The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 is important for families and parental responsibility, yet we were given only one hour to debate it. It’s another Labor-Liberal stitch-up to control everyone through digital identity and misinformation bills.
We support the Greens in this, because parents should be the ones to supervise their children, not the government. Age verification and facial recognition have failed globally. We should instead, make device management easier for parents.
This bill will lead to constant surveillance and push children into unsafe online spaces. We must stop the Uniparty’s globalist agenda and work for our country. We support the referral.
Transcript
Well, isn’t this a wonderful day! The Greens are normally helping the government to truncate debate, to guillotine debate. Now they’re talking about adding more time for debating—and we agree with them this time, because we agree with debate. Debate is the way to truth. We agree with their amendment and we will be supporting their amendment.
This is a vital bill, an absolutely crucial bill. It has serious consequences, and not just for people under 16 years of age. It has serious consequences for the Australian family and who has responsibility for children in this country. Is it the government, or is it going to remain the parents? Parents have already had their responsibility, their authority, whittled away at state and federal level. We need to enshrine responsibility for children with parents. That’s critical. It’s fundamental. This bill has important social and family consequences, and we’ve been given one hour!
This is a stitch-up between the Labor-Liberal uniparty, yet again. Digital identity; identity verification bill; misinformation/disinformation bill; working on digital currency; children under 16 banned from the internet—these are all working together to capture everyone in this country; we’ve said it for the last four years. We were the first cab off the rank with regard to the Morrison government’s misinformation/disinformation bill and the same with the digital identity bill. Oh, sorry; they called it the Trusted Digital Identity Bill! It’s a stitch-up.
We need scrutiny, and we will be supporting the Greens on this. Let me tell you why I’m saying this. Parents must be the ones supervising their children in their own home. It is a parent’s responsibility, a parent’s duty, a parent’s right, and you are affecting those things—parental responsibilities, duties and rights. You’re undermining parents.
Age verification software and facial recognition must be used in every device, whether it be a phone or a computer. Why do we know that? Because this banning of children under 16 years of age has failed in every country, because the bureaucrats can’t control it. So, as to what you’ve set up with your bills, one of the earliest in this parliament from the Labor Party government was identity verification software. We will need the cameras on all the time. What we should be doing, instead of sidelining parents, is making device management easier. Apple, Microsoft and Android could make parental locks easier and more powerful.
I want to acknowledge Senator Rennick’s comment a couple of days ago when he said that you can already get apps—some free, some for a price—that enable parents to control the apps that are downloaded onto a child’s phone. They’re already there. We don’t need this bill at all. We notice that opposition leader Peter Dutton has joined in supporting the need for this bill, but there’s no need for it. As I said, no country has made age limits work because bureaucrats cannot see us using the device. That’s what you need and that’s what this bill gives you with your preceding bills. We see Mr Littleproud speaking on Sky News in support of this and a huge backlash—devastating comments against Mr Littleproud. If the bill goes through, parents allowing children to watch cartoons on YouTube will be breaking the law. It will need facial recognition and monitoring of key strokes for content to police this. Hackers and burglars will be in paradise. They will be able to come in and watch your activities in the house through your camera 24 hours a day and find out when you are going to be out of the house. Parents watching a cooking video with their child on their lap will be locked out because the child is under 16. Children will be forced into the dark corners of the web—peer-to-peer messaging—with no protections against illegal material, hate, phishing, sextortion and hacking.
We have already seen these bills being introduced in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries simultaneously. This goes beyond the uniparty in this country; it goes globally. We have seen in the United Kingdom police raiding journalists and commentators who have been criticising the Starmer government and jailed. That is where this is heading. We have seen the digital ID, misinformation and disinformation bill, identity verification started and introduced by the LNP—the Liberal-Nationals. Stop working as the uniparty for globalists and start working for our country. We will support the referral.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/kyQV9gLA_2s/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-12-20 13:04:052024-12-20 13:04:09Parental Rights at Stake: Debate Over Bill is Crucial
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.
