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One Nation Defending Free Speech Since 2019

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It’s often said that success has many parents and failure is an orphan. In that case, I’d like a paternity test on the vote that removed the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill from the Senate Notice Paper. Some Senators now being credited with this move only solidified their opposition last week. Meanwhile, One Nation has stood firmly against this bill since its first iteration was released under the Morrison Liberal Government in 2019.  

One Nation has been the only party consistently campaigning against this bill since 2019. A vote for One Nation is a vote for freedom of speech.   In my remarks, I’ll outline the reasons why One Nation opposed this bill.

Transcript

To the people of Australia, congratulations—you’ve won. You put so much pressure on the ‘uniparty’ that you won; they folded. Four years ago I came out against the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024, and it’s been a slog ever since. That’s when the Morrison-Joyce Liberal-National government introduced it. I’ll just make some comments there. This is a part of five components—the mis- and disinformation bill; the Digital ID Act; identity verification bill; under-16s banned from social media; Reserve Bank of Australia working on a digital currency that’ll be connected to a global digital currency—of a package towards social credit. The second point is that that package is being put by the major parties—Liberals, Nationals and Labor. The third point is that it’s connected to implementation of a similar package around the world in many other nations right now. It’s led to the arrest of 150 people in the United Kingdom, with jail for some, simply for making comments dissenting against the British government. 

This misinformation and disinformation bill had some worthy sections on regulating the tech giants, but it was primarily about censorship and censoring the Australian people. One Nation supports a referendum to enshrine freedom of speech in our Constitution. One Nation supports legislation to mandate and enable free speech and to make free speech sacrosanct so that no state can trump it. One Nation wants to appeal 18C. This has come out of 18C, which is scandalous. They’re some of the basics. I will read part of my dissenting report on the Senate’s inquiry into this bill. It began: 

1.1 I thank the witnesses for their submissions and for attending the hearings. 

There were many, many witnesses. Thank you, Australia. 

1.2 The committee report— 

as it was originally drafted— 

into the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 flies in the face of the expert evidence the committee has received across three days of hearings into the bill. 

That evidence just completely smashed it and reversed it. But, with the tidal wave of views from across Australia, the committee changed its view—wonderful. 

1.3 A committee inquiry should not perform the function of gift wrapping a decision which has already been taken. A committee inquiry should have the role of deciding if the decisions taken in the bill are correct. 

The first report did not do that fundamental thing. 

1.4 For three days, the committee heard from human rights advocates and stakeholders who all criticised this bill on human rights grounds, and added warnings the bill would backfire. 

That’s what the committee heard almost unanimously. 

1.5 It is extraordinary the committee would choose to ignore the recommendations of the very people who they invited to attend to advise them on this matter. 

Only when the public turned savagely against the government was the committee report changed at the last minute to reflect today’s motion. The action of the committee to that point would have made it harder: 

… for any Senate inquiry in the future to attract the quality of witnesses this inquiry attracted. 

Censorship was the purpose of this bill. Censorship was the purpose of the committee report. The criticism of the bill was well placed. My comments continued: 

1.7 The Australian Human Rights Commission questioned a basic foundation of the bill—the definition of ‘information’. In the Explanatory Memorandum the term ‘is intended to include opinions, claims, commentary and invective’. 

1.8 The Australian Human Rights Commission stated ‘considerable caution should be exercised before including opinions and commentary within the scope of “information” as this significantly broadens the potential reach of this legislation and increases the risk of it being used to censor legitimate debate about matters of public importance. 

That is profound. That is the bedrock of a democracy.  

1.9 One Nation agrees with this concern. The bill misconstrues human rights as relative, indeed as subordinate to the need of government to suppress opinions they don’t like. 

That’s what you tried to do. 

1.10 The Human Rights Law Centre recommended Clause 11(e) should be amended to reflect a broader commitment to human rights in the bill’s objectives. It also recommended the Australian Human Rights Commission should be consulted on the development of codes. 

‘Consultation’—that’d be nice. 

1.11 Several submissions related to the specific areas of misinformation. The Australian Medical Professional Society submitted: 

By centralising control over what constitutes medical ‘truth’ in the hands of government regulators, we risk creating an even more Orwellian twist in a system that is already subject to manipulation by powerful interests, to further suppress inconvenient facts and legitimate debate. This would be disastrous not only for free speech and democracy, but for public health as well. 

People’s lives depend on this. And you wanted to stop it. 

1.12 The report failed to address a critical failing in the debate around COVID. Namely that information presented as medical truth at the time has been proven to be wrong— 

not only wrong but completely contradicting the truth— 

and information banned as misinformation has now been proven to be true. 

Repeatedly, repeatedly and repeatedly. 

1.13 On the issue of COVID messaging, One Nation has maintained a contrary position to the Government of the day since 2020. This followed expert testimony from multiple specialists, research doctors and whistle blowers which contradicted the official narrative. 

1.14 The implication is simple—what is misinformation one day is truth the next. This is the danger in the Government deciding what is and is not misinformation. The bias will always be in favour of the government’s ‘truth’. 

