Free Speech is On the Line.
A top Australian medical expert has hit out at the federal government’s proposed misinformation laws, arguing the measures could shut down legitimate debate about public health policy as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Don’t give politicians more power!
The majority of your fellow citizens believe the state will keep them safe if they give politicians more power.
They believe this despite it NEVER being true.
A leading doctor has blasted the Federal Government. Dr Nick Coatsworth is calling out Labor’s ‘Misinformation Bill’. He’s warning it could lead to “telling people what to think”.
Craig Kelly:
Here’s a legal opinion I was forwarded to on the Misinformation & Disinformation Bill …..
In its current form (attached) the proposed legislation appears to me to have the potential to censor free speech both by candidates for political office and even by sitting members of a State or Federal Parliament, if such speech appears on a digital communications platform. Of course, the legislation cannot prevent members of a State or Federal Parliament from speaking in Parliament but, outside of Parliament, even someone such as a Senator Babet who is very active, with excellent content, on X (Twitter) and YouTube could be deprived of a voice on X (Twitter), YouTube etc.
The censorship would be done indirectly by attacking those platforms and threatening them with enormous fines etc. Indeed, such a result was able to be achieved previously, even without legislation. An example which comes to mind is the previous de-platforming of Craig Kelly, which included even the censorship of YouTube videos which merely broadcast speeches which had been made by him in the Parliament.
This was seemingly able to be achieved by “back-door” means (similar to what was done in the USA to lean on digital communications platforms to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story and influence the result of the 2020 Presidential election). By contrast, under the proposed legislation the government of the day could say whatever it likes, which could then be reported and amplified by the mainstream news media, whose activities are exempted from the legislation. The reasoning for the conclusion that the proposed legislation would not affect the activities of government, and its lap-dog mainstream media organisations, but could be used to silence the online speech of anyone the government does not like (even a sitting Senator or MP) In terms of a threat to the whole country, this must be the gravest threat to democracy in Australian history.
It is clear that the Labor government, with the support of the Greens, want to push it through before Christmas (and thus be able to lie with impunity, and censor free speech in opposition to its own propaganda, in the lead-up to the Federal election).
The ultimate aim, as with the Democrats in the USA, is permanent one-party rule. The timing of introduction of the legislation, so close to the Federal election, is obviously designed to limit the time for constitutional challenges in the High Court. The only way to counter this would be to do an analysis of the best lines of attack on the proposed legislation, so that the contents of the challenge can be mapped out and prepared in advance and launched as soon as the legislation has been enacted and applied or at least threatened to be applied (such that there would be no “hypotheticality”). Otherwise, Australia will be a very different country by next year.