The eSafety Commissioner has the power to issue takedown notices on various types of material, with exploitation material being the most common. One Nation supports these powers being used for this purpose. A small portion of their work involves removing material that is deemed “violent or distressing.” This was the power used in the case of the Bishop Mari Mari Emmanuel video. One Nation is concerned that these powers could be misused, as they are subject to political interpretation regarding what is and is not “violent or distressing.”
I asked the eSafety Commissioner if her department had a transparency portal where Senators and the public could see the material being taken down. The Commissioner responded by including exploitation material in her count, to show why such a portal was not feasible, yet I did not ask about exploitation material; my question specifically concerned material categorised as “violent or distressing.”
It is my belief that social media platforms primarily use AI to remove most of this material and that the department has only had to issue a small number of notices. I want to know what those notices were issued for and I will continue this inquiry during the next estimates session.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for attending. My first question is about your newsroom statement from 4 October about the social media platform X and a transparency notice on the measures it’s taking to combat child sexual exploitation material. Is this the only transparency notice that has not been complied with?
Ms Inman Grant: Thus far, yes. Where we issued an infringement notice, we issued something called a service provider notification to Google for the same set of child sexual abuse material.
Senator ROBERTS: The only other platform is Google, and that hasn’t been issued with a transparency notice. Are there any others like Telegram or Facebook? Telegram does a lot of work in that area.
Ms Inman Grant: We are in the midst of a process around a series of very complex transparency notices in relation to terrorist and violent extremist material. Telegram is amongst them, and we’re engaging with them.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. This thread asks about a subset of your work—material that is violent or distressing. Do you have a transparency portal where your instructions to social media platforms to take down such material are registered in as close to real time as possible so we can see what you’re censoring?
Ms Inman Grant: We weren’t set up as a censor, Senator. We have frameworks provided through complaint schemes. Members of the public report content to us, particularly when the social media platform or messaging platform hasn’t responded. With respect to illegal and harmful online content, we also have very well legally defined requirements. We have both notice powers under the Criminal Code and then removal notices under the Online Safety Act and formal removal notices, which we exercised against both X and Meta during the Wakeley terrorist incident.
Mr Dagg: Can I just explain how we achieve the objective of transparency in terms of our actions. You may know that the Online Safety Act requires us to publish, under section 183, actions that we’ve taken in relation to a variety of harms. Our annual report has been published. You can find all of the information—
Senator ROBERTS: Your report has been published?
Mr Dagg: The annual report has been published, and we are required to report all of that information in the annual report. You can find that from page 223 in the appendices that relate to the eSafety Commissioner. That will show you all of the actions that we took for the financial year 2023-24.
Senator ROBERTS: Can you give us a bit of background on each one?
Mr Dagg: No—these are aggregated figures, so there’s no specific breakdown of each individual matter.
Senator ROBERTS: So there’s no breakdown and no opportunity for people to see how you’re doing it?
Mr Dagg: It would not be operationally feasible for us to report in real time the actions that we’re taking. Parliament expected us to report on an aggregated basis about the actions that we’ve taken, including requests, but we haven’t broken them down—
Senator ROBERTS: It’s just the aggregate numbers—
Mr Dagg: The aggregate numbers for a range of operational purposes, including security and operational feasibility.
Senator ROBERTS: So the platforms have to be transparent, and you don’t?
Mr Dagg: Well, the platforms report on things in an aggregated way, too, Senator. They’re not reporting on each individual specific matter that they deal with. They deal with millions of matters on a yearly basis. So, again, that just wouldn’t be feasible for them to do.
Senator ROBERTS: But the platforms have to be transparent to you.
Mr Dagg: Through the exercise of our compulsory transparency powers under the basic online safety expectations. But it’s important to note, Senator, that those transparency powers are around how the platforms are meeting the expectations. We’re not extracting from them specific information about how they’re dealing with this matter or that matter that might be reported to them. We’re interested in understanding how they take user reports, for example—if they’ve got reporting schemes in place, how their terms, services and policies are developed to meet the objects of the basic online safety expectations. The most recent determination includes some measures in relation to generative AI and how the companies are ensuring that these technologies aren’t being used, for example, to produce child sexual abuse material on a synthetic basis. That’s the kind of information that we’re drawing from the companies. We’re not drawing information about how they’re dealing with individual complaints.
