It sounds like I'm being hyperbolic, but bear with me, because I regard this to be the greatest threat to our nation right now. This legislation will give the government, federal or state, the power to silence dissent, disagreement, or even those questioning the narrative of the day. Right here in Australia. Not the former USSR, not China, not North Korea. Australia.
I read a quote a couple of weeks back that I fortuitously saved to my phone- ‘Mis and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust and can threaten public health and safety. The Albanese government is committed to keeping Australians safe online.’
The Albanese government is proposing that something as simple as a Facebook post or a meme on Twitter can cause actual harm to the reader. How on earth did we come to this? Since when did an emotion such as offence become an injury?
This new law will apply to all users of Social Media (like you), Citizen Journalists (like lockdown hero Rukshan Fernando,) or amateur opinion writers (like me).
My question to you is this: Who do you trust to determine what is true or desirable? A government bureaucrat? Facebook? Or yourself?
The Australian Government intends to fine social media companies, to the tune of millions of dollars if they don't comply to the government's dictats. Wanting to avoid these fines, social media platforms and big tech will kowtow to the government, scan your posts, and pull offending posts from their platforms. Your on-line discussions will be monitored and filtered by big tech on behalf of a government bureaucracy.
Of course, this rule applies to you and me, but not the Government itself. The government can post whatever it wishes, true or false, informative or misguiding. But if you call them out on something that you don't agree with, or question what they are saying, the censorship laws will apply to you. Same applies to, for example, opposition politicians or dissenting members of the government's own party.
And don't think the big tech giants won't censor people. It's been going on for years, which we will discuss below.
Also exempt are the legacy media outlets. According to the draft bill, automatically excluded from this new draconian law: ‘professional news content’ and ‘content that is authorised by the Commonwealth, and/or state’.
Why would a government of a free and liberal democracy introduce this blatantly anti-liberty law? And why now? An article from the Sydney Morning Herald offers a clue. It read: "Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will link the growing international wave of misinformation to the campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament... In an attempt to discredit his critics, Albanese will on Sunday claim that democracy is under threat…’ . In my opinion, few things are as undemocratic than this new disinformation bill! In my opinion, this is the biggest threat to our democracy since WWII.
I don't know if this tome was mandated by the curriculum of the time, or if it was selected my our eloquent and articulate educator. Regardless, I enjoyed the book, but it took me a couple of years to "get it" and begin to understand the important lessons that the book offered. I revisited the book probably once between leaving school and a couple of years ago. I have now read the book a couple of times since and can plainly see the connections between Winston Smith's communist hell, and the changes happening in the world today.
I would guess that this book has been widely read. Something like 30 million copies have been sold worldwide. The book is so prolific I would suggest that most people know the story despite perhaps not having read it.
One thing is for sure. We have forgotten "1984"s horrors and it's lessons. We failed to learn from life in Oceania's Airstrip One. We lost our sympathy for Winston Smith and Julia.
We failed to learn from the Covid response. Many have forgotten (or maybe refuse to remember, or maybe even acknowledge) the pure insanity of the world's Covid response. (I outline my personal thoughts on the covid response here)
During Covid, government and health bureaucracy pushed a single narrative. It's (now) no secret that dissenting or alternative views were quashed by social media platforms and big tech at the request of governments. What you might not know is that commercial broadcasters, the legacy media, the nightly TV news, received a 100% refund of their Commercial Broadcasting Tax obligations in return for supporting the government's narrative and quashing or discrediting alternative ideas and opinions. In other words, they were bribed by the government to hide what could have possibly been the actual truth. This happened here in Australia and the mainstream media was also bribed in New Zealand. These same people who received these tax breaks diligently created covid hysteria and (almost) universal fear. They discredited people who spoke out or raised opposition to covid measures or completely censored and deplatformend those who were brave enough to speak out. These very same media outlets will be exempt from the new "Disinformation" bill.
For three years we have seen the suppression of views that were promptly labelled "disinformation" which turned out to be actually correct. For example, the Trump Russia collusion was a hoax, the Covid Lab Leak theory, Hunter Biden's Laptop, Covid "vaccines" don't stop transmission, or indeed that the "vaccines" lead to blood clots, stroke or heart damage.
Think of the contradictions that were not questioned by an obedient media. Attending a Black Lives Matter protest is safe, but attending an anti-lockdown protest is not. It's unsafe to go to an ANZAC day commemoration, but perfectly safe to attend the ANZAC day AFL football match. Masks are mandatory for everyone at all times, but not for politicians when the cameras are off.
Over the last several months, much of the information given out by government during covid is now found to be untrue.
Albanese's proposed bill is a reward for everyone who blindly and obediently followed the government's dictats during the pandemic. For those free-thinking and defiant individuals who refused to become the loyal subjects of dictatorial politicians, you will be censored at the minimum. More than likely, you will be cancelled, deplatformed, or "unpersoned", as Mr Orwell put it.
When government bureaucracy proposes to act as the arbiter of fact, and filter what people can and cannot say, what they can and cannot read or listen to, they are proposing and attempting to control what you think. Just like in Orwell's 1984, it is a massive authoritarian overreach.
What our governments need to realise is that the only weapon against misinformation is free and open debate. It's been working for hundreds of years in western societies. Free and open debate IS democracy. It's no coincidence that the suppression of open debate is leading to many of the problems that our world faces today.
Instead of a liberal and democratic approach to conflicting ideas and information, the government has chosen censorship and suppression. Since the beginning of recorded history, many governments and authoritative regimes have appointed themselves as the arbiter of truth. It hasn't ended well for them or the people.
To me, the problem with a heinous bill like this is the impotency of the federal opposition. Let's not forget that the Morrison Government toyed with similar legislation. As did the Gillard Government.
Mr Dutton has stated that he is opposed to this legislation. But I've not heard anything from him since. My feeling is that Mr Dutton is personally opposed, but the party machine of the Liberals, most of who are incompetent bed-wetters, are quietly supporting the idea, wanting the censorious power themselves once they are (one day maybe) returned to power.
Mr Dutton has made gains in popularity since taking a strong stance against the Voice. If he were to come out swinging against this new legislation, he would cement himself as the ideal leader of an opposition and possible a genuine candidate for Prime Minister. However, if he continues to appease the ideologically confused in the party (think Julian Leeser et al), he will struggle to win back the conservative vote that was destroyed by Turnbull, and taken for granted by Morrison.
If you are reading this, and if you agree that this legislation must be defeated outright, you must act and now.
1. Contact your local member of Federal parliament and register your protest. If you don't know who your member is, click HERE enter your postcode in line 1 for your answer.
2. Submit your protest to the ACMA website HERE . Keep it polite and your voice will be heard.
3. Share this article via email or Social Media. Links are in the boxes at the end of the article.
If this bill is passed in to law, it will remain in place, regardless of who is in power. And your right to complain about it will be forever removed.
