Antic claims misinformation bill is bid to stop young Australians being ‘red pilled’ on social media
Josh Butler
Labor and the Coalition are on a unity ticket in wanting under-16s off social media, with the opposition even demanding the government rush the bill through this month without any kind of Senate inquiry – but there’s at least one Liberal senator not on board.
Alex Antic, the South Australian conservative, tweeted this morning his claim that “Labor knows that the next generation of young people are being red pilled by social media and are turning away from their bleak world view.”
Social media bans for minors and “misinformation” laws will ensure that young Australians only get a corporate left wing message bricking in a new generation of Labor voters.
After the government announced its plans to legislate a social media ban for children under 16, and to introduce those laws into parliament this year, the Coalition sought to one-up Labor by calling for the legislation to be passed almost immediately. Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who has backed a social media ban for some time, said today he wanted the changes in “before kids go onto Christmas holidays and into the new year, when they’re sitting around on their devices.”
Dutton said the laws didn’t need parliamentary examination:
We’ve got two sitting weeks left, and I believe that we can pass this law by Christmas. It doesn’t need to be the case that the government’s delaying because they haven’t had a Senate inquiry, or because they’re worried about Meta running a campaign against the government.
But Antic’s tweet shows there is some opposition in the Coalition to ramming these laws through. Watch this space.
Key events
Man dies during wind farm workplace incident
A man has died while working at a wind farm in Victoria, police have confirmed.
In a statement, police said the man was working at Rokewood wind farm when he was crushed beneath a fan blade shortly after 8am this morning.
First responders attempted to revive him but he was declared deceased at the scene.
WorkSafe will investigate the incident, police said.
Josh Taylor
Misinformation makes emergency responses difficult, Senate inquiry hears
The National Emergency Management Agency has warned misinformation and disinformation online makes emergency responses more difficult.
The deputy coordinator general, Joel Buffone, told a Senate inquiry that the example of recent misinformation and disinformation spread about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) in the US in response to floods there “put staff at risk” and forced Fema staff to withdraw.
He also pointed to the recent Crowdstrike outage, which took down millions of Windows computers worldwide and threw many services into chaos:
Straight away there was effectively using platforms to effectively run scams, and there was a whole lot of misinformation.
He said misinformation about the 2019 bushfires – where arsonists with a political motive were falsely blamed for causing fires – almost immediately had an impact on social cohesion.
Blue banded bee wins ABC’s first Insect of the Year poll
The native blue banded bee has won the ABC’s first Insect of the Year poll.
Just over 50.1% of voters (6,815) chose the blue banded bee from six insect finalists. The common hoverfly received the second highest number of votes (13%), followed by the Bogong moth (11.4%).
The blue banded bee was cited by environment minister Tanya Plibersek as one reason why the site of a proposed goldmine near Blayney should be issued an Aboriginal heritage protection order.
As Calla Wahlquist reported, the basis of the protection declaration was a claim that the Belubula River, headwaters and springs were the site of pre-initiation ceremonies in Wiradyuri culture and that the river itself was the subject of the Blue Banded Bee dreaming.
The Insect of the Year poll was conducted by the ABC for four weeks during October and November.
Governor general begins Remembrance Day address
The governor general, Sam Mostyn, has begun a commemorative address at the Remembrance Day service at the War Memorial in Canberra.
Mostyn noted it was her first Remembrance Day as governor general and said she was honoured to address the crowd before the Stone of Remembrance as the daughter of an army officer.
For more than a century, Australians have repeated this ritual of remembrance, just as we do gathering today. Each year, we render our tribute anew to the generations of servicemen and women who have died or suffered for Australia in conflicts far from home. And so it is, our Remembrance Days are born of all the days of commemoration that have gone before.
Ben Doherty
Anti-slavery advocates welcome appointment of national commissioner
Anti-slavery advocates have welcomed the appointment of former senator Chris Evans as Australia’s first anti-slavery commissioner. Evans’s appointment to a five-year term was announced by the attorney general.
Alison Rahill, program manager of the Australian Catholic Anti-slavery Network, said Evans could draw on his “formidable experience in government and the private sector to make a difference to the estimated 41,000 people experiencing modern slavery right here in Australia and 50 million people worldwide”.
This must include examining economic, migration, corporate governance, social and trade policies settings that currently undermine Australia’s anti-slavery ambitions.
