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Australia regime threatens X with “big trouble” if It doesn’t censor “misinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | February 14, 2024

Australia’s authorities are once again putting pressure on social media, X this time, threatening that the company will face big fines and “big trouble” in general – unless “mis- and dis-” information is censored.

And, it is Australia’s new laws, when they come into force this year, that will represent the legal grounds for such actions.

The fines would run up to $3 million or 2 percent of annual turnover for “voluntary code of conduct” violations, and $7.8 million or 5 percent of annual turnover in case of lack of compliance with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) “standards.”

This transpires from an article published by the Financial Review, citing Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, while the motive behind her last crusade is described as “a litany of issues” now allegedly plaguing X.

Rowland went all over the place to accuse X of “not doing enough” – from Taylor Swift deep fakes, to what’s likely a key point of contention – the platform’s decision to reinstate some 6,000 accounts of users previously banned by Twitter.

The thinking here seems to be that if the threat is made ahead of time, X will “align” better with Australia’s politics and agree to once again plunge itself into mass censorship.

The laws Rowland mentioned were drafted in 2023 with the aim of giving broader powers to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, specifically “to combat mis- and disinformation online,” the article said.

The upcoming legislation seeks to produce two effects – the tech industry subjecting itself to a formally voluntary code of conduct, and after this “carrot” comes the stick in the shape of the ACMA’s new powers, fines and punishment, if ACMA’s unhappy with how the code is adhered to.

Rowland added that X at this time “isn’t even covered by a voluntary industry code.” The reason is that X was removed from the code after it stopped the practice of flagging content running against (Twitter’s) “civic integrity policy.”

Elsewhere in Australia’s media scene, some are asking why the country’s government “hates Elon Musk.”

“It is about $300 million that Musk owes the Australian government so far,” wondered Sky News host James Macpherson. And by “owes” – he meant, the fines Australia has tried collecting from X even before the latest threats.

February 14, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

New wave of US, UK strikes target Yemen

The Cradle – February 4, 2024

US and UK warships and fighter jets bombed Yemen on 4 February, in a wave of missile strikes US officials claim hit 36 targets.

The US said in a CENTCOM statement that it hit “36 targets at 13 locations,” striking “underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”

According to the statement, the US, UK, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand took part in the attacks.

The strikes were in response to Yemeni efforts to target Israeli-linked commercial ships passing through the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea. The Yemeni attacks are in response to Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza.

Rather than press its ally Israel to stop its military campaign, which has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, the US has joined forces with the UK to bomb Yemen.

Saturday’s strikes were launched by US F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft, and the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Carney firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, according to US officials and the UK Defense Ministry.

The Yemen Armed Forces issued a statement detailing where the attacks took place, reporting 13 raids on Sanaa, 9 on Hodeidah, 11 on Taiz, 7 on Al-Bayda, 7 on Hajjah, and one on Saada.

“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not go unanswered and punished,” read the statement.

The strikes come one day after the US sent B-1 bombers to target 85 locations affiliated with the Islamic Resistance of Iraq in eastern Syria and western Iraq, killing at least 16. This was in response to an operation by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq that targeted US military outpost Tower 22 in Jordan last week, killing three US soldiers.

US officials reportedly told Al-Jazeera that the strikes on Yemen are “considered a next round of retaliation for the killing of the [US] soldiers in Jordan.”

Like Ansarallah, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition, formed after 7 October, has also targeted Israel, as well as US bases in Syria and Iraq. The groups say their attacks are in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which the US has supported militarily and diplomatically.

Ansarallah leaders in Yemen say they have no intention of scaling back their campaign despite pressure from the US and UK bombing.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, an Ansarallah official, said, “military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are stopped and the siege on its residents is lifted, no matter the sacrifices it costs us.” He wrote on social media that the “American-British aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered, and we will meet escalation with escalation.”

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia: ABC staff threaten strike after Arab journalist sacked

Award-winning journalist and author Antoinette Lattouf
MEMO | January 17, 2024

ABC journalists in the broadcaster’s Sydney offices yesterday threatened to strike unless management addresses concerns over the unlawful dismissal of radio host Antoinette Lattouf, Anadolu news agency reported.