I asked every witness a fundamental question on the last day of the hearing: who is the arbiter of truth? No-one could say who is specified as the arbiter of truth in the bill. They all said that it would default to ACMA. Other provisions in my additional comments included: religious freedom, inauthentic behaviour and media literacy. But the fundamental thing is this was an attempt by the Labor Party to build on the Liberal Party’s previous attempts at censorship by corralling misinformation under their definition, and then driving the social media organisations, the big tech companies, to ram it down people’s throats. That was what you were doing. I’m pleased to see that the people of Australia have put the brake on you. Now I appeal to the people of Australia to keep a foot on their throat because we must stop the banning of under-16-year-old people from social media. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator O’Sullivan): Senator McKenzie, you have 10 seconds. 

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Public Hearing: Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2024

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Free TV Australia

Reset Tech Australia

Institute of Public Affairs

Digital Rights Watch

Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance

Program: 11 October 2024

111024 ProgramDownload

Submissions

.Free TVDownload
Reset Tech AustraliaDownload
44.1. Institute of Public Affairs attachmentDownload
35. Digital Rights WatchDownload
78. Media Entertainment & Arts AllianceDownload
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One Nation Stands Firm Against Censorship

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After saying they’ll oppose the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, Liberals and Nationals say they’ll just introduce their own version!

One Nation will not support any form of a Censorship Bill.  The best defence of truth is open debate.

Transcript

Chris Smith: There are some good signs among cross-benchers, Malcolm, that Labor’s misinformation and disinformation bill will struggle. That’s a sign of good news. 

Senator ROBERTS: It’s a very good sign of good news. We put a motion out, a matter of urgency last Monday of the sitting in the Senate and there were quite a few signals coming across to us that people wouldn’t support it. So that’s why we did that matter of urgency and forced a vote on it. But just remember, it’s not Labor’s misinformation-disinformation bill. The Morrison Liberal National’s with Morrison/Littleproud in charge introduced it into the parliament. Labor brought it back and he’s now putting it into the voting regime process. And now the Liberals are saying they will come up with their own before the next election. The Liberals just don’t get it. No one wants this bloody censorship bill. 

And One Nation makes a promise, it will never introduce such a bill. The best, best defense of truth is to let debate happen. And then we’ve got the largest perpetrators of misinformation and disinformation is the government and this Albanese government takes the cake. It’s all about control and censorship and they haven’t got the guts to do it themselves. They’re trying to intimidate the search engines and platforms into doing it for them and putting them in a position where, as someone said recently, they’ll be fined if they if they don’t exercise enough control, enough censorship, but they will not be fined if they exercise excessive censorship. This is just about getting government control over the over the debate in this country and suppressing free speech. That’s all it is. And One Nation will never, ever introduce such a bill.  

Chris Smith: I couldn’t agree more. As a matter of fact, if an opposition or a government wants to do anything about what we say freely, I think they should wind back the restrictions that exist right now, because the eSafety Czar is out of control.

Senator ROBERTS: I agree with you. And this this compounds the problem. As I said, the best defense of truth is to let open free debate continue. That’s the best way of finding out the truth. And you can never take responsibility for someone’s opinions. That’s their responsibility. They formed it. This will just make more victims in society and suppress free speech. It’s just a road to tyranny. That’s all it is.  

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One Nation Defends Free Speech

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In the past three weeks, the Prime Minister has been subject to five community notes on X (formerly known as Twitter). Five times, Prime Minister Albanese has been called out by the X community for spreading misinformation. This is made possible by Elon Musk’s Community Notes system, which allows the public to moderate each other and agree collectively on what is true and what is not. It’s clear to see why disgruntled former Twitter executive and our eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, detests X and Elon Musk so much. Using “safety” as a pretext to censor the truth is now being threatened.

One Nation stands firm in opposing the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, now known as the MAD Bill, and supports free speech for all Australians, provided it does not call for violence.

Transcript

In the last three weeks the Prime Minister has been subjected to five community notes on X, formerly Twitter. The X community has called out Prime Minister Albanese five times for spreading misinformation. We know this because Elon Musk’s system of community notes allows the public to moderate each other and agree among them what’s true and what’s not. I can see why disgruntled former Twitter executive and e-safety commissar Julie Inman Grant detests X and detests Elon Musk. As the infamous Hillary Clinton admitted last week in a CNN interview, social media platforms like X need to censor content because, if they don’t, ‘we lost total control’—her words. Maintaining total control is the purpose of the United Nations pact for the future, which is really a pact for their future, not ours. Hillary Clinton’s unusual honesty exposed the real motivation for introducing the m-a-d—mad—bill: misinformation and disinformation. 

Control means censoring the truth. There’s no better evidence of this than the treatment dealt to two of the world’s most respected medical professionals. I proudly welcome in the gallery one of the UK’s leading oncologists, Professor Angus Dalgleish, from St. George’s, University of London, and Dr Paul Marik, a leading American physician persecuted for challenging the pharmaceutical corporate narrative. Both these amazing medical professionals are on an Australian speaking tour with the Australian Medical Professionals’ Society, a union One Nation proudly and strongly supports. Its highly qualified and respected health professionals, like our guests in the gallery, have suffered the consequences of the war on truth that drives the Liberal-Labor uniparty’s misinformation and disinformation bill, appropriately abbreviated to m-a-d—mad. I urge everyone to come along and listen to the real COVID story, not the government’s lie, while we still can and to join us in our ongoing, four-year campaign to protect free speech. 

