Submissions close today!
It’s better to say something short than nothing at all. Let it be known that we have grave concerns, and far too little time to debate and discuss such far reaching legislation. Please read submissions posted below and add your own here too. Thank you! — Jo
Upload your submission here (button on the right hand side)
Committee Secretariat contact:
Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Phone: +61 2 6277 3526
ec.sen@aph.gov.au
Public submission regarding: Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024.
_____________________
The Misinformation Bill is not just wholly unnecessary, it’s an abject travesty. How did such a preposterous overbearing, undemocratic, anti-science and dangerous piece of legislation get past the first focus group? It wouldn’t survive a high-school debate, and yet, here it is?
Misinformation is easy to correct when you own a billion dollar news agency, most academics, institutions, expert committees and 25% of the economy. The really hard thing, even with all that power and money is to defend an absurd lie and stop people pointing it out, which is surely the main purpose of the Misinformation Bill amendments. The government can already correct any misinformation that really matters, so these amendments curtail our freedom of speech for no benefit at all.
Guilty until proven innocent?
The amendments turn free speech on its head — instead of having the implicit right to criticize the government, everyone now needs to prove to some judge that their views are “reasonably” satire, or reasonable dissemination for an “academic, scientific or religious” purpose, and that their “motive” is honest and their behaviour is “authentic”.
When it comes to reasonableness in a democracy the highest court should be the court of public opinion, but how can the people decide if they are not allowed to hear it?
How is it even a democracy still if the government is allowed to take our money to force feed us the governments view on the ABC and in every captured university (dependent on government funds), but the people cannot even reply through sheer unfunded creative wit?
This legislation puts a very unfree cloud over all groups, forums, blogs, and social media.
The fines (and all legal fees today) are so obscenely, disproportionately harmful to Australians that few will risk going to court, instead the platforms will be preemptively second guessing what a judge might say is reasonable, and people with serious social media accounts will be second guessing the second-guesses of their platform controllers in fear that they might be thrown off, and lose years of work if they guess wrongly.
Worse, the big platforms, supposedly so “independent” will become unaccountable but de facto arms of the government. The platforms will know if they don’t perform as expected and favorably to the incumbent masters, that the rules will get more onerous, the fines bigger. And thus and verily will the unholy alliance of Big-Tech and Big-Government will become Big-Brother in your conversations, and Big Bankrupter in your nightmares.
The government claim they are not censoring anyone, but it’s just done at arms length with “implausible” deniability. Obviously the laws will censor all of us who are not already controlled by ACMA or the government through a public salary, a grant, or a Code of Practice written into the the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act.
Who silences the government misinformation, then?
We were there when the government experts told us margarine with hydrogenated fake vegetable fat would be great for our hearts. We heard them when they told us an ice age was coming, and antibiotics were useless against stomach ulcers. We noticed they told us to hold off on the peanut butter for babies to prevent allergies, only to find out that all these things were misinformation.
What happens when the experts are wrong, but the people who are unconvinced can’t speak up because they might “harm… the efficacy of a preventative health measure”? These health measures may take a … lifetime… to even measure the efficacy. Does the government get a free pass for 40 years?
It was estimated dietary trans fats (found in margarine) were killing 82,000 people a year in the US. (Danaei et al 2009). Should we have fined all the people who talked about this, and perhaps delayed things, and killed a half a million more? Someone speaking against hydrogenated margarine could have been deemed to be spreading “misinformation causing harm to public health in Australia”. So 20 years later, they turn out to be right — will the government compensate the families of the dead who might have chosen a different sandwich spread had they heard another opinion and been able to make up their own mind?
Will Facebook and Twitter need to block the accounts of experts who were wrong? Or, are there two kinds of citizens in Australia — one sort that work for the government, who can give their opinions and get things wrong without losing their right to speak, and the Untermenschen, who cannot speak, even if they are right?
Confidence has to be earned, not ordered
Apparently the citizens of Australia are not allowed to say anything that might harm the confidence in the banking system or the financial markets. But if our banking system is so fragile, or our currency so fake, that it needs a law to force people to “feel confident” then we are in a trouble already.
Nothing damages confidence like making a law to silence critics.
As adults, we filter misinformation our whole lives, it’s our job
We are all adults in this room, and we have lived our whole lives filtering out advertising spin, ignoring political lies, and reading books telling us we can stops storms if we just ride a bike. Since the stone-age we’ve spent our lives climbing from one misinformation-swamp to another, but as adults, it’s our job to figure it out. Free will and all. How dare you treat us like children.
And even the children about to enter the room have to learn how to deal with misinformation. How exactly can we teach them, if the government serves up one permitted line to protect us from accidentally hearing something “wrong”?
It’s not just that this misinformation bill is egregiously wrong, it’s that we shouldn’t have one at all in the first place.
REFERENCES
Danaei et al (2009) The preventable causes of death in the United States: comparative risk assessment of dietary, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors, PLoS Med, . 2009 Apr 28;6(4):e1000058. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000058. Epub 2009 Apr 28.
The Bill: Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024
The 69 page proposed legislation PDF form and Word doc.
Submissions close on the 30 September 2024. (General advice on how to make a submission).
Submissions can be uploaded here (button on the right column) or emailed to the Committee Secretariat below.
