Chilling warning issued over Albanese government’s proposed law: ‘Serious threat to the Australian democracy’

Religious groups and the human rights commissioner say Labour’s proposed anti-misinformation and disinformation bill would threaten freedom of expression and ‘undermine democracy’.

The coalition has strongly opposed the bill, which aims to protect online users from misinformation and misinformation but which the opposition says is an attack on freedom of expression.

The bill has also come under attack from religious groups including the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), who said it would pose a “serious threat to Australian democracy”.

“One of our concerns about this bill is that it has the potential to stifle the processes through which knowledge moves,” said ACL researcher Elizabeth Taylor.

‘Today’s misinformation may prove to be correct tomorrow, or new information may replace established orthodox views of the time.

‘This is the process of progress.’

ACL chief executive Michelle Pearse said the bill’s provisions that would protect religious defamation were “an overreaction to the censoring of opposing views”.

Archbishop Peter A Comensoli of Melbourne also questioned who would judge what counts as misinformation and disinformation, saying more transparency was needed.

There are fears that the bill could lead to people self-censoring and deter people from posting on digital platforms (stock image)

“The legislation itself does not deal with this in any way… the issue around who judges what is truthful, what is fact, rather than the content itself,” he said.

“The platforms themselves have bias.”

Australian Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay said the legislation needed “greater transparency, accountability and control mechanisms” and feared it could create “levels of dissent”.

Although Ms Finlay said there should be laws to ‘fight misinformation and disinformation’, the bill’s broad definitions meant there was a danger in confusing ‘misinformation and disinformation’ with ‘behavioural content that we don’t like’.

“We believe that the bill in its current form does not strike the right balance when it comes to the protections it provides, particularly for freedom of expression,” she said.

She also feared the bill could lead to people self-censoring and deter people from posting on digital platforms.

“That is a harm that we say is very real based on the current legislative setup, but it is a harm that is actually very difficult to measure because we simply do not know to what extent that self-censorship can occur,” said Mrs. Finlay. .

However, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant backed the bill’s powers which would give the communications watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, more powers to access and collect information from digital platforms.

“We can’t have accountability without meaningful transparency,” she said.

‘My experience, having worked in the technology industry for 22 years, and now almost eight years as a (commissioner), (is) that we absolutely need powers to enforce very specific answers to specific questions about what they do’s and don’ts.’