Subjects: Labor’s flawed Misinformation Bill, 3G Shutdown Delay
E&OE…
Mike Jeffreys: Disinformation, misinformation, there’s a lot of that about, including about what constitutes disinformation and misinformation. Are we ever going to get out of this swamp. To comment further on the proposals, we haven’t heard much about lately, the Honourable David Coleman MP, he’s the Shadow Minister for Communications, Liberal Federal Member for Banks, and he’s on the line. Good morning, David. Thanks for doing this.
David Coleman: Good morning, Mike. Good to be with you.
Mike Jeffreys: I haven’t heard much about this lately, but it’s not totally forgotten. Some of my listeners have asked me in the recent past what’s happening about the misinformation and disinformation Bill. Are you up to speed on it?
David Coleman: Well, the short answer is we don’t know, because the Government’s not saying. But the history of this, Mike, was the Government put this Bill in June last year, released it into the public. We had a very vigorous debate over several months about it. It was a shocking piece of legislation, just a terrible piece of legislation. And then in November the Government basically, I guess recognised reality and pulled the Bill. And then they said, we’re going to do some more work and we’re going to come back with another Bill. And that was, I guess, nine, ten months ago now. So we don’t know. They have said they will bring it back this year, but this year is getting on and we don’t know if they’ll bring it back or not. But it was a terrible piece of legislation and certainly nothing like it should be brought back to the Parliament.
Mike Jeffreys: So why do you say it was a terrible piece of legislation? What was it? Too loose? Too broad? What was wrong with it?
David Coleman: So many things, Mike. So basically, what the Bill did was give the Government, through the regulator ACMA, the power to issue big fines if digital companies weren’t doing what the bureaucrats decide was enough on misinformation and huge fines of potentially many millions of dollars. So if you’re one of those digital platforms, what are you going to do? You are going to err on the side of making sure you’re not caught out for having what the bureaucrats of the Government decided was misinformation. And the way the Bill was drafted, misinformation included unintentionally false, misleading or deceptive information. Now, if you think about it, how many things do Australians say every day that you could say were unintentionally misleading – thousands. And this would have given the power to bureaucrats to basically say, digital platform, you’re not doing enough, so we’re going to issue fines. And it had some incredible provisions in it. It had exemptions for the Government. So anything the Albanese Government said couldn’t be misinformation. But criticisms of the Albanese Government could be misinformation. Academics were exempted. So if an academic said something that can’t be misinformation, but if a regular member of the public perhaps is having a disagreement with an academic, that could be misinformation. And one of the most disturbing aspects of the Bill is that it allowed ACMA to require any Australian to appear before it at a time and place of ACMA’s choosing to answer questions about misinformation or disinformation. And if that person didn’t appear, they could be fined $9,000 per day.
Mike Jeffreys: Really?
David Coleman: Yeah. This is in one of the world’s great democracies, Mike, and this was just a terrible piece of legislation.
Mike Jeffreys: Well yes, but when it comes to free speech, I mean, we don’t actually have guaranteed free speech. We have some freedom of expression. And I know from talking directly to lawyers in the US in days gone by, they would raise their eyebrows and wonder. And you’d probably be familiar with the fact that up until I think about the beginning of this century, in the state of New South Wales if something was made public and challenged, you had to establish not only was it true, but some other reason for doing it, the most common of which was, it was in the public interest. Now, lawyers in other developed English-speaking parts of the world, as I say, were amazed that truth itself was not a defence. Now that’s been changed but I just mention that because I think it’s in the Labor Party DNA, if you see what I mean.
David Coleman: Oh, yeah. And look, whenever a Government in a democracy starts to regulate legitimate speech, you are on very, very dangerous ground. We should be proud of the fact that we have a vigorous democracy where people can disagree, where people can say things that are unfashionable, where people can say things that others might think are wrong. And they can do that with confidence in the knowledge that they live in a democratic society, as I say, one of the great democracies of the world. And when the Government starts to say, no, well that’s misinformation, you can’t say it. Very, very big problem. We have a really practical example Mike, which is last year you might recall in the debate about the Voice. Pretty much whenever the Government didn’t like an argument that the No case was pushing, they would say that’s misinformation. It’s misinformation. Whereas rather than being misinformation, what it was, was just frankly opinions that the Government didn’t like. And we need to really cherish and protect that freedom of speech. It separates us from so much of the world, where that is not possible, where people cannot speak their mind and an environment where misinformation is being thrown around in a very political way – it is a huge problem. The other point, which is really important about this Bill, Mike, we only discovered this late last year through a Freedom of Information request. The Minister, Michelle Roland, wrote to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, requesting the power to personally order investigations into allegations of misinformation or investigations into particular digital platforms related to misinformation. I mean, that’s extraordinary in a democracy. So she wrote to the Prime Minister asking for that approval. The Prime Minister’s representative wrote back and said, sure, no problem. And so that is what we were looking at in this legislation. And that wasn’t actually mentioned anywhere in all of the public documents that the Government put out about this Bill. We had a big backlash from religious communities as well, because the Bill did not exclude religious beliefs. So it would have been open to the regulators to say, well look, I think these statements of religious belief, it may be misinformation and therefore are caught up in this whole legislative scheme.
Mike Jeffreys: Wow, that would make a nice old mess, wouldn’t it? I mean, I tell you what, the way I see it. Tell me how you see this comment of mine, but I don’t think that the Government’s going to let it go. At the moment they’ve got too much on their plate. How are they going to win the next election, all of that kind of thing. But when you look at what’s happening in the UK, with the riots as a result of the terrible murders and slashing, particularly of those little girls, the Keir Starmer Government is trying to hang it all on, “ the extreme right.” By the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, there’s only the left and the extreme right. If you’re on the right or if you’re not on the left, you’re automatically the extreme right. And, he is hanging so much of it on social media, which is realistic, I think, the way he’s, I don’t think they’ve handled it at all well from the beginning, and they’ve really got a huge problem over there. And, I reckon that would be bubbling away, on the back burner with the Government here about what’s going on in the UK and what they might have to address in the future and what they might need to do their best to control with some of the moves they’re making.
David Coleman: Well I think in the Australian context, the Voice provides, in a sense, all of the proof that we need that the Government, how the Government thinks about this misinformation debate. Because that was a very prominent part of our public discourse in Australia. There were a wide range of views, as is entirely appropriate in a democracy. Some people are very strongly in favour, some people very strongly against. People who were against raised numerous, very legitimate concerns about the proposal and the Government said, well, that’s misinformation.
Mike Jeffreys: Yes, but that’s just a way of avoiding the question. It’s just not answering the question, isn’t it? It’s not dealing with it at all. That is a feature of our world these days, I think. I just don’t see debate the way we used to. The old left, way back, used to fancy itself as being up for a good old argument. But now you just get dismissed, put into a silo.
David Coleman: When you’re seeking to shut down the other side of the argument, it’s not a very good sign about the quality of your argument. And we often move forward as a country by testing ideas in that battle of ideas. And that’s probably a bit of a cliched expression, the battle of ideas, but it’s true.
Mike Jeffreys: Yeah.
David Coleman: We move forward by testing things in that public arena, but on issues related to the Voice, the Government would constantly describe it as misinformation. So if the Misinformation Bill had been law during the Voice debate, I have no doubt that the Government would have been calling for it to be used and would have been putting pressure on ACMA to use it.
Mike Jeffreys: Oh, yeah.
David Coleman: I think that’s very concerning. So, I think you’re right, I think the Government probably will bring this legislation back. We don’t know when, it’s gone very quiet. They’re obviously dealing with a lot of problems, terrible cost of living crisis that we’re going through, chief among them. But, when they bring it back, we’ll have a very serious look at whatever it is they put forward. But what they put forward last time was a truly dreadful piece of legislation, and nothing like that can be allowed to proceed.
Mike Jeffreys: Anyway, I am interested in the fact that, as far as some of my listeners are concerned, anyway, they are genuinely concerned or at least very interested in where it’s going. As for the Voice, a listener yesterday morning sent me a text to the effect of, Mr Albanese doesn’t understand the rules of consent. He said he doesn’t get that no means no, obviously referring to the Voice, because they are still pushing along with aspects of that, aren’t they?
David Coleman: Well look, I think that the Australian people spoke very clearly on that and had an opportunity to canvass their opinion and state their view. And that issue was resolved at that time. But what we don’t want as a country is a piece of legislation that says, you can’t make this argument, or you can’t express your views. Especially, it makes it even worse when the Government was exempted under the Bill.
Mike Jeffreys: Yes, I know. Such arrogance, isn’t it?
David Coleman: If someone was in an argument with the Government, they could be accused of misinformation, but the Government couldn’t be. And it’s one of the few where the Government’s just had to completely withdraw a piece of legislation. You had the Human Rights Commission come out against it, the Law Council, the religious bodies, our major media publishers. This managed to bring together just about everyone in condemning this really terrible Bill.
Mike Jeffreys: So they united in a way they didn’t intend. You wanted to make a comment about the 3G, the dropping of 3G, or at least for the purposes it’s being used in many ways at the moment. You say the Government’s still behind on that?
David Coleman: Yeah well, what’s been announced today is a two-month delay to the switch off of 3G. And that was appropriate because the 3G switch off is a total mess. The Government got a lot of warnings about how many people were still relying on 3G devices about a year ago. This 3G switch off process was first announced in 2019, so we have known about this for five years. But Michelle Rowland, the Minister basically didn’t do anything until March of this year. And so, there’s this mad scramble to identify the remaining 3G devices. And that work hasn’t been done by the Government. And some of these devices are things like medical alarms, fall alarms for when people have an accident. Some of them are still on the old 3G system. So are some fire alarms, some EFTPOS systems, a range of things. And it’s just been a complete mess the way the Government has handled it. So the announcement today of that delay was the right announcement. But we should never have been in this position, because if the Government had handled this with even an iota of competence, we wouldn’t need a delay. But unfortunately, we do. And what the Government’s got to do now is properly identify the risks here, particularly with things like medical devices and fire alarms. We just can’t have a situation where 3G is switched off, and we have Australians reliant on a medical alarm, for instance, that won’t work anymore. And the Government’s got to sort that out.
Mike Jeffreys: Indeed. David, thank you for your time and comments this morning.
David Coleman: No problem. Thanks, Mike.
Mike Jeffreys: The Honourable David Coleman MP and he is the Shadow Minister for Communications and Liberal Federal Member for Banks.