You have to love the irony of politicians – who let’s face it mislead for a living – wanting to ram through new ‘misinformation laws’ that won’t apply to them but do apply to the average Australian.
While the political class can continue to speak freely, including in parliament – excluded from the new laws – pedalling false narratives that suit their purposes whenever they like, the rest of society risks being hauled before a specially convened star chamber to prove their innocence when accused of spreading falsehoods.
The ‘one rule for us, another rule for the rest of you’ nature of this newly proposed Labor law doesn’t end there.
The elite end of the country are also given special exceptions from this free speech-limiting legislation.
Academics and artists can say things which you might not be allowed to respond to under the proposed law.
They could take aim at something you’ve said or done and your right of reply would be limited by law, forcing you to sit in silence as they dismantle you or an issue close to your heart.
It is a shocking case of stifling the dissent of the masses while protecting the elites.
Ordinarily I would consider putting this badly drafted legislation’s perverse outcomes down to the well trodden ‘law of unintended consequences’.
Anthony Albanese’s government is proposing a new ‘misinformation’ law
Human rights groups are worried the proposed legislation could clamp down on free speech (a protester is pictured in Sydney in November, 2021)
In other words, good intentions that sometimes lead to bad outcomes by mistake.
Except that this legislation is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. There is nothing unintended in the outcomes it will lead to. I believe the design of these proposed laws is deliberate.
This Labor government wants to stifle the free speech of the masses, because it neither respects nor tolerates the opinions of the mainstream.
The same way the Prime Minister looked down on any Australian who opposed his Voice to Parliament, for example. Advocates during that debate regularly accused opponents of being guided by racism rather than fair-minded concerns about the drafting of what was being proposed.
These new misinformation laws are nothing short of an attempt to prevent average voters expressing opinions that might challenge the woke establishment view, or take on the increasingly stifling nature of political correctness in this country.
Australia has little by way of free speech protections already. An implied political freedom of speech in constitutional interpretation, but no bill of rights enshrining the principle.
Yet here we are, bearing witness to a government seeking to further curtail free speech proactively via new laws that can be subjectively applied to some but not others.
No wonder the opposition opposes it and civil liberties advocates are raising the alarm.
Adding to the dysfunction, this government is in an unnecessary rush to legislate the new laws, demanding they are passed by the parliament this side of the new year.
What is the urgency? Is it a coincidence they face re-election soon after? Will these laws help Labor shut down commentary critical of its performance?
These are fair, as yet, unanswered questions.
Nobody wants to see hate speech or abusive rhetoric permeate online, much less when it is also defamatory in nature.
So in principle there is nothing wrong with looking to add to existing laws preventing such behaviour.
Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland would have sweeping powers under the proposed laws
However, this proposed law goes so much further than that.
It even gives the communications minister of the day extraordinary powers to personally order misinformation hearings or investigations.
It sounds more like a plot line to a documentary on the Stasi regime in East Germany during the Cold War than a new set of rules Labor is seriously in support of in the 21st Century.
The biggest problem with clamping down on political commentary that might be classed as misinformation is the highly subjective nature of making such assessments.
Both the left and the right often claim their political opponents are spreading lies. Fancy giving a minister the power to endlessly probe their opponents under the protection of such a new law.
The movie 1984 might be an oldie but its relevance is on the rise when the political class seeks to curtail rights in the way this new law is designed to do.
We therefore end where we started: The irony of any politician who twists and contorts the facts for a living to suggest new ‘misinformation laws’ that apply to the rest of us but not to them is hypocrisy on stilts.
However, the extreme lack of self awareness when doing so means that Labor won’t even realise how hypocritical they are in arguing for this new law.
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