As we flagged earlier, the NSW anti-slavery commissioner Dr James Cockayne said Evans’s appointment was “encouraging on several levels”. Cockayne said the inaugural national anti-slavery commissioner had numerous challenges ahead:
With regulators overseas increasingly ratcheting up expectations of Australian businesses’ modern slavery and human rights due diligence, including in thorny cases like cotton and tomatoes coming from Xinjiang, it is crucial that government sets clear expectations for Australian business on what is expected of them to manage these risks. Otherwise, Australian business will find it increasingly hard to access overseas markets and capital, especially from Europe.
Constitutional lawyer speaks on government’s proposed misinformation and disinformation bill
We brought you comments from constitutional lawyer Prof Anne Twomey earlier, who has been speaking at a senate inquiry into the government’s misinformation and disinformation bill. Here is some of what she had to say:
Bridget McKenzie defends flight upgrades record
Elias Visontay
The opposition transport spokesperson Bridget McKenzie has said her history of criticising the lack of competition in Australian aviation is important to note in the aftermath of revelations she failed to declare 16 flight upgrades over the past nine years.
McKenzie, speaking at the Australian Financial Review’s infrastructure summit today, dodged a question about whether her declaration failure had made the public more cynical about politicians in general.
However, she sought to make a distinction between her record and Anthony Albanese’s, after recent reports he sought flight upgrades from Qantas when he was transport minister. McKenzie said:
I don’t think the public is aware that politicians, MPs, travel business class for work right around the country. Some MPs choose on short trips to fly economy because we see it as a waste of taxpayers money. If you’re simply going from Melbourne to Canberra or Melbourne and Adelaide, why should the taxpayer pay for a business class trip?
I think the key issue around this is what is the influence on decision making and I’m very happy to stand by my public comments, my approach to the lack of competition in our aviation sector, the impact that’s had on the Australian travelling public over the influence it may have had, or clearly has had, on other decision makers.
I make no bones about the fact that I do believe the former transport minister, our now prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has been influenced by his personal and financial relationship with Qantas.
Remembrance Day service begins in Canberra
A national Remembrance Day service has just begun at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
It is beginning with a tri-service guard of honour, with Australia’s Federation Guard marching on to the Parade Ground accompanied by the Band of the Royal Military College, Duntroon.
Governor general Sam Mostyn is set to deliver a commemorative address.
First national anti-slavery commissioner welcomed: ‘Encouraging on several levels’
The New South Wales anti-slavery commissioner, Dr James Cockayne, has welcomed the appointment of Australia’s first national anti-slavery commissioner, Chris Evans.
Cockayne said the appointment was “encouraging on several levels”, with Evans having worked with business leaders, unions, faith leaders, civil society, and researchers.
He will combine a deep humanity and care for people with an understanding of how to get things done in Canberra. And his selection is a sign of the seriousness of the Government’s commitment to anti-slavery objectives … I wish him every success and look forward to working with him.
Josh Taylor
Australian Jewish Association received death threat before appearing at misinformation inquiry, president says
The Australian Jewish Association’s president, Dr David Adler, has said his organisation received a death threat and was warned not to appear before the committee this morning reviewing the misinformation and disinformation bill.
Adler said the AJA, which is opposed to the bill, received the threat over the weekend:
I’m not sure how often people who appear before Senate committees are warned not to, and that warning is accompanied by a death threat. But that happened over the weekend. We were sent an illustrated death threat with the hangman’s noose, together with the words that if we appeared before the committee, we would die.
And I just think it’s a reflection of the spike in antisemitism that is now at crisis level in Australia.
This committee is not about the Middle East conflicts, and there are now people who think that, at the threat of death, we should not participate in Australia’s democratic processes.
The committee chair, Labor senator Karen Grogan, said the committee had reported the threat to the Australian federal police and took that action extremely seriously:
No one who appears before a committee should ever have to endure those threats, and we will pursue this.
Antic claims misinformation bill is bid to stop young Australians being ‘red pilled’ on social media
Josh Butler
Labor and the Coalition are on a unity ticket in wanting under-16s off social media, with the opposition even demanding the government rush the bill through this month without any kind of Senate inquiry – but there’s at least one Liberal senator not on board.
Alex Antic, the South Australian conservative, tweeted this morning his claim that “Labor knows that the next generation of young people are being red pilled by social media and are turning away from their bleak world view.”
