 13(2)).
• It creates an unelected and unaccountable star chamber bureaucracy with the power to launch investigations and hearings to ensure compliance with censorship guidelines that can target mainstream Australians (Schedule 2, Clause 2).
• A new definition of ‘serious harm’ is even broader than the first bill and can potentially capture any difference of opinion (Clause 14).

“The government’s proposed ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ laws are the single biggest attack on freedom of speech in Australia’s peacetime history, and have no place in a liberal democracy such as Australia,” said Mr Storey.

“The big tech companies will become the censorship and enforcement arm of the federal government to shut down debate and speech that it disagrees with.”

“Under these laws even the truth will be no defence. If a citizen were to disseminate information which was factually true, but ACMA or a fact checker labelled it ‘misleading’ or ‘deceptive’ because it ‘lacked context’, then that information would fall within the scope of these laws,” said Mr Storey.

The revised legislation has not taken into account the deep concern of many mainstream Australians who can now be targeted by an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy for prosecution for simply stating genuinely held opinions online.

“The federal government has not listened to the concerns about free speech raised by mainstream Australians. Instead, they are pandering to its political base by actually broadening the censorship powers of ACMA, such as introducing by stealth a change to the definition of ‘harm’ to include ‘vilification’,” said Mr Storey.

Previous research by the Institute of Public Affairs found that fact-checking organisations were systematically biased and targeted the ‘No’ campaign in the Voice to Parliament referendum. That research found

• So-called ‘fact-checkers’ published 187 fact checking articles related to the Voice – 170 of these assessments, or 91%, targeted claims of those who supported the No case.
• Almost every example supporting the No case was assessed to be false. 99% per cent of assessed claims supporting the No case were deemed ‘false’, whereas only 59% of the comparatively few claims assessed supporting the Yes case were deemed ‘false’.

To download the IPA’s previous research click here.

Read more: https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/media-releases/revised-misinformation-laws-amp-up-assault-on-free-speech

The IPA article (above) suggests individuals as well as organisations could be targeted.

The following submission from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (ATSE) and the Australian Academy of Science (AAS) makes it very clear that climate skepticism is in the firing line of the new disinformation laws. If this legislation is passed, going by this submission Australia’s premier scientific bodies will push for anyone who publicly disagrees with their alarmist stance on climate change and the Great Barrier Reef to be silenced using the new laws. They even slipped in a reference to President Trump (top of Page 4).

I’m not sure exactly what Anthony would do with a subpoena from the Australian government to cease and desist publishing climate “disinformation”, and to provide the full contact details of all authors, but I’m guessing it would make for a fun WUWT article.

Our favourite reef rebel Peter Ridd has started producing a series of videos on Australia’s woke scientific institutions and other interesting topics, well worth watching, in my opinion demonstrating why Australia’s science institutes are unfit to be gatekeepers of scientific truth. It was one of Peter’s videos which alerted me to the extremist submission above.

Elon Musk, who has very much been in the firing line for standing up to the Australian Government and winning, has just one word for this latest push to suppress freedom of expression.

As WUWT has previously shown, what is happening in Australia is part of a bigger picture. Across the world, radical left wing politicians appear to be acting simultaneously to silence opposition to their policies.

In South America and Europe, freedom is being eroded by increasingly punitive laws aimed at silencing critics of left wing policies.

Musk’s X banned in Brazil after disinformation row

Could Elon Musk actually be arrested and X cancelled?

The USA is not immune to this worldwide radical attempt by governments to impose censorship of “disinformation”.