27-11-2023: Free speech and even the right to political communication is in grave danger in Australia. The proposed Communications Legislation Amendment Bill (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023,[1] drafted by the governing Australian Labor Party (ALP), contains parts which could lead to the criminal prosecution for individuals posting information on the internet which disagrees with government policy. Under the guise of “combatting misinformation and disinformation”, normal political and social discourse could be deemed to be “harmful” and social media platforms will be obliged to remove it. The proposed legislation is so outrageous that even the government funded Australian Human Rights Commission is opposed to it, saying it “risks freedoms it aims to protect”.[2] It also empowers one government body alone – the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) – to directly intervene, allegedly for the purpose of preventing “harm”.

Orwellian exception

In writing his classic 1984 novel condemning totalitarianism, even George Orwell may not have imagined such legislation which outlaws certain forms of information – except when it comes from the government itself. Yet this is precisely what the Bill will do if adopted. By definition, government information cannot be deemed “misinformation and disinformation”. This is akin to an entire government becoming a “Ministry of Truth”. The Victorian Bar, an influential legal association, in a 12-page submission, raised concerns that the Bill “creates an unlevel playing field between governments and other speakers” and an “illiberal double standard”.[3] The lawyers also make the critical point that it is better to engage in rational discussion and debate and attempt to persuade others of your viewpoint, rather than coercing others into silence with the implied threat of state repression. It may also lead to an appalling social environment where people may self-censor themselves rather than be publicly labelled a purveyor of “misinformation and disinformation”.

Section 2 of the proposed legislation lists a number of examples of what could be defined as “harm” caused by alleged misinformation and disinformation. This includes: hatred against a group in Australian society, disruption of public order, harm to government institutions, harm to the health of Australians, harm to the environment and economic or financial harm to the Australian economy.[4] This definition is so broadly defined it could contain information with regard to almost anything. Reasonable people would likely have diverse opinions on exactly what causes harm to people’s health, or what causes harm to the environment. Describing “disruption of public order” as serious harm could very easily be invoked to stop or ban the organisation of entirely legitimate political protests. It is not only whistleblowers that could be subject to prosecution under this Bill. Content released by the government will never be considered to be “misinformation”, but criticism of the government by ordinary citizens can be. What is more, ACMA would be given sweeping powers to require any person to appear at a time of its choosing to answer questions about “misinformation”. The powers range from infringement notices, to million-dollar fines, to imprisonment in cases of “extreme harm”.[5]

Liberal betrayal

How did a situation of the government giving itself the power to prosecute criticism of itself, on social media platform or in society generally, come about? Along with the general breakdown of the capitalist socio-economic system over the last ten years, the fraudulent “Covid pandemic” accelerated the tendency of the state to sharply curtail basic bourgeois democratic rights the further towards crisis it lurches. During the years of 2020 to 2022, almost the entire wave of what was previously progressive and liberal society capitulated to the fantastic narrative of a “deadly contagious pandemic” which was nothing of the sort. With some crucially important exceptions, those who described themselves as leftists, environmentalists, trade Unionists and humanitarians swallowed government propaganda wholesale and effectively merged with the capitalist state as it imposed fascistic repression on the working masses, from lockdowns to travel bans to vaccine mandates and a litany of logically absurd and legally dubious “rules”. The right to see your friends, to visit your family, to go to church, to protest,  and to exercise the right to free speech was virtually eliminated with the active assistance of a parade of “socialist” parties, the Australian Greens, the ALP and a bevy of Union bureaucrats.

Anyone who questioned lockdowns, or indeed ANY part of the Covid narrative, were condemned as “anti-vaxers” and “conspiracy theorists” and, wholly inaccurately, as “far-right”. Anyone who questioned why we should be injected with an untested vaccine, or why we can’t use vitamins or other treatments for what appeared to be a cold and flu type virus (assuming it existed in the first place), were maligned as spreading “misinformation”. As it turned out, once the extreme period of Covid repression had passed, the government and its faux left acolytes simply moved on, scarcely bothering to think about how they may have been misled or mistaken, let alone apologise to those they had condemned only weeks earlier. At that time, these liberal paragons of virtue had donned facemasks and marched in lockstep with the capitalist state at arguably its most repressive point in history. The right to free speech and the right to protest should be ignored during a “health emergency”, supposedly.

After not raising an eyebrow at the online censorship of those who questioned Covid, this so-called left today have the temerity to complain about pro-Palestinian content on social media being censored by the very same social media giants. While working people should defend Palestine against a horrific US backed Israeli war, it is plain to see that the right to free speech and normal political discourse is vitally important and can never be ceded to the power elite. Those who do not question the state and its big corporations when it moves to block or prevent the working masses from researching, learning and expressing their point of view are not allies but sworn adversaries of common humanity.

Capitalism in Australia and the West in general is in an intractable crisis. Housing is close to unaffordable for whole swathes of the population. The cost of living is out of control, and food is prohibitively expensive. The privately owned banks are raking in billions of dollars of profits every quarter, with virtually nothing going back into society. Floods and bushfires are now common, fuelled by climate collapse. What is desperately needed is a revolution, which establishes the rule of working people administering a collectively owned and planned economy. To lead the way, a Marxist vanguard party must be built from amongst those workers willing to struggle and fight for a socialist order.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@protonmail.com

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[1] www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/communications-legislation-amendment-combatting-misinformation-and-disinformation-bill2023-june2023.pdf (22-11-2023)

[2] www.humanrights.gov.au/about/news/opinions/why-misinformation-bill-risks-freedoms-it-aims-protect (22-11-2023)

[3] www.lawyersweekly.com.au/the-bar/37834-draft-misinformation-bill-will-create-illiberal-double-standard-vic-bar (22-11-2023)

[4] www.sott.net/article/485790-A-new-law-is-about-to-kill-free-speech-and-democracy-in-Australia (22-11-2023)

[5] Ibid, 4.

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