One would think that in Australia billion dollar Government agencies such as CSIRO (scientific research organisation) and the ABC (anachronistic government funded media outlet, essentially a far Left propaganda organisation) would, if they followed their charters and legal responbilties, be sources of truth.
Instead, they themselves are major sources of misinformation such as CSIRO claiming that wind is the cheapest form of electricity generation and just about everything stated on “Their” ABC.
Thus, I pointed out in my previous submission on the same topic on the same bill in August 2023
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/acma2023-31735-david-s-maddison.pdf
that government itself is the primary source of misinformation and gave numerous examples.
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Excellent post David. Let’s hope someone listens.
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Bad governments are protecting themselves. Dr. Joseph Goebbels’s Ministry of Truth.
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We need new acronyms to describe our Marxist government institutions.
I was thinking
ABC – Australian Broadcasting Commune
CSIRO – Communist Scientific Information for Re-education Organisation
ACMA – Australian Communications for Marxist Activism
Better suggestions welcome !
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This is an extract from my latest submission:
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Thank you David!
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Thanks Jo.
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Who would have thought a simple ‘GO VOTE’ logo had a biased outcome?
No the real question is;
Did Google know it would have a bias outcome?
No that’s not quite accurate;
WHEN did Google know it would have a bias outcome?
https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/another-way-google-manipulates-votes-without-us-knowing-a-go-vote-reminder-is-not-what-you-think-it-is-2754073
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2024-09-29/trump-threatens-prosecute-google-election-rigging-corporate-media-plays-dumb
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This is also relevant
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/john-kerry-says-quiet-part-out-loud-first-amendment-stands-major-block-govern
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Excellent David! I was so wearied by the fact that, after a submission to the original Bill I was nowvrequiredvtonwrite another. I therefore resubmitted the original & hope it won’t be discarded for that reason.
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Thanks Vicki.
I doubt they’d notice yours was a resubmission as sadly all of them were probably unread the first time.
But, as our Civilisation collapses, it’s still important to document the reasons for future historians.
It’s likely however that they got some brain dead public serpent(s) to go through all 23,000 submissions to try to work out a tally of the number in favour of censorship and those against.
Public opinion and therefore votes do occasionally matter to politicians.
I too resubmitted the main body of my August 2023 submission as nothing has changed. I just added the note above.
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Those submissions aren’t read, David. They are collected (gathered) and perhaps archived somewhere obscure, but their actual raw number isn’t even counted.
The true giveaway is in those who are exempted from this censorship:
Govt politicians (not Opposition ones); bureaucrats (including pick ‘n chosen academics); journalists (excluding those who will be deemed as not real journalists).
In short, these new Salem witch hunt laws will be deployed by the same groups that are themselves exempted from them. How many MSM denizens have come out and actually said this ?
The mining industry has long had experience with such hypocrisy. Draconian legislation threatening an executive in a North Sydney high-rise office with jail for an incident in a mining operation 1000km away (where the incident was caused by the employee deliberately shortcutting operational OHS requirements) was counterweighted by exempting Departmental executives from the same regulations. In one astonishing incident, the judge running the Commission of Enquiry was noted by the lead investigator as requiring previous case study loopholes to ensure the relevant Dept was not guilty of exactly the careless conduct from that Dept that had caused the (severe) incident.
We are a corrupt species.
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I cc’d my Federal Rep.
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I did not find that in the 2024 bill.
Can anyone name the section of the bill which explicitly gives an exemption to either the politicians or the public servants of government?
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“Can anyone name the section of the bill which explicitly gives an exemption to either the politicians or the public servants of government?”
I expect that is covered by “16(1)(a) dissemination of content that would reasonably be regarded as parody or satire”.
but seriously, not so far as I can see.
though those who do the censoring are obviously not practically subject to it; nor are their political masters.
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I believe they took out that most ridiculous part from last years legislation. It gave their end-goal away too obviously. But the new legislation is almost certainly designed to do exactly that de facto.
Who “verifies” the facts? Those gatekeepers rule the world.
The group with the biggest money (the government) pays the experts who make decrees. Therefore consensus science gets stronger, and real science gets weaker.
The other group with billions of dollars (billionaires etc) pays to set up third party “fact checkers” or they donate to Universities which is almost the same thing.
It won’t matter how right you are, if they can afford more lawyers and more astro-turf-experts. And they can…
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Vicki,
It is a World Wide Push – John Kerry Says The Quiet Part Out Loud: “First Amendment Stands As Major Block” To “Govern”
The World Economic Forum held its ‘Sustainable Development Impact Meetings’ during last week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
Speaking at the meeting, far-left elitist and former presidential climate envoy John Kerry expressed frustration to fellow globalists, stating that the First Amendment frequently obstructs their agenda.
“Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence.
What we need is to win…the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change,” Kerry said.
Kerry noted, “It’s very hard to govern today.”
We’ll translate “govern” for readers as it essentially means narration control (or official government-approved propaganda)—that is, through the censorship blob at federal government agencies in Washington, DC, the intel community, Silicon Valley’s big tech, fact-checkers, think tanks and legacy corporate media.
Kerry’s choice of words and tone shows that far-left radicals in the Obama-Biden-Harris team are frightened that their own misinformation and disinformation propaganda jammed through far-left corporate media outlets is no longer sticking as the citizens gravitate to the ‘free speech’ X platform run by Elon Musk for their news in the pursuit of truth after being lied to for decades by their corrupt government and corporate overlords.