The award-winning journalist and author, who is of Lebanese heritage, was sacked by ABC last month for sharing on Instagram a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The internationally-recognised rights watchdog released a report on how starvation was being used as “a weapon of war” by the Israeli government in Gaza. ABC also published a news item on the report.

On Tuesday, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed a leaked chain of WhatsApp messages from a group called Lawyers for Israel who had lobbied for Lattouf to be sacked.

“The ABC sacked broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf after a high-level and coordinated letter-writing campaign from pro-Israel lobbyists that directly targeted the corporation’s chair, Ita Buttrose, and managing director David Anderson,” the news daily said.

The report reveals that the Israeli lobby “repeatedly wrote to the ABC demanding Lattouf be sacked, and threatened legal action if she was not.”

Yesterday, about 80 ABC staff members demanded a meeting with Anderson, who is currently on leave.

They threatened to stage a walkout if their concerns were not addressed.

Lattouf has legally challenged her termination, saying she was sacked on the grounds of “political opinion or a reason that included political opinion” and later expanded the claim to include race, due to her Lebanese heritage.

While ABC has denied Anderson was behind Lattouf’s sacking, the broadcaster has told a court that the journalist was removed “because she ignored a direction from managers and shared a controversial social media post from Human Rights Watch.”

Lattouf demands a clear public apology, financial compensation and the offer of a proportionate position.

Hearings are scheduled to begin later this week.

In a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald, Lattouf’s lawyer, Josh Bornstein, said that after “October 7 and the ensuing conflict in the Middle East, it has become common knowledge in the media industry that Arab and Muslim journalists are being subjected to intimidation, censorship and expulsion.”

January 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Complains About X Reinstating Censored Accounts

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 12, 2024

Without considering the possibility that there were perhaps too many of them to begin with – Australia’s eSafety Commissioner is complaining in a new report that X, since the Musk takeover, has fired too many “safety and public policy personnel.”

Another complaint from the commissioner’s “transparency report” is about previously censored accounts getting reinstated on the platform.

The sum of the new policy, according to this Australian office – a government agency that’s “independent (but) supported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)” – is that X is now less capable of “tackling online hate.”

It is no wonder that these accusations are made by eSafety, considering that it has been given powers to deal with what’s described as “cyberbullying, image-based abuse, and illegal and harmful online content.”

Basing the report on information obtained from X, eSafety writes that 80 percent of “safety engineers” have been let go since October 2022 (the same figure applies to global public policy staff). Moderators working for X have fared somewhat better – still, over 50 percent of them have been fired.

Considering that these employees were doing more than simply moderating – there have been many confirmed and very controversial cases on clear censorship against content and accounts – free speech supporters are likely fine to learn these precise numbers for the first time.

However, the Australian eSafety is not, taking a negative stance toward the developments and warning that they have “implications for Australian users.”

Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is quoted in the report as saying that, “It’s almost inevitable that any social media platform will become more toxic and less safe for users if you combine significant reductions to safety and local public policy personnel with thousands of account reinstatements of previously banned users.”

About that last point – we now know that the number of banned accounts that have been allowed back on X is at this point in excess of 6,100. But, the Australian office is not even sure if these figures concern X’s operations globally or just in Australia – although eSafety “understands” the latter to be the case, and draws this understanding from media saying earlier that a total of more than 62,000 accounts have been reinstated.

The commissioner is also displeased with the fact that X did not find it necessary to place “additional scrutiny” on these accounts – banned under previous ownership, and its policies.

January 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Russia warns West against seizing assets

RT | December 22, 2023

The seizure of Russian assets by Western countries would be “illegal” and “extremely dangerous” for the global finance system, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Friday.

The US and EU are reportedly considering using Russian assets frozen in the West to rebuild Ukraine, or even fund Kiev’s ongoing military efforts. According to the New York Times, the administration of US President Joe Biden is said to have made the latest proposal to do so as the White House struggles to greenlight a new $60 billion aid package for Ukraine.

An estimated €260 billion ($285 billion) in Russian central bank assets was immobilized in G7 countries, the EU, and Australia following the launch of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, with most of the reserves being held in Europe.

Speaking to journalists on Friday, Peskov noted that the issue of confiscating the frozen funds continued to be raised in both Europe and the US.

“This topic is, first of all, unacceptable,” Peskov said, adding that the potential seizure of Russian assets would deal “a very serious blow to the international financial system.”