Senator ROBERTS: The police force has long had transparency to the public through the court system. Whether you agree that the court system is perfect or not, that’s not the point. Who do you go through to provide transparency? How can we assess what you’re doing, rather than just in the aggregate?
Mr Dagg: When it comes to the principles of open justice, as a former police officer myself, the matters that make their way to court represent a tiny fraction of all matters that are reported to police. The matters that are reported to police are not reported on an individual basis. There are strict privacy concerns, for example, that ensure the protection of complainants’ identities and the specific matters that are reported to police forces. The Wakeley matter—the section 109 notice that we issued to Twitter X—is a good example of how that principle of transparency plays out in the Federal Court. The online file, for example, includes all of the evidence that the eSafety Commissioner relied on to make the case that the interlocutory measures ought to be accepted by the court.
Senator ROBERTS: The Senate is the house of review. What facility exists for the Senate to review your take-down notices of material? Where’s the supervision of your activity? Who oversees you?
Ms Inman Grant: There are a few different ways. One is through FOI, which you’ve exercised yourself, Senator. We’ve had a 2,288 per cent increase in FOIs over the past year. We are held accountable. We have reporting requirements that include any informal actions we take. Of course, we can be challenged in the Federal Court. We can be challenged at the AAT, or now the ART. We can be challenged by the Ombudsman, and a complainant can ask for an internal review to be done. So there are a number of different ways that we can provide transparency when it is asked for or required. But, as Mr Dagg said, with 41,000 reports this year—and I think Mr Downey, who is now running the investigations branch, is expecting at least 60,000 reports next year—it would operationally be infeasible, and it would violate the privacy of the complainants. As I said before, that confidentiality is important. Even young people understand that one of the reasons children don’t report cyberbullying is they don’t want to be the dobber or the snitch, and they fear retribution. If we were to not treat some of these complaints as personal information—and the Information Commissioner agrees with us—I think it would undermine trust in us as an organisation.
Senator ROBERTS: I get that. Did you say that there was a 2,000 per cent increase in FOIs?
Ms Inman Grant: Yes, 2,288 per cent.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s a huge increase. It tells me that people are hungry to learn more.
Ms Inman Grant: Yes, and there have been some campaigns that have also encouraged people to put in FOIs, which we respond to.
Senator ROBERTS: You’ve used the defence of having so many infringements to take care of. That’s a big workload. What I’m interested in is not so much that but how you’re being held accountable. How can we see transparently what you’re doing?
Senator McAllister: Here we all are, Senator. What is the question that you seek to ask?
CHAIR: We call it estimates.
Senator McAllister: We are at estimates. The commissioner is here to answer your questions. If there are particular things that you’re interested in, you really should ask her.
Senator ROBERTS: What about the public? They need to know.
Senator McAllister: You are their representative, as you so often remind us.
CHAIR: You can send them the video of this.
Senator McAllister: You are a humble servant of the people of Queensland.
Senator ROBERTS: I want to go to freedom of information 24118, which asked for any guidelines you have with regard to the implied right to political communication to make sure you aren’t infringing on it as you issue take-down notices. I note that your freedom of information decision says: ‘There are no dedicated guides or policies with respect to the interaction of the implied right of political communication in use by the eSafety Commissioner or personnel who implement the various schemes under the OSA.’ There are no dedicated guides or policies?
Mr Dagg: We would need to assess each and every action we take through the lens of whether or not the implied constitutional right to political communication is infringed. That’s just operationally infeasible.
Senator ROBERTS: So are you saying, ‘To hell with the Constitution’?