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Sunday Talks – Former Secretary of State John Kerry Explains Intent of Next Administration to Eliminate First Amendment
September 29, 2024 – Sundance
Within the recent WEF discussion, Secretary Kerry outlines how freedom of speech is a ‘threat to the global democracy‘ because the governing officials have a difficult time controlling information.
Kerry goes on to posit how the next administration, presumably in his hope Kamala Harris, will forcefully structure all the tools of government to stop Americans from using the first amendment to freely speak about issues.
Governing is too challenging, according to Kerry, when the government cannot stop people from seeking and discovering information that is against their interests.
Effective governing required compliant adherence to a singular ideology.
Against the backdrop of COVID-19 and a host of similarly related government narratives, if people are free to find alternative information and think for themselves, they become increasingly more difficult to control.
Yes, this is said quite openly. This is the mindset of those in power.
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In a democracy everyone is a boss and everyone is a servant. If governments forget that then that is a big problem.
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John Kerry calls the First Amendment a ‘major block’ to stopping ‘disinformation’
Kerry added democracies are ‘struggling’ without a truth arbiter
By Lindsay Kornick Fox News
John Kerry called the First Amendment a “major block” to combating misinformation and fighting climate change.
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Lurch calls for destroying the First Amendment in order to save it
By Monica Showalter
After ‘retiring’ from his climate czar position in May, John Kerry is out and about.
Apparently, he liked those big deep-thinker conferences with their abundant networking and buffett opportunities, arriving in on a cloud of private-jet fumes to save the environment..
Which is why he hasn’t stopped going to World Economic Forum conferences, his latest something called the “sustainable development impact” meet.
Former secretary of state John Kerry recently spoke at a World Economic Forum panel and lamented the First Amendment for being a roadblock to countering online “misinformation” and “disinformation” about climate change.
It sounds a lot like ‘destroying it in order to save it.’ Somehow that goes well with him.
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amazing how all the ‘elites’ in western countries manage to come up with the same draconian ideas at the same time!
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Did you receive an acknowledgement of your submission?
I tried to make a submission from my IPad. It would be easy from my home computer but I am away overseas at present.
They only accept submissions as pdf or txt files, so I wrote something up in notes and tried to turn it into a txt file and saved it to somewhere. Then I went looking on my iPad to see where it was saved to and then tried to upload that.
I think it worked but I expected to get a receipt of submission note but I got nothing!
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yes… “Thank you for your submission to the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 [Provisions] inquiry. The Committee will consider carefully all the matters you have raised…”
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Thanks,
Success this time.
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I emailed mine and got an acknowledgement of receipt.
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I had that after emailing my rather short submission.
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Procedure for response to submission—- SELECT.. ALL,,,,,Press SELECT REPLY,,,, Press SEND. Done. All submissions responded to with 3 keystrokes!!!!!!!
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Good submission. This is the second attempt by the ALP/greens to censor Australians. Here is a description of the first time under Gillard at the behest of Bob Brown; Gillard instructed barrister Finkelstein QC to prepare a justification for the censorship bill:
https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13348&page=0
At the time a critique of the proposed censorship/misinformation and disinformation bill was even published at the abc! No chance of that happening today:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-07/cox-free-speech-in-australia/3873668
The point is Gillard was motivated to set up a censorship body because Bob Brown was concerned climate sceptics were having too much influence. The question is: why is the Albanese government introducing a similar bill to censor?
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Don’t trust the fake conservative Liberal Party faction of the Uniparty to vigourosly and properly oppose this.
The legislation has its origins with them as does the e Safety Kommissar.
The Lib/Lab/Greens are working together on this.
And I’d be willing to bet that if the Libs win the next election, they will NOT repeal this legislation or remove the position of the Kommissar.
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It will be rammed through because of the reasons most object to it.
Before I can no longer say it, everyone for it is a high functioning sociopath.
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Oh not all of them. Some of them are quite low functioning.
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Well put Jo. It’s in the lap of the gods now. I’ve made approaches to my local MP who genuinely opposes the Bill, no one is too hopeful as this is the agenda that is a long time in the making.The independents hopefully will consider intently this proposed legislation and reject it.
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What are we? A bunch of juveniles that require full time correction and redirection? Can you imagine the uproar if parents were to punish their children for even the slightest misdemeanor. This proposed legislation is a travesty and must be defeated. The problem is that all three main parties agree with it. Labor will sign its death warrant if it attempts to progress it!
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ummm that piece cannot be attributed to me as I didn’t write it. Mods?
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GlenM. Noted. That’s the third incidence of this this week. Will talk to site guru manager.
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Ministry of Truth rides again!
Our ideological governments of a lefty persuasion are using 1984 as a manual instead of a warning.
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The government is not fit for purpose. It has become overgrown with too many irons in the fire. Wise pollies are few and far between. A sign of maturity is being able to listen to alternate opinion respectfully. I am old enough to remember B&W Tele programs featuring Journalists that were intelligently interviewing with impartiality- often with a darkened backdrop with ciggie plumes providing a mystical special effect. Nowadays my exposure to TV is reading closed captions whilst donating plasma. That is about 30 min a week. The old line about believing half of what you seen is defunct. Everything has an agenda and the new currency is attention. The biggest challenge for Australia is population and economic decline which is being accelerated by the government at the behest of global financial interests.