The Kremlin spokesman stressed that any country considering the move must understand that Russia would “never leave those who did this alone,” and would take wide-ranging legal steps.

The EU and US must also understand that the seizure of Russian assets would be followed by a proportionate response from Moscow, Peskov added. “If something is confiscated from us by someone, then we will see what we can confiscate in response. And if this something is found, we will, naturally, [confiscate] it immediately,” the spokesman said.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov previously issued a similar warning to the West, promising a tit-for-tat response, while State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin claimed last month that the G7’s assets in Russia were “more numerous than Russia’s frozen funds [in the West].”

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that a number of EU members, including France, Germany and Italy, have been “extremely cautious” over the idea of seizing Russian assets. According to the newspaper, these countries are worried that the move would be seen as “cross[ing] a line,” and may cause concern in Asia and the Middle East that sovereign assets held in Western currencies are not safe.

December 22, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Conversation with Dr. Paul Oosterhuis on Lessons From the Down Under

By Julie Obradovic | The Defender | December 11, 2023

Sitting in front of a computer screen in August 2021, Dr. Paul Oosterhuis was prepared.

The regulators, the people who hold the registrar of health practitioners in Australia, had recently come out with a document informing practitioners they could only speak about the positives of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Saying anything negative or cautionary was not allowed.

Dr. Oosterhuis addressed the document in a tweet. Since the COVID crisis began on the other side of the world the year prior, he had become rather outspoken on social media about many pandemic protocols.

Now that the virus was finally at Australia’s doorstep, he had a lot to say. “The document is ridiculous,” he tweeted.

“In science,” he argued, “you can’t give informed consent without saying the pluses and minuses, the hazards and the benefits.”

A combination of tweets, Facebook posts and Facebook comments like this had already ruffled some feathers. During an event he refers to as “Facebook fear porn” in March of 2021, the registrar insisted the only way to save lives was with the jab.

“Please tell everyone to take vitamin D, zinc, hydroxychloroquine, and ivermectin as an evidence-based approach for treatment,” he countered.

And rather quickly he was told, “This is misinformation. I’m going to report to you.”

So later that year, in August, when he tweeted New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazard, he wasn’t surprised by what happened next. Mr. Hazard had rounded up 24,000 school kids at Sydney Arena to get the experimental COVID-19 injection. Dr. Oosterhuis was furious.

“Here’s the childhood infection fatality rate by age. Kids are more likely to die from sharp objects.”

He went even further. At that time, the infection fatality rate for kids was .00016%, effectively zero.

“If there is even one death among these 24,000 kids, you have a signal of harm. And if you’re not watching for it, you will be held culpable.”

Two hours later, he received a call. The Medical Council of New South Wales was hastily putting together an immediate suspension hearing under the “Immediate Action Powers for Public Protection” section 150 of Health Practitioner Regulation National Law.

The hearing would be based on 10 social media posts where Dr. Oosterhuis had stated there was no evidence for anything the government was doing, whether it be masks, mandates or jabs, specifically regarding antibody-dependent enhancement. These were the posts selected as high heresy and grounds for suspension.

So here he was, sitting in his living room on a computer screen, participating in what he considered to be an online kangaroo court, but eager to participate anyway. He wanted to put them on notice. Whether they were calling it a vaccine or gene therapy, it hadn’t undergone the safety testing it should have.

There were no long-term data on the vaccine’s safety or efficacy, and they had an obligation to say so.

But it turned out, they weren’t interested in anything he had to say about that. Likewise, they had no interest in debating the science he provided or the merit of what he had claimed in any of his posts.

In fact, they only had one question: “Are you vaccinated?”

The answer was, no. And for the first time, there was a press release with his name on it. Dr. Paul Oosterhuis was officially labeled a threat.

‘Flabbergasted’: a doctor could lose his license for tweeting about informed consent?

I first met Paul in my parents’ kitchen 11 years ago.

He had flown to America with my cousin to attend a family event. Traveling the world after college, my cousin had never made her way home. Instead, she settled in Australia, married Paul, and had children. It was my first time meeting them too.