Mr Dagg: No, not at all. The concern that a particular person’s interests may have been infringed in such a way as to raise a claim that the operation of the Online Safety Act is invalid is absolutely a matter that can be pursued through merits review or judicial review. But, to the commissioner’s point, we are going to be dealing with 60,000 complained URLs this year, which produces a significant percentage of actions we take. I’m sure you can understand that rigorously assessing whether or not they raise any specific issues in relation to the implied constitutional right makes it very difficult for us to make rapid decisions in line with the threshold set by the act. I think it’s important to note that the act contains very clear thresholds and very clear parameters for us to apply in terms of operational decision-making. The act itself, as you would have seen, is supported by a bill which was subject to exhaustive human rights review in its construction. We believe that, by properly administering the act on behalf of the commissioner, we’re taking actions which are in line with parliament’s expectations. If a person believes that their constitutional right—the implied right—has been infringed, there are avenues for review of that decision.
Senator ROBERTS: I can’t see how bypassing the Constitution or not including it as a consideration is in any way okay. The eSafety Commissioner and the delegates ordinarily—this is the quote: ‘The eSafety Commissioner and the delegates ordinarily proceed on the basis that the powers given to them under the OSA by the Australian Parliament are reasonably appropriate and adapted’. So you don’t turn your mind to whether you’re acting constitutionally at all; you just assume you are. How can this Senate be convinced that you are able to act within the Constitution when you don’t even have a document outlining the fundamental right of Australians to communicate in political matters? If you infringe on someone’s constitutional rights, then they complain? That’s it?
Senator McAllister: As you know, the constitutionality of any piece of legislation that comes before the parliament—
Senator ROBERTS: Not the legislation—
Senator McAllister: is quite frequently a matter of some discussion. Unless you seek to challenge it, we can assume that the legislative framework within which the commissioner and her staff operates is constitutional.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s a misrepresentation of what I said, Minister. I’m not saying that the act is unconstitutional; I’m saying that the consideration to take someone down needs to maintain constitutional rights—particularly political.
Senator McAllister: I think the two things are interconnected, Senator, because the powers that are exercised by the commissioner and the staff that work with her are enabled by the parliament and by the legislation.
Senator ROBERTS: I get that.
Senator McAllister: As I have indicated to you already, that is quite often subject to a discussion among senators about constitutional arrangements.
Senator ROBERTS: That still doesn’t answer the question—the right to political communication.
The government is trying to rush through the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill at all costs. It seems they’ve seen this week what happens to their side of politics when voters are presented with the facts and are allowed to make their own decisions.
Despite the government’s claims, it’s not out of the ordinary to talk about Bills at Senate Estimates. I’ll be at the hearing on Monday with my questions.
(And Heston Russell hasn’t received an apology from the ABC for their misinformation).
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: ACMA is appearing in the committee hearing on Monday?
Ms O’Loughlin: With my colleagues on Monday, yes.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ll do it then. That’s fine. I want to look at a particular case study. It is the case of special forces veteran Heston Russell. The ABC said it was inadvertent and that it wasn’t a calculated, deliberate manipulation. They deny manipulating a video to make it look like multiple gunshots were fired at a person. Heston Russell was a victim of disinformation from the ABC. Under the proposed misinformation and disinformation laws, the ABC would be exempt from punishment by spreading disinformation. Correct?
Ms O’Loughlin: I don’t think I can form a view on that, Senator.
Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, I think this goes to the point Senator Grogan was making. You are really asking how the bill will operate in practice. This is a question that has been referred to this committee. You have scheduled hearings to deal with it on Monday.
Senator ROBERTS: I think that is drawing a long bow, Minister, but I’m happy to leave it until Monday.
Senator McAllister: It is an unusual Senate rule, but it is a very longstanding one, Senator. It has been like this the whole time we’ve been here together.
Senator ROBERTS: I accept that. As I’ve said, I will comply with it for the other questions. I didn’t think that one was about—
Ms O’Loughlin: The only thing I would add to that is that obviously the ABC needs to comply with its own code of practice around things like factual accuracy.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes. And we’ve seen how that goes. This is my final question. It is about the digital restack. I looked through your annual work program report and found this comment regarding the digital television channel restack. I quote:
Exploring possible parameters and solutions for channel planning relevant to possible new shared multiplex arrangements. This work will provide evidence to inform any future restack—
The restack was to be a closing up of digital TV channels. This sounds like you have something else in mind for the sixth channel, the gap between each station. What is the plan for the restack now?