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Senate Urged to Uphold Free Speech and Peaceful Assembly

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I thank my fellow Senators for their participation in a successful debate on my Motion in defence of free speech and peaceful freedom of association. I’m not sure if some understood how the Government’s “Misinformation and Disinformation Bill” (MAD for short) will limit the right to protest. As demonstrated during COVID, posts promoting protests were banned and organisers arrested. This Bill would allow the Government to ban posts that promote protests as a threat to public order, which is why my motion mentioned both free speech and the right to protest.

In my speech, I drew attention to the bigger picture – that predatory foreign billionaires have bought Australia, and this Bill prevents us talking about it.

One Nation will continue to fight for human rights and I am pleased to know we will not be alone.

Transcript

I move: 

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: 

Freedom of speech and peaceful freedom of assembly are inalienable rights which the Senate must defend. 

What do the billionaires who run the world do when we, the people, realise how much has been stolen from us—how much money, how much sovereignty, how much opportunity? 

In the next few minutes, it will become obvious what this has to do with the misinformation and disinformation bill—’m-a-d’ or ‘mad’, for short. The world’s predatory billionaires do not wield their power directly; they hide behind wealth funds such as BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State. These funds act in concert with political change agents, including large superannuation and sovereign wealth funds such as Norges. The racket these subversive elements are running really is racketeering. They use their wealth to buy shares in companies that are then required to follow the agenda. This is not my opinion; these are the exact words of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Buying out Western civilisation is an expensive business. The never-ending quest for more money, more power and more control is being noticed and resisted. Much of that resistance has been a result of Elon Musk buying X and allowing the truth to live in one mainstream forum. 

The minute the BlackRock racketeers walk into a boardroom, any notion of public interest is abandoned. A case in point is Coles and Woolies, who used to pride themselves on providing the necessities of life—food and clothing—at the lowest possible price through competition. With the presence of an almost complete set of predatory wealth funds on their share registers, in recent years, Coles and Woolies no longer compete against each other. Instead, they collude to pursue a pricing strategy designed to maximise profit from our necessities of life, profit that’s sent overseas into the coffers of these sovereign wealth funds, leaving Australians permanently poorer. 

In 2022-23, around an election, Woolies donated $110,000 to the ALP. In 2022-23, other industries under the control of these predatory wealth funds, including the big pharmaceutical industry, donated a million dollars to the ALP. What do they get for their money? Last Tuesday, I spoke in favour of the community affairs committee inquiry report into a prospective terms of reference for a royal commission into COVID response. Despite me simply agreeing with the committee report and despite my using only peer reviewed and published science to support my position, Senator Ayres from the Labor Party chose to describe my words as—listen to this: 

… damaging misinformation and disinformation … there is a reason why the ASIO director-general highlights the role of extremist misinformation and disinformation in terms of its corrosive effect. It does lead to some of the acts of violent extremism here and overseas, motivated by the same vile conspiracy theories that we’ve just heard … 

Wow, what a rant! No data, no argument; just empty labels. 

Our New Zealand friends started their royal commission into COVID in December 2022. New Zealand has now decided that the royal commission unearthed so much behaviour that was cause for concern they’ve expanded the royal commission to include looking into COVID in much greater depth, including vaccine harm. The New Zealand royal commission now closely resembles the royal commission the Senate standing committee on community affairs recommended following their inquiry initiated on a One Nation referral. For Senator Ayres to say this is extremist misinformation and disinformation likely to lead to acts of violent extremism is a complete slap in the face to New Zealand’s royal commission and one that Senator Ayres would be well advised to reconsider. 

This is the trouble when the government panics that $1 million in donations is at risk and brings on a bill that will shut up any opposition to the rule of the billionaires through their front companies—in this case, pharmaceutical companies—a rule that is, quite simply, a threat to the future of our beautiful country. With total clarity, Senator Ayres has drawn the battle lines here. What’s the truth in New Zealand parliament is ‘extremist misinformation and disinformation’ in Australia, if the Ayres government says it is. This bill has no protections, no checks and balances—it should rightly be renamed the ‘crush any opposition to the billionaires’ bill. 

While the Labor Party’s desire for totalitarian censorship is no surprise, the people need to be aware that the Morrison-Littleproud Liberals and Nationals introduced this bill. Opposition leader Dutton makes no indication of whether he intends to oppose the bill, I guess because when he gets in he’ll be happy to use its onerous provisions. While I don’t have time to go into the Liberal Party’s donations from companies under the control of the world’s predatory billionaires, the same issue affects both parties. The Morrison-Littleproud government kept the COVID vaccine contracts hidden from our requests to make the contracts public for those who paid for the injections—taxpayers. The temptation to have extra money to spend in an election campaign has proven far too much for the major parties, and their independence, their objectivity and their common sense have been compromised. The world’s predatory billionaires’ downfall will be their hubris. The question is: who will go down with them? 

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