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Best misinformation filter?
The government.
If it comes through the government it’s been filtered.
They are unwittingly doing us a favor,
Making it clear what not to believe.
That’s how we knew early on that it came from a lab and it was neither safe or effective.
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Even worse is that enforcement of these Laws will devolve to the unelected bureaucrats at
Australian Communications and Media Authority
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yep.
if you don’t conform to establishment science/narrative they will say your information is not “reasonably verifiable”
if you follow the government narrative, no problem (even if it’s total nonsense).
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Is the solution to this proposed law as simple as writing, “The following comments are satire”, at the front of all our writings?
Imagine the uproar if even a judge had to admit that the label made it satire. Alternatively, imagine if the judge denied the statement. Would that show that it was in fact satire, (to make the opening statement), if so, on which line of the comment did the satire end?
This is a law designed for the ‘thought police’ to interpret. And we already have a fair idea on who those kinds of laws will prosecute and who will receive a free pass. As an example, do you remember the woman arrested for silent prayer in front of an abortion clinic in the UK? She was charged for silently praying. A thought crime?
If the law is to pass, then any future candidate who stands on the premise of removing this law will likely win. That needs to be a declared stance on the part of all those who claim to be for the people. If not, then they don’t deserve your vote.
And any elected official who thinks this is needed should have to explain exactly why it is needed and then explain how the government can still be held to account. Surely the law is designed to stop the questioning of the government, if that’s not the path to a dictatorship, then what is it?
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Good idea, but most “judges” these days are themselves political activists and not learned elders and can’t be trusted to deliver justice.
They will enforce censorship.
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extracts of my submission:
1. Definition of Misinformation and Disinformation (s13(1)(a) & s13(2)(a)):
“contains information that is reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive”.
Information or data will often permit the drawing of a range of reasonable (plausible or probable) inferences. The material may, in other words, “reasonably admit[] of different conclusions” This is notoriously the case in matters of public discourse which routinely involve uncertain or conflicting narratives. What is “reasonably verifiable” may thus be open to an alternate and equally reasonable or plausible interpretation. A reasonable opinion should not be classified as misinformation or disinformation merely because a government authority or entity backed by government authority takes a different view.
4. Excepted Classes: Excluded Dissemination (s16)
The meaning of “excluded dissemination” includes “reasonable dissemination of content for any academic, artistic, scientific or religious purpose.” Or in other words: dissemination of “academic, artistic, scientific or religious” is subject to discretionary overview for what is “reasonable”.
5. Authoritative Sources (Explanatory Memorandum p14)
The Explanatory Memorandum states “those who believed misinformation had ‘lower levels of trust in doctors, health officials and other authoritative sources’” (p14). A key point here is what actually constitutes “authoritative sources”. There is a distinction between epistemic authority (knowing) and administrative authority (power). A source is not epistemically authoritative merely because the government says it is. Conversely, a source does not lack epistemic authority because the government says it is not authoritative in that respect. Knowledge is predicated on argument and rational inference from evidence, not the brute authority of government say so.
6. Free Speech: Sufficient Precision
The Explanatory Memorandum (p19) indicates that for restriction of freedom of speech to be permissible, three conditions must be satisfied. One of these (“first limb”) is that the restriction must be “provided by law” and that law “formulated with sufficient precision to enable an individual to regulate his or her conduct accordingly” (p19).
The Explanatory Memorandum then states that “the first limb of the test (requiring that restrictions be provided by law) is satisfied because “the measures set out in Schedule 9 are either prescribed in the Schedule itself, or will be prescribed in digital platform rules, approved misinformation codes or misinformation standards” (p19).
This, however, does not address whether the law has been “formulated with sufficient precision to enable an individual to regulate his or her conduct accordingly”. As noted above, the standard of “reasonably verifiable” means that what is misinformation or disinformation may be open to alternate and equally reasonable or plausible interpretations. It follows that even if an individual makes a reasonable or plausible inference that something is the case it may still be classified as misinformation because it is open to an alternate interpretation. The law thus provides no sufficient guide “to enable an individual to regulate his or her conduct”.
Moreover, it would appear there is nothing to require that “digital platform rules, approved misinformation codes or misinformation standards” be drafted with “sufficient precision” (noting again, that the parent legislation is itself ambiguous on that point).
7. The right to Participate in Public Affairs (Explanatory Memorandum 19)
The Bill severely circumscribes the right to participate in public affairs by limiting the public’s ability to freely and openly discuss matters.
8. Harm to Public Health (Explanatory Memorandum 19)
The government suppressing opinions of qualified experts on matters of health because they do not agree with government narrative is likely to cause serious detriment to public health.
Conclusion
This Bill violates the basic axiom that in a free country the people – not the government – decide what is true. It must therefore be rejected.
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I notice none of the resident Leftists have posted anything on this topic.
Are they too ashamed to state their position in front of the thinking community?
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At this time of day they’re all sleeping under their rocks or parents basements.
They’ll red thumb later this morning.
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My leftist friends think I’m a right winger, so I’m sitting on the fence with this one.
The journalist code of ethics might give us a clue where ACMA is taking this, because its a politically sensitive issue they will be seeking moderation.