Ms O’Loughlin: The Minister for Communications gave a speech a couple of weeks ago at our RadComms conference. They were talking about a program of work that needed to be done around the future of television. Her emphasis in that was that free-to-air television is incredibly important in Australia because it reaches 99 per cent of the population. It is free to air. How is that going to evolve over the next 10 years? Will it be terrestrially driven or will some of it go online? The minister was talking about a managed and staged process of thinking about the future of broadcasting, including the broadcasters, ourselves, the department and the audiences for those programs. It is looking at how that future state of broadcasting can be managed. A small part of that is what happens to the spectrum that may be freed up over that process. Part of our job is what that might be and when that might occur. The annual report says that requires channel planning. A whole lot of spectrum planning would have to be done to facilitate any movement of the broadcasters and the freeing up of that spectrum over time.
Senator ROBERTS: What does that mean in English, so that people can understand? What is the reality? You have said managed and staged, which indicates to me that it is more than just a premonition of an idea that something might happen. Something is happening.
Ms O’Loughlin: The minister’s announcement was about some things that have happened recently. For example, in Mildura, the Channel 10 services were turned off because the local providers who provided that service didn’t think it was financially feasible to continue it. It has an impact on consumers. WIN has made some changes to its arrangements in other parts of the country, where it is sharing its own infrastructure. That has an implication. That has actually not affected those audiences very well. I think what the minister is saying is that if there is going to be an end state where broadcasting wants to go, we need to think about all the steps that have to take place for that to get there effectively. That is what is alluded to. There is what is called a future broadcasting working group, which the minister has asked to be reinvigorated, to start thinking about these issues for the next 10 or 15 years, not the next two or three.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/LJdwtiCtx98/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-11-07 15:35:002024-12-20 11:45:39Government Ducks for Cover on Misinformation and Disinformation Bill
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.
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.
The government is the largest spreader of misinformation, and its Chief of Propaganda is Chris Bowen. There’s no limit to the lies he’ll tell to push the Net-Zero pipe-dream that’s making everyone’s bills higher.
Transcript
Chris Smith: Let’s get on to energy. Now, a report from the US Energy Department is saying that with nuclear electricity, prices will drop 37%. Chris Bowen says renewables will always be cheaper. This is basically a blatant lie, isn’t it, Malcolm?
Senator ROBERTS: Well, you stole the word right out of my mouth. It is a lie. It is fraud. Fraud is the presentation of something as it is not for personal gain. Chris Bowen has been pushing this bandwagon, the lies fraudulently to get political capital. He is telling lie after lie. Solar and wind are the most expensive forms of energy, that’s repeated everywhere. You know, AEMO doesn’t even cost the lowest price system. What they did with, relying on GenCost in the first place was false assumptions underpinning their calculations for solar and wind to make them look favorable and negative assumptions under coal to make it look unaffordable. That is completely false. And now we’ve got a circular argument that’s beaten back to us all the time. AEMO doesn’t cost the lowest price systems. It’s forced to exclude the cost of calculating coal or nuclear. This is rubbish – the stuff that comes out of the south end of north bound bull.
Chris Smith: Yeah, well, the CSIRO should be condemned completely for their reliance on that GenCost report. Malcolm.
Senator ROBERTS: That is fraud as well Chris. That was a deliberate misrepresentation of the energy structure. It was politically driven to achieve a political objective, the same as their climate. The CSIRO has admitted to me that the politician’s quoting them as saying that there’s a danger in carbon dioxide from human activity, the CSIRO has denied ever saying that and they said they would never say it. They admitted to me that the temperatures today was not unusual, not unprecedented. So the whole thing is based on the stuff that comes out of the south end of north bound bull. The CSIRO is guilty of misrepresenting climate science, misrepresenting nature and misrepresenting climate, misrepresenting energy. It’s just a fraud to extract money, to make billionaires richer, and to make, foreign multinationals richer.
