Ben Harvey: Anthony Albanese’s ‘truth’ bill is a scary prospect that must stay off the table

At first blush Anthony Albanese’s so-called truth Bill looked promising. In this age of misinformation and disinformation (the former occurs through stupidity and the latter through malice) why wouldn’t we try to get some facts on to the internet? The proposed laws would have given the Australian Communications and Media Authority the power to force tech companies to remove incorrect information from social media sites if said incorrect information was deemed harmful. In short, Albo wanted to tame the internet and bring to heel companies such as Facebook, Instagram and X. This was a goal with unparalleled loftiness. The pipiest of dreams. It was never going to happen. Having seen the writing on the wall, or in chat rooms and comments sections rather, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland put the pin back in the grenade and shelved the Bill. The Russians and the Chinese are therefore free to continue with their industrial bait-and-switch programs, anti-vaxxers can keep telling us about the dangers of spiked proteins and conspiracy theorists can flood us with warnings about how 5G is controlling our minds. Great. Here’s the annoying thing about free speech — it’s largely a shit-or-bust proposition. You can’t be half-pregnant. This has always been a problem (I’m sure there are examples of misleading rock art) but particularly so in the past 10 years, when anyone with a smartphone became an instant publisher. Imagine how much quicker Adolf could have got down to business if he didn’t have to print out flyers and organise rallies by word of mouth. Scary. Free speech is dangerous — especially in an era where people speak their truth not the truth and when one person’s fact is another’s fake news. Censorship is just as dangerous, and that’s what the Albanese misinformation Bill was — censorship. Well-intentioned censorship but still censorship. For the record, I don’t believe censorship is an entirely dirty word. I get censored quite regularly by my editor-in-chief. Apparently “Ben Harvey Uncut” is a little too confronting. That’s fine. I don’t mind if Chris Dore tells me I can’t write something, but I do mind if Anthony Albanese does. Chris has a vested interest in keeping himself out of jail for contempt of court and not being sued; Anthony has a vested interest in preventing me from telling people to vote for the other guy. If social media has rendered the truth arbitrary, then I don’t want politicians being arbiters. They don’t have a great track record, do they? Albanese copping a public flogging for his backflip on those stage three tax cuts but his duplicity was hardly ground-breaking. Paul Keating proved a Pinocchio with tax breaks that were “not a promise, they are law. L-A-W”. Julia Gillard told us “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”. John Howard assured us “there’s no way a GST will ever be part of our policy”. Political mistruths are not limited to tax. MPs fib about anything and everything if they think doing so will secure your vote. Bob Hawke knew he was lying when he said “no Australian child will live in poverty”. Tony Abbott surely had his fingers crossed when he promised fealty to Malcolm Turnbull with “no wrecking, no undermining and no sniping”. The same man’s nose was growing when he made the pre-election pledge of “no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS”. Albanese was trying not not to blush when he announced that “Labor’s Powering Australia plan will cut power bills by $275 a year for homes”. As long as politics is war and as long as the first casualty of war is the truth, then we don’t want politicians telling us what’s right or wrong. The misinformation Bill needs to stay off the table.