{"id":22092,"date":"2023-08-01T08:05:49","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T08:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=22092"},"modified":"2023-08-01T08:05:49","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T08:05:49","slug":"labors-shocker-misinformation-bill-should-be-torn-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2023\/08\/01\/labors-shocker-misinformation-bill-should-be-torn-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor&#8217;s shocker misinformation bill should be torn up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Coalition will not support Labor\u2019s proposed Misinformation laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman said the Government\u2019s exposure draft of the&nbsp;<em>Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023<\/em>&nbsp;would suppress legitimate free speech in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is a very bad bill. The Government should rip it up,\u201d Mr Coleman said. \u201cFreedom of speech is fundamental to our democracy, and the Coalition will always fight for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Bill gives the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) extraordinary powers. It would lead to digital companies self-censoring the legitimately held views of Australians to avoid the risk of massive fines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The many problems with the Bill include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The definition of \u201cmisinformation\u201d is so broad that it could capture many statements made by Australians in the context of political debate.<\/li><li>Authorised content by the Albanese Government can\u2019t be misinformation, but criticisms of the Albanese Government by ordinary Australians can be misinformation.<\/li><li>Nothing an academic says can be misinformation, but statements by somebody disagreeing with an academic can be misinformation.<\/li><li>Good faith statements made by entertainers cannot be misinformation, but good faith statements made by ordinary Australians on political matters can be misinformation.<\/li><li>Journalists commenting on their personal digital platforms could have their content removed as misinformation.<\/li><li>If the Minister has a favoured digital platform, then that platform could be entirely removed from the application of the misinformation laws.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the Albanese Government\u2019s proposed laws, ACMA would gain sweeping powers to require any Australian to appear at a time and place of its choosing to answer questions about misinformation or disinformation. Heavy fines would apply for non-attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Albanese Government has got this horribly wrong,\u201d Mr Coleman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis Bill is appalling and will be strongly opposed by the Coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Coalition will not support Labor\u2019s proposed Misinformation laws. Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman said the Government\u2019s exposure draft of the&nbsp;Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023&nbsp;would suppress legitimate free speech in Australia. \u201cThis is a very bad bill. The Government should rip it up,\u201d Mr Coleman said. \u201cFreedom of speech is fundamental &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2023\/08\/01\/labors-shocker-misinformation-bill-should-be-torn-up\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Labor&#8217;s shocker misinformation bill should be torn up&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22093,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22092\/revisions\/22093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}