I break down the contents of the government’s proposed Misinformation and Disinformation (MAD) Bill and see it for exactly what it is – a censorship regime that would make George Orwell blush.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Misinformation.jpg?fit=1382%2C735&ssl=17351382Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-10-03 17:54:232024-10-03 17:54:27Break Down of the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill
I talked the Middle East, Misinformation, COVID Royal Commission, the Immigration Housing Crisis and Net Zero Madness on ADH TV.
As the middle east descends into war again my concern is making sure we don’t send Australian sons and daughters to another conflict in far away lands again.
Chris Smith: Well, the federal government’s latest stance on Israel’s war with Hamas, Hezbollah. And now Iran has put Australia at odds with its number one ally, the United States, as well as with Israel, the United Kingdom and Canada. It seems as if labor is redrawing Australia’s military and diplomatic position in the world. And, as I mentioned earlier, does taking such a solo stance no longer guarantee reciprocal support from those countries?
If or when Australia is faced with aggression from, say, China or whoever in the Indo-Pacific? Let’s bring in Queensland One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts on that and more. Senator, welcome back to TV. Thank you Chris. Good to be back. Thanks for the invitation. Israel’s most recent attacks on Hezbollah were aimed at preventing a repeat of the October 7th massacre.
Is Peter Dutton right to say the Prime Minister should be condemned for falling out with our allies?
SENATOR ROBERTS: This is a big escalation on Israel’s part. It’s almost all at war, but it’s something that I think that Israel has a right to defend and defend itself. The history of this, this area, this region of the world is rife with lies, complexities, contradictions. And, you know, the first casualty in war is the truth. So we’ll never know.
But Israel has a right to defend itself, but we must keep Australia out of it. We must keep Australia out of it. We followed the Americans into just about everything, without question. They’re an important ally of ours. But we must hold them accountable as well.
Chris Smith: Do you sense that Anthony Albanese is trying to appease voters in those Muslim concentrated seats in south western Sydney?
SENATOR ROBERTS: Yes, without a doubt. Anthony Albanese has shown a distinct, lack of respect for Australia’s position in in his deliberations. What he wants to do is promote the Labor Party that the the national interest is not in Anthony Albanese’s calculations.
Chris Smith:There are some good signs among crossbenchers, Malcolm, that Labor’s information, 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, matter of urgency thus 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. That matter of urgency had 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 into the parliament. Labor brought it back and 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 they 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. 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 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. 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 win back the restriction that exist right now, because the Esafety czar is out of control. I agree with you. And this this compounds the the problem.
SENATOR ROBERTS: As I said, the best 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.
Chris Smith: Okay. Another subject. Labor has delayed the public release of its Covid 19 review. What is the government afraid of to show, do you think?
SENATOR ROBERTS: Review? You’d hardly call it a review. Chris, I think you’re being very, very kind. Look, the panelists were biased. They were lockdown supporters. They’re not allowed to look at the state responses. They’ve got no investigating powers. Investigative powers. They’ve got no compare to compel. Compel evidence, compel documents, compel witnesses. This is just a sham. It is to get at Morrison and Morrison should be got out.
He deserves to be really hammered on this. But he’s no more guilty then than, he’s just as guilty rather as the state premiers who will mostly labor. This is a protection racket for the labor premiers and the labor bureaucrats. We need a royal commission now
Chris Smith: Now you say, I would have thought the Royal Commission needs to look at two things that that so-called review is not even touching the states, as you mentioned, and their role when it came to lockdowns and all kinds of freebies that were handed out to the public. But also on top of that, the deals that were done with big Pharma over those, those damn vaccines that have proved to be a con themselves.
SENATOR ROBERTS: I agree with you entirely. There are, in fact, there are many, many areas that need to be looked at. Chris, we, I moved a motion to get one of the committees, two in the Senate, to investigate and develop, a draft terms of reference for a possible royal commission. And that that was passed through the Senate, that the committee did it.