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Monday polly joke
https://youtube.com/shorts/31VWCjfUPfA?si=5TjBgTZONfgQoVFs
Enjoy it while you can.
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Once (even more censorship than we already have) becomes entrenched, it becomes very difficult to undo it.
That’s because people don’t even know what’s being censored or even if something is bring censored.
Such societies eventually become a nation of mindless drones as we see in North Korea.
We already see early signs of this with extreme un-Australian compliance with the world’s most draconian lockup laws as we had in Australia, and also decades of the products of the Marxified and dumbed-down education/indoctrination system.
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It’s too bad none of Australia’s politicians (with one handful of exceptions) ever studied or understood history.
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This is an attempt to shut down any and all opinions that differ from The Government agenda. Worse still it’s happening all over the world simultaneously! This is The new World Order by stealth!
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My Tuppence Worth (submitted) :-
Prior to The Reformation the western world was living in a top down feudal society. When the Reformation came along society was changed to a bottom up society and the fundamentals were changed. That produced our fantastic modern healthy and wealthy world.
What Were the Factors?
The Enlightenment
Capitalism – bottom up
Common Law, Property Rights, Individual Sovereignty – boundaries and protections (rights), positive answers to the most basic question “Why bother?” – people bothered – we advanced massively.
Objectivity – adherence to honesty and truth
Very importantly –
The principle of “Nothing’s perfect, always getting better”, in other words evolution, is fundamental to the success of the last 500 years. And fundamental to that was the printing press which allowed information to be dispersed and conversations to be had.
Evolution requires :-
1) diversity – variation. In biological terms these are called mutations (which can be good or bad).
2) things going wrong and right at a low level – i) low cost errors, mistakes identified and rectified and lessons learned, ii) low cost successes – capitalised on and built up on.
A fundamental part of this is the principle of :- freedom of thought, freedom of association, freedom of communication. As such that must not be infringed on in anyway otherwise you will produce a new dark age.
Further – Who is to say what is true? The only way to determine that is by civil discourse – The Center Ground – the interplay point between discussing the advantages and disadvantages of ideas and proposals and progressing them. To not do that – To cut that off – is to impose a mentality of pure ignorance. Ignorance may be bliss but it is very dangerous for the individual and for society.
Look at historically how censorship and information control has caused much damage. Even in recent history: Look at the appalling way that the Wu Flu was handled – where many experts were censored, where totalitarian controls were used, were much damage was done to the credibility of the governments and the health departments and where much physical damage was done to the health of many people that wasn’t prevented and addressed. Also look at all the climate nonsense going on, the poor science and technology and the massive waste of money. Just because you imagine it – just because you can construct and run a narrative – doesn’t mean it’s true. You have to test it in the real world. If you can’t do that then you are living in a delusion and that’s very dangerous.
As such I am very anti any controls over information – very anti censorship.
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The way I see this is that this “Legislation” will make it an offence to campaign or comment against the government in power.
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I am going to make a supplemental submission to the effect that in the event that the legislation passes, there must be a daily list published of all censorship actions, the content of the material, the author being censored, the platform and the name of the censor..
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There is nothing but Information. Each individual decides the truth or falsity of that information.
If not, then it is a Political assignment that some information is Dis or Mis Information. That is propaganda.
Ask the Govt how any designation of Dis or Mis information will be proven not a political decision. There must be a process for that, if such decisions are allowed at all.
Anyone, anywhere, deciding what is Truth or Not, must be infallibly Trustworthy. I’ve not seen that, yet. Save God.
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“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.” Carl Sagan
“I’d rather have questions without answers than answers without questions”. Richard Feynman
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I designed a tombstone for Oz.
https://imgbox.com/LS8iwaJM
POA.
Delivery available!
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FWIW – On the one hand
Melanie Phillips
“A seismic moment”
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/a-seismic-moment
On the other
“Israel’s Short-Lived Glory Celebrated by Kneejerk Polemicists, + Ukraine War Updates”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/israels-short-lived-glory-celebrated
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I forwarded Melanie Phillips’s essay to Senator Wong with the suggestion she ought to heed the arguments in it.
The comprehensive autoreply extinguished any hope of further dialogue with such a busy parliamentary representative.
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I put my submission in yesterday .
Not as good as the ones detailed above but better then nothing .
For what it is worth , I wrote :
It can’t be overstated how important free speech is as a prerequisite to democracy .
It is not possible for democracy to survive without uninhibited free speech .
Once free speech is limited or discouraged , even a little bit , then you are on the road to totalitarian dystopia .
While there are some limits to what we can say in a civilized society , mostly to avoid defaming people and lying in order to commit a crime , these limitations come with the consent of the general population and do not interfere with public debate .
The “ Combating Misinformation & Disinformation Bill “ appears to be motivated by a desire to suppress debate on political and public policy matters and as such is an existential threat to democracy . This is the most dangerous and malicious piece of legislation I have seen in this country and must be opposed by all reasonable people who don’t want to see destruction of everything that is good about our society . The dystopian autocracy that would surely be enabled by this horrible legislation would degrade our way of life and the administration of this country to a point where we could no longer be referred to as a civilized society .
The lust for complete power by the people who propose this legislation should be a warning that they need to be watched more closely than ever and not be allowed to hide what they are doing behind thought police . This plan to give power to unelected bureaucrats to censor debate is undemocratic in the extreme !
