Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland are still seeking to impose draconian laws that would shut down free speech.
This is despite almost 10,000 Groom residents signing a petition, telling Labor to dump their anti-free speech, so-called ‘misinformation’ laws.
Federal Member for Groom, Garth Hamilton, said the petition had reached almost 10,000 signatures after a few months, with residents outraged at what the Labor government was proposing.
“I have to ask, what are Labor so afraid of? This is a government that is seeking to keep their opponents quiet because they cannot handle the truth.
“The truth on their failed referendum which wasted $450 million, broken promise on tax cuts and broken promise on reducing energy costs.
“If you ask me, they’re acting out of fear. Fear of getting caught out and called out.
“They are proving to be tin-eared to concerns of the community, legal experts and human rights proponents,” Mr Hamilton said.
The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 has drawn criticism from various leading Australian organisations, including the Human Rights Commission, Law Council of Australia, to peak civil liberties groups.
Raising the alarm, Professor Anne Twomey, said “If statement X is found to be misinformation and it’s said both by a news media organisation and everybody else, you’re going to sweep up the entire lot and chuck out the entire lot, because you’ve got to actually cover your entire Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever it is, by some sort of electronic means to sweep this stuff out.”
The Human Rights Commissioner also warns there are “inherent dangers” in giving the power to decide what is misinformation to one body. The risk here, she says, is that:
“… efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation could be used to legitimise attempts to restrict public debate and censor unpopular opinions.”
“…government content can never be misinformation but content critical of the government produced by political opponents might be.”
It is time Labor listened, and put the Bill in the Bin.