And I want to commend former barrister Julian Gillespie for he pulled an enormous team together and developed a phenomenal submission, 180 pages. I think it was 46,000 signatures. It was the people’s submission. And they covered it. Was it it turned it into a de facto inquiry into Covid. And it covers everything. And the royal and the, the chair, Paul Scott, I must say, the committee did a phenomenal job, along with the Secretariat, of pulling that into something that’s very, very workable.
A draft terms of reference ready to go. And they’re completely comprehensive, cover every topic imaginable.
Chris Smith: Let’s get on to energy. Now, a report from the US Energy Department is saying that with nuclear electricity, prices will drop 37%. Chris Bowen says renewables will always be cheaper. This is basically a blatant lie, isn’t it, Malcolm?
SENATOR ROBERTS: Well, you stole the word right out of my mouth. It is a lie. It is fraud. Fraud is the presentation of something as it is not for personal gain. Chris Bowen has been pushing this bandwagon the lies fraudulently to get political capital. He is telling lie after lie. Solar and wind are the most expensive forms of energy that’s repeated everywhere. You know, AEMO doesn’t even cost the lowest price system.
What they did with the relying on GenCost in the first place was false assumptions underpinning their calculations for solar and wind to make them look favorable and negative assumptions, and under coal to make it look unaffordable. That is completely false. And now we’ve got a circular argument that’s baked in, that’s beaten back to us all the time.
Now, it doesn’t cost the lowest price systems. It’s forced to exclude the cost of calculating coal or nuclear disaster. Rubbish stuff that comes out of the south end of North Band bull.
Chris Smith:Yeah, well, the CSIRO should be condemned completely for their reliance on that gen cost report. Malcolm.
SENATOR ROBERTS: That is fraud as well Chris. That was a deliberate misrepresentation of the energy structure. It was politically driven to achieve a political objective the same as their climate. The CSIRO has admitted to me the politician’s quoting them as saying that there’s a danger in carbon dioxide from human activity. The CSIRO has denied ever saying that and they said they would never say it. They admitted to me that the temperatures today and not a not unusual, not, unprecedented.
So the whole thing is based on the stuff that comes out of the south end of North Bound book. The CSIRO is guilty of misrepresenting climate science, misrepresenting nature and misrepresenting climate presenting energy. It’s just a fraud to extract money, to make billionaires richer, and to make, foreign multinationals richer.
Chris Smith: Spot on.
SENATOR ROBERTS: We pay for it
Chris Smith: You’re not wrong. I think it’s fair to say to Malcolm that Australia’s immigration program is now officially out of control, and the worst it has ever been.
SENATOR ROBERTS: Without a doubt. Completely agree with you. We have more than 2.4 million residents, excluding tourist million residents who are not citizens. Excluding tourists. Rent is up 52% in five years. Now, just remember that, the Albanese promised a after the last financial year where we got 518,000 net immigrants, by far the largest ever, almost double the previous record.
Albanese comments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll cut it. Immigration is coming in this year is higher than the record from last year. Higher. These people are just telling lies after lies. Lies. And the thing is they’re hiding over a per person per capita recession. That’s what they don’t want to be.
The government that was in place when the recession occurred. They would rather see people sleeping under bridges, in tents, in cars. I mean, working families. Kids are going home at night to their kids and sleeping in cars. Where do they shower? Where do they toilet? I mean, we got the richest state in the world, potentially in Queensland, and we got people living under bridges, families, working families.
And because the government, it just wants to look good by by lifting up GDP to make sure we don’t have a recession, we would be in a recession now without large scale immigration fudging the numbers.
Chris Smith Fudging the numbers. That’s exactly what large scale immigration does. It’s terrific to have you on the program. Senator Malcolm Roberts, thank you for your time.
SENATOR ROBERTS: You’re welcome Chris, any time. All right. Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts,
https://img.youtube.com/vi/XzcmSYBROY0/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-10-03 16:19:082024-10-03 17:41:43Middle East in Turmoil, Misinformation Bill doomed to fail? ADH TV with Chris Smith