The wording of the legislation appears to leave it open to bureaucrats to make up rules as they see fit without any parliamentary oversight .
Democracy can only exist when there is a balance of power between the people and the administration . Free speech and government transparency are a prerequisite to democracy .
I oppose this rotten piece of legislation with every fibre of my being !
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My submission:
Dear Inquiry,
This bill is ill-conceived, that is with ill-intent. It will take free speech in Australia down to the levels of fascist Germany or Stalinist Russia, or exactly like communist China is today.
Everyone knows this. Ill-intentioned people want to make Australia a worse place to live in which the Government line on any subject may not be questioned.
Shame on all those who have taken this bill this far.
Curse them in living and curse them in dying.
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Cursing them is a nice touch which the proponents of this bill richly deserve.
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Mis/dis information implies that somebody is telling a lie. Should this Bill become law our parliamentary representatives should be the first to set an example. To encourage them to do so they should lose 10% of their superannuation for every lie that they tell.
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There Is No Basis For This “Mad” Legislation! (video)
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But! But! The late Herr Doktor Josef Goebbels would have been so proud of it! And I’ve no doubt that the late Josef Dzhugashvili would have also, as would the present Great Leader of North Korea – not forgetting the recently martyred spreader of peace, Hassan Nasrallah.
Oh dear! Just remember that black is white.
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How Labor has taken a sledgehammer to Australia’s free speech, economy and robust industrial relations since gaining power
The Albanese government’s output since winning office has morphed from an irritating odour into a nauseating stench so bad even Labor stalwarts are grumbling about it, writes Rocco Loiacono. SkyNews.com.au Contributor and Political Commentator
In February last year I opined that the Albanese government, after less than 10 months in office, was starting to stink, since it was “excited by symbolic gestures and identity politics like no other”.
More than a year and a half later, the government doesn’t just stink, it reeks of failure which can be summed up with the three “i”s (with thanks to Outsiders host Rowan Dean): ideology, idiocy and incompetence.
Further on the ideological score, the Hate Crimes Bill being put forward by the government – barely covered, if at all, by the mainstream media – will criminalise “hate speech”, thus further controlling freedom of expression and belief.
As Minny Jackson asserts, the Bill contains very broad provisions that can easily be misused by minority communities who suggest they feel “threatened” or “in apprehension” by people who misgender them by accident, or fail to use the correct pronouns, or use some other kind of nebulous “force” against them that “threatens their peace”.
If the Bill is passed, the Commonwealth Criminal Code will give new power to LGBT+ activists, allowing them to weaponise the law against those that challenge their narrative and incriminate them – and the Albanese government is completely within their ideological thrall.
The Bill is the real threat to democracy, the nail in the coffin to one of the most treasured rights of a liberal democracy: free speech.
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Misinformationismistically Writing = Truth.
Why use 13 syllables (Newspeak) when 1 will do.
Good luck – to all of us.
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Note also that most politicians don’t bother reading legislation they vote upon, and wouldn’t understand it or care if they did bother.
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As Albo said of the Voice’s core document, no I didn’t read it –why would I?
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lol. Did he? Albo, he does take the cake.
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The Greens, The Teals, Albanese’s socialist Labour government: None of them can form government on their own but in a conniving triumvirate they presume to install a lawfare mechanism to rule over truth for the common man. Vote this bastard government out!
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The submission I made yesterday was mostly the same as the first draft I posted a few days ago:
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/09/only-a-government-pushing-lies-has-to-censor-the-people-the-acma-ministry-of-misinformation-bill/#comment-2803196
The only change was to slightly expand on the apparent conflict between section 14 and section 16:
Thanks to reader “dlk” for highlighting the importance of the word “reasonable” in those clauses.
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and thanks to you and everyone else for posting submissions and comments, exchange of ideas (free speech) is always a useful thing!
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I also sent my submission to my House of Reps member today. The reply I received from Ross Vasta MP says in part:
So that is a hopeful sign from the Liberals.
He also said:
Actually I hadn’t noticed that. This bill gets worse the more you read about it.
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To test the integrity of the bill is to make it conditional on one thing ,that the Liberals are in power and/or Pauline Hanson has the balance of power and those that are in power cannot vote. In other words if the bill can seen as purely apolitical it should survive. But we know that the Bill would only be popular with the left if they are in control. That’s why the bill is so ridiculous , it will be used by whoever is in power to stay in power. It is totally undemocratic.That any political party should think this is appropriate is crazy.
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There is no such thing as “disinformation” or “misinformation”. There is only information you accept and information you do not accept. You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.
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Thanks, Matt. I posted exactly those sentiments last year, almost word for word in fact, and was surprised to find some ‘intellects’ here took umbrage. You are correct in your assessment of reality. Cheers, mind ‘ow ye go.
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I sent a supplemental submission:
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Harvard medical student ate over 700 eggs in a month — and his cholesterol levels actually dropped
This eggs-pert wasn’t yolk-ing around.
Harvard medical student, Dr. Nick Norwitz ate 720 eggs in a month to study the effects the “fowl” diet had on his cholesterol and saw that his levels dropped nearly 20 percent.
