Top lawyers have slammed the Albanese Government\u2019s Misinformation Bill, with the Victorian Bar Association making a scathing submission on Labor\u2019s planned censorship laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The leading body representing Victorian barristers has warned that the Government\u2019s Bill would have a \u201cchilling effect\u201d on freedom of speech, especially in sensitive or controversial areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to The Australian<\/em>, the submission argued that the Bill would result in self-censorship by the platform services:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe bill\u2019s interference with the self-fulfilment of free expression will occur primarily by the chilling self-censorship it will inevitably bring about in the individual users of the relevant services.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bill would impose huge fines on digital platforms if the Government decides that they have not removed enough of what they consider to be \u201cmisinformation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The digital platforms will want to avoid those big fines, so they will censor a large amount of free speech of everyday Australians who want to have their say online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Coalition will not support Labor\u2019s Misinformation Bill, which is a shocking attack on free speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Submissions for a Senate inquiry on Labor\u2019s censorship Bill closed on Monday, with the Government giving Australians barely a week to get their responses in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Communications Minister has also flagged that she is going to attempt to ram the Bill through Parliament before the end of the year, providing limited opportunity for people to have their say at Senate committee hearings into the planned legislation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Top lawyers have slammed the Albanese Government\u2019s Misinformation Bill, with the Victorian Bar Association making a scathing submission on Labor\u2019s planned censorship laws. The leading body representing Victorian barristers has warned that the Government\u2019s Bill would have a \u201cchilling effect\u201d on freedom of speech, especially in sensitive or controversial areas. According to The Australian, the submission … Continue reading “Top legal body slams Labor’s Misinformation Bill”<\/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-29440","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\/29440","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=29440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29441,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29440\/revisions\/29441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}