The Federal government’s decision to abandon its controversial misinformation and disinformation bill this week represents a significant win for free speech and democracy in Australia.

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 (“the bill”), which sought to impose legal obligations on social media platforms to regulate online content, sparked widespread concerns about its potential to suppress legitimate debate and violate fundamental rights in Australia.

The government made two attempts to pass the bill, originally releasing a draft bill for public consultation in June 2023, only to withdraw it later that year after significant public backlash for a ‘rewrite’. 

The revised bill, introduced to Parliament this year on 19 September, provided just over a week for public feedback and submissions, with the deadline closing on September 30, 2024.

Despite the revisions, the bill faced strong opposition from key crossbench Senators, the Greens, and the Coalition, leading the government to announce its withdrawal earlier this week.

David Coleman, Opposition Shadow Minister for Communications was scathing of the bill, saying:

“Democracies move forward by debating ideas. Progress is achieved through applying sunlight to ideas, not censoring them. Labor’s misinformation bill is a clear threat to this free exchange of ideas”.

Human rights bodies, church representatives and groups, and community organisations also expressed their strong opposition, arguing that the revisions did not go far enough to address their fundamental concerns with the Bill.

The Australian Human Rights Commission, while acknowledging that some improvements had been made to the revised bill, nevertheless said:

“The commission recognises that misinformation and disinformation can have real and significant impacts on human rights, social cohesion and democratic processes.

Yet it also needs to be recognised that information may be opportunistically labelled as ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ to delegitimise alternative opinions and limit open discussion about issues of public importance.”

In their submission (no 70), a group of Combined Faith Leaders warned about the potential consequences of the bill's proposed approach:

“The Bill places the burden on digital service providers to police misinformation and disinformation (as the Bill defines those terms). This burden will only serve to make providers over-zealous in the policing of content on their platforms and is the legislative equivalent of a one-way-ratchet, ever diminishing the ability of individuals who use digital services to engage in free and open public discourse”.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (submission no 40) was also concerned about the impacts on freedom of religion, saying that “...some people consider elements of religious belief to be misinformation”:

“As a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Australia is party to an international agreement to ensure that its people are free to manifest their “religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”. International human rights law provides that the public manifestation of religion or belief can be limited only where strictly necessary for narrow and defined public purposes and may not be abridged even in times of public emergency. This is universally accepted to indicate that communicating sincerely held religious beliefs is an important contribution to the common good that should be safeguarded when drafting legislation”.

John Steenhof, Principal Lawyer at HRLA, welcomed the government’s decision to withdraw the bill, saying:

“The government’s proposed misinformation bill would have given extraordinary regulatory powers to government bureaucrats to police and censor online content it considers to be ‘harmful’.

The way to combat bad ideas is with good ideas. For this, robust and open discussion must be protected, including discussion of ideas that go against popular ideological narratives.

The potential impact this bill would have had on freedom of speech in Australia cannot be overstated. The abandonment of these plans is a great relief and a win for the fundamental right of all Australians to speak the truth.”