Eleven years ago I was very involved in the vaccine-safety-medical-freedom-quest-for-justice movement, which was substantially smaller then. I had helped form The Canary Party, now called Health Choice, the first political organization whose mission was to fight for medical freedom, justice for the vaccine injured, and systemic change to the vaccine program in the United States.

I had raised money for various autism organizations, marched on Washington, repeatedly met with my legislators, appeared on television, spoken at conferences and written more articles than I can count as a contributing editor to the Age of Autism blog and for other publications.

In short, I was pretty outspoken myself. And given this was long before anyone could have ever imagined the COVID pandemic, or that a highly respected mainstream doctor from Australia would lose his license for tweeting about informed consent, we didn’t really discuss my views on autism causation.

In fact, I’m fairly certain I totally avoided it.

So when my mom texted me last year that Paul had caused quite a stir and lost his license to practice medicine because of his opinions about COVID policies and protocols, I was admittedly pretty flabbergasted.

I had learned over time that the majority of physicians didn’t look at their practices as being responsible for creating negative health outcomes. Clearly, it seemed, he wasn’t afraid to do so. I decided right then and there I needed to reach out.

‘Something’s not right’

Dr. Oosterhuis completed medical school at Sydney University, also training at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center and in Papua New Guinea. After completing his residency with rotations in internal medicine, cardiology, general surgery, neurosurgery and intensive care, he decided he liked critical care best. Anesthesiology was his preferred practice.

“I’ve seen more cardiac arrests than most people have had hot breakfasts,” he commented about his time in emergency medicine over the last three decades.

This explains why he was hyper-aware of what was happening in the world regarding COVID in hospitals long before he became labeled a public health threat. He comes at it from a critical care space.

At the start of his career 30 years ago, Paul believed the Australian system of medical care was the best. Clinicians could still observe, speculate and doubt about a patient’s condition and care, he told me. Hospitals were full of doctors, nurses and other health practitioners.

Over time, however, he began to see a shift. Hospitals became less occupied by medical experts and more occupied by administrators and bureaucrats.

“It drove me mad from the get-go, the never-ending increase in red tape and bureaucracy,” he said. “It all became more and more leftist, more and more ‘woke-ian’ over the last eight years or so.”

The first red flag came in 2016 when a sign on an operating door said that any physician without a flu shot had to wear a mask for the following 12 months. To him, it made no sense. He had looked at the literature and found no evidence that masks prevented influenza in emergency room departments.

On top of that, in 2015, he received the flu shot, not only ending up feeling terrible for one week afterward but also getting the worst flu of his life a few weeks after that. He wasn’t the least bit interested in trying it again.

“I couldn’t leave the bed. And then a few weeks later, I got the flu. And it was the worst flu I’ve ever had. So when I saw that notice on the operating door, I went, no. I’m going to look into this. There’s something not right here. It doesn’t add up.”

No matter, it seemed. Suddenly, all the hospital administration cared about was his vaccine status for his re-employment contract.

From there, the changes ramped up. Senior staff were being moved out of the decision-making tree. He started recognizing pollution in the journal space, conflicts of interest and questionable findings in published science. His faith in the scientific literature was being damaged. His faith in the medical system even more so. All of it was causing him great concern.

So when COVID came, he was early to the question, “Why are the doctors and nurses falling sick in northern Italy?” Surely, he thought, they had to have good quality PPE (personal protection equipment) like they did in Australia. Didn’t they?

To avoid the same crisis in Australia, he began speaking out. In his mind, a lack of quality PPE was a bureaucratic failure. He pointed out that Italy may have failed to prepare, but Australia had time to do so.

He started by asking for quantitative fit testing of their masks. He suggested alternatives when they refused. Alas, it fell on deaf ears.

“I could see there was no openness to anything I was suggesting.”

In January 2020, he tweeted the prime minister that doctors were going to hardware stores to get effective PPE. He was adamant they work on this problem, that medical staff have a safe work environment.

And that’s when the online attacks against him began.

Amid those attacks, and after pointing out that strangely, no masks had been given to busy clinics where people from hot spots like Iran and China were coming to, his medical director suggested that perhaps he shouldn’t turn up for his next list (of patients) if he were going to keep this up.

Before he even had the chance to reply, however, he had to go into isolation. A nurse he worked with was diagnosed with COVID.

While in quarantine, Dr. Oosterhuis remained in contