The Coalition will “strongly oppose” Labor’s draft misinformation laws, warning the proposal is an “attack on free speech” that has “no place in Australia”. Source: Daily Telegraph.
Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman announced on Friday that the party will not back the Albanese Government’s bill. Mr Coleman claims the bill will lead to digital platforms censoring “large amounts of material” to avoid the risk of fines.
Mr Coleman said he was also concerned Labor’s definitions of misinformation were “extremely broad” and would “capture many things said by Australians every day”.
“Under the bill, the honestly held opinions of Australians can be deemed to be ‘misinformation’,” he said.
“The process of identifying this ‘misinformation’ is highly subjective and will lead to the suppression of the free speech of Australians.”
Mr Coleman said while the general public were captured by the misinformation laws, other groups were excluded such as any “reasonable dissemination” of material for an academic, scientific, or artistic purpose.
Earlier this month. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland accused the Coalition of trying to have it “both ways” by committing to tackling mis- and disinformation, while indicating they were unlikely to support Labor’s proposal.
She said there was a “high threshold” for what constituted as seriously harmful misinformation, and the categories were well defined.
With the Coalition formally opposing the bill, the Albanese Government will now need to secure the support of the Greens and crossbench senators to pass its proposal.
Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the party would examine and consider Labor’s proposal before finalising a position.
Independent senator David Pocock has said he was concerned Labor’s legislation was essentially putting the “onus on social media companies to deal with (misinformation)”.
FULL STORY
‘Attack on free speech’: Coalition to oppose Labor’s misinformation bill (By Clare Armstrong, Daily Telegraph)