Norwitz “hypothesized” before his experiment that consuming the 60 dozen eggs would not increase his LDL (low-density lipoprotein) or “bad” cholesterol by the time the month was over.
Norwitz’s LDL levels dropped by 2 percent in the first week of his new diet before dramatically decreasing by 18 percent in the latter two.
https://nypost.com/2024/09/25/lifestyle/harvard-medical-student-nick-norwitz-ate-720-eggs-in-a-month-and-cholesterol-levels-dropped/
More mainstream “expert” lies exposed.
And I have more serious studies showing the same thing.
Healthy food bad, bad food good – for big pharma.
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So it will be naughty to say something that might cause “harm to public confidence in the banking system….”
Wow . . . Funny how that got inserted. At whose urging, I wonder?
Will criticism of the Fractional Reserve Banking system be banned?
I guess we will have to be stuck with its concomitant
(1) inflation,
(2) “boom-bust cycles”; and, here’s the bit most important to its chief beneficiaries:
(3) the Cantillon Effect — always working to shift asset wealth up the Food Chain to the already-wealthy.
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Misinformation laws put at risk the very freedoms we take for granted
MICHAEL SEXTON
Consider the statement that federal government expenditure has contributed to inflation in Australia.
Could this be misinformation or disinformation? And who decides on the answer to this question. Certainly not a panel of professional economists who could be guaranteed to disagree among themselves!
This example illustrates the problem with the so-called combating misinformation and disinformation legislation that has been introduced into the federal parliament.
It targets contestable political opinions on social media and is based on the patronising assumption that members of the community cannot make a judgment about those opinions but must be protected from the obvious inadequacies of their judgment.
The legislation allows the Australian Communications and Media Authority, by means of an elaborate system of codes and directions, to supervise the content of social media bodies such as Google, Facebook and X, and encourages complaints about that content to be made by those who disagree with it.
Both misinformation and disinformation, the latter involving “grounds to suspect” an intention to deceive, are defined to contain material that is “reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive” and is “reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm”. All these concepts have a wide scope for subjective judgment and, when combined, could lead to the exclusion of many arguable opinions on social and political questions.
Who decides if there are grounds to suspect there is an intention to deceive?
What is the test for assessing if a statement is reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive?
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Here is my submission posted on Saturday.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to express my grave concerns about the Misinformation Bill, which is
a potential threat to democracy, which cannot be over stated! Please publish this submission under my name.
Please consider the following key points:
* The MisInformation Bill is an extreme serious risk to Free Speech because determining
truth is complex and it grants ACMA and the eSafety Commissioner excessive
collateral censorship powers. This is absolutely unacceptable in a democratic society of Australia.
* The Bill’s censorship risks a healthcare dictatorship, harms public health,
and ensures only the government’s pandemic view is allowed, bringing the law
into disrepute.
* The Misinformation Bill makes the Government an arbiter of truth, mirroring
tyrannical, oppressive, authoritarian and dictatorial regimes that enforce a singular narrative, to the
detriment of society and citizens. This scenario for Australia is abhorrent, and should never have been proposed or considered!
Please take the strongest stand against the Misinformation Bill, which never should have been proposed or tabled – it is time to stand
up for our Democracy and for our freedoms as clearly defined in the Australian Constitution!
Very best wishes,
Michael G……..
I used the Freedom Speech Union website….https://freespeechunion.au/misinfo/
This is an excellent site to select 2 – 3 topics or so using “point-and-click” to quickly prepare a personal submission from you as an individual.
Follow the easy instructions and in a minute or so you will have a submission, that you can edit and add additional comments, and it is prepared, ready
for you to send, directly from your personal email account!
Very quick and easy!
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And here is the submission my darling wife just submitted!
There were some very strong and direct words used in this submission! But never any thing abusive! Just TRUTH!
Dear Senate,
Learning about the Misinformation Bill has really upset me. I ask the Senate oppose it. I also ask you make this submission public (under my own name).
The following seem to me to be the most serious things for you to think about:
* The Bill’s censorship risks a healthcare dictatorship like during the pandemic, harms public health, and allows only the government’s view, bringing the law into disrepute.
* The Misinformation Bill makes the Government an arbiter of truth, as it enforces a single narrative without being subject to the same laws, mirroring authoritarian practices. This is absolutely unacceptable! This transforms the Australian Government into a dictatorial Totalitarian regime! This is not Australia. This is not Democracy, and the freedom the citizens of Australia enjoy are written in the Australian Constitution!
* The MisInformation Bill risks Free Speech by empowering social media to censor, potentially mislabeling political views as misinformation, complicating the distinction between truth and falsehood.
* By censoring to protect banks and bankers and enforce ‘public confidence,’ the Bills ironically make banks appear untrustworthy, undermining the law’s credibility.
* This is a treasonous attempt by the Labour Party to usurp the foundation document of the free nation of Australia, and an attempt to usurp the will of the FREE citizens, and sovereign citizens of Australia. We the people have not called for this.
* We the people were never provided a referendum on this proposed Bill, and therefore we the people were never consulted on this, and therefore, we the people DO NOT CONSENT to this Bill, and nor will we ever give our consent to such an abhorrent proposal. This ill informed Bill by the Australian Federal Government, namely the current Federal Labour Government would elevate the Government into an “arbiter of truth”, mirroring tyrannical, oppressive, authoritarian and dictatorial regimes that enforce a singular narrative, to the detriment of society and the citizens. This scenario for Australia is abhorrent, and should never have been proposed or considered!
As you are representatives of a democratic and FREE Australia, it is absolutely essential, if you are true to your Oath as a representative of the people of Australia, and for our democracy, and the Constitution of Australia, then it is imperative that this Bill is REJECTED in its’ entirety!
It is without question the most destructive and undemocratic attempt at changing the fabric of a Free and democratic Australia!
Please oppose this Bill.
Regards,
Beverly G…….
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No one, not even Plato the would-be philosopher-king,’
not even Sun Tsu or Galileo or Isaac Newton were the
arbiters of truth, not even the Guvuh-mint, not even me.
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Thanks for that – done
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And that’s the conflict at the heart of gen AI. It’s not an age of “intelligence” per se. What Altman and his AI community call “intelligence” is actually “noise,” or more specifically, the algorithmically mediated tension between noise and order. The tension between randomness and constraint creates the illusion of liveliness, creativity, and thinking in the products of Gen AI. The difference is self-awareness: a presence in the organization of our thinking. It isn’t always there with us humans, but it’s never there in machines. https://cyberneticforests.substack.com/p/the-latent-space-myth
Similar to how bureaucracy thinks that the noise filtering of civil servants briefing arrives at the ‘right’ information. Thinking about the intersection of government “misinformation” and AI gives me chills
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FWIW
Having looked at the various submissions here I get the distinct feeling that this is shaping up as “Elbow & Co’s version of a legislation like the US “Affordable Care Act” where
“To find out what is in the legislation you will have to vote for the legislation”
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FWIW – More on the money
“John Kerry Says The Quiet Part Out Loud: “First Amendment Stands As Major Block” To “Govern” ”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/john-kerry-says-quiet-part-out-loud-first-amendment-stands-major-block-govern
Further down this track – MBA’s were sold on the premise that all you need to know is how to manage – no need for any knowledge on what you are managing
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And to get your worry beads a-spinning
“Musk Warns “If Trump Is Not Elected, This Will Be The Last Election” ”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/musk-warns-if-trump-not-elected-will-be-last-election
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An excellent example: https://shiftedparadigms.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and “In an age where the very fabric of our society is threatened by misinformation, I depend on the Government to step in and shield me from the tidal wave of lies and harmful content that floods our digital platforms daily.”
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Love these stats: https://aus.social/@mike_honey_/113225730843122124 – “14% chance someone will be infected in a group of 30” – or, in a group of any size – that’s just how percentages work?
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https://www.fresheconomicthinking.com/p/history-repeats-and-repeats-and-repeats – also relevant – will misinformation legislation prevent new ‘themes’ for public interest?
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I got 56,000 problems, but misinformation ain’t one: http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en (unless it is about birth control or human rights abuses….)
http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en
WTF! http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/166173 and http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/133952
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Censorship Does NOT ‘Keep You Safe’
Legislating “the prohibition of asking questions” is a very simple definition of Totalitarianism
It is really just a modern reincarnation of blasphemy laws. Basically any criticism of govt dogma can be punished.
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The government want to keep themselves safe from criticism over what they have already done. Their real nightmare is being held to account.
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FWIW
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwTvhkgKWsOa2iXAgRv1BGqcJALdc76hnWGmFsaCqHgOYfsZ-iJ79lvQ8_up4AuCRzATuISkuW7gLdD7xuwqiVlaOMDetX1kasgPGhEy0nrq9Z3hyphenhyphenjSTDQwXicJPLlrALJ9ZgnqXYq81EyeuxEn0nBK8Dyqa63r-NaztVuA0fXtHjanIAQI3fcs-zc3Kk/w288-h400/Meme%20-%20no%20downside.png
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Yesssss! Why not! – just don’t ask me to get involved ! ( speaking on part of current society )
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FWIW
“Brian Zinchuk: Too much wind, not enough wind? What’s going on in Alberta?”
Life near the edge
https://pipelineonline.ca/brian-zinchuk-too-much-wind-not-enough-wind-whats-going-on-in-alberta/
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2024/09/30/weird-things-have-been-happening-in-alberta/
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Well, it’s just like my Flock of Herons at the Fishpond, Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno ,
BTW according to BBC news report and from our gridwatch, we are generating 35% from wind and Scotland is 100% wind powered …… uhuh … IOW, not much happening in Scotlan
d then, …. going down the tubes
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We have been warned about the expansion of government for decades. Still it grows and grows chocking every human activity. We work a little bit harder every day to pay for this nonsense. Finally its smashing free speech to the point where we can’t even talk freely to each other in the local park.
How did we get here? Answer, small step by small step, the Fabian way!
How did they get away with it” Answer, we let let them!
This never ends well.
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Once upon a time …… Why the FAIRY TALE ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes
Applies equally today…. Is that all these wretched people can do for the world ?
Thought Vanity was a Sin, but we are above that law ?
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Problem with Australia is it is a country of decent people and morals, people who like to follow the rules because they know when you follow rules, society is a better place for us all.
They can be taken advantage of these people.
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When on earth did we become obsessed with this mis and dis stuff? Trump. Their loathing of Trump’s personality, is all it is, has sent the world mad.
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Democracy and free speach is preventing the neomarxists New «Green» deal?
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