Social media bans for minors and “misinformation” laws will ensure that young Australians only get a corporate left wing message bricking in a new generation of Labor voters.
After the government announced its plans to legislate a social media ban for children under 16, and to introduce those laws into parliament this year, the Coalition sought to one-up Labor by calling for the legislation to be passed almost immediately. Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who has backed a social media ban for some time, said today he wanted the changes in “before kids go onto Christmas holidays and into the new year, when they’re sitting around on their devices.”
Dutton said the laws didn’t need parliamentary examination:
We’ve got two sitting weeks left, and I believe that we can pass this law by Christmas. It doesn’t need to be the case that the government’s delaying because they haven’t had a Senate inquiry, or because they’re worried about Meta running a campaign against the government.
But Antic’s tweet shows there is some opposition in the Coalition to ramming these laws through. Watch this space.
Man’s body found beside highway south of Taree
New South Wales police are investigating after a man’s body was found at Johns River, about 36km south of Taree.
Police were called to the Pacific Highway at Johns River about 5pm yesterday where officers allegedly found a man deceased on a nature strip behind concrete barriers.
He is yet to be formally identified, but is believed to be aged in his 30s. A report will be prepared for the coroner and a crime scene has been established.
Police are appealing for witnesses to identify a man reportedly seen walking southbound on the M1 Pacific Motorway between Kew and Johns River on 7 and 10 November.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
Melbourne convenience store set alight and rammed with car, police say
Victorian detectives will investigate after a car was allegedly rammed into a Pascoe Vale South convenience store this morning and the premises set alight.
Emergency services were called to the shop on Coonans Road to reports of the blaze about 3.15am. Police said a family who live in a residence attached to the store were not injured.
The area has been cordoned off with a crime scene set up, and it’s expected an arson chemist and detectives will attend the scene today.
Police will investigate whether the damage and fire are linked to any other recent incidents. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
Factcheckers often ‘young kids’ who misunderstand experts, lawyer tells misinformation inquiry
Josh Taylor
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts asked legal experts before the senate inquiry on the misinformation and disinformation bill: Who is the arbiter of truth?
Constitutional law expert, Prof Anne Twomey says that is a peculiar aspect of the bill, and the platforms tend to outsource to fact checkers, who then turn to experts they can find to speak to an issue, but the responses are often misunderstood:
Now I’ve been on the expert side of this, I’ve been asked for many fact checks, and here’s my experience of it. The people that I’m dealing with, they try hard and they’re well meaning, but they are not experts themselves in the field.
They’ll ask me a question in a particular form of words. I’ll give them an answer that’s suited to the way they ask me that question, and then sometimes later on, I read what they write and discover that they have misinterpreted or themselves being misleading about it, because they thought the sort of words that they used for me when they asked me the question actually mean the same as another set of words which mean something quite different.
The fact checkers often misunderstand the experts, she said, and that isn’t subsequently checked:
The impression I get is that these are just frequently, young kids out of university who don’t really know and they’re taking on this really important role of making a decision that will lead some Meta or Google or whatever to make decisions about what is true and what is false when the fact checker themselves hasn’t properly understood what the experts have said, and it’s also really dependent on what experts you choose.
The Victorian Bar’s James McCormish says it is the “gaping hole at the heart of the bill”.
Almost all workplaces have sexual harassment policies, but many not monitoring prevalence
More than 7,000 employers have reported new information to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, following the introduction of the positive duty to provide a safe workplace for all employees as part of the Respect@Work report.
While nearly 99% of employers have a formal policy on work-related sexual harassment and discrimination, the new data shows more than one in four employers (28%) are not monitoring how prevalent it is. The WGEA CEO Mary Wooldridge said:
While we are seeing comprehensive policy coverage, this is only a critical first step. Long-term culture change within organisations also requires employees and company leaders to know the policy, understand what’s in it and the part they play in its implementation.
One of the insights from the Respect@Work report is that proactive engagement by leadership is critical for long-term change. WGEA’s new results show that most CEOs are highly engaged in reviewing, signing off on, and then communicating these policies (85%), however just over half (55%) of their Boards are similarly involved.
The data also showed that while there are comprehensive processes to disclose sexual harassment to HR (98%), anonymous disclosure processes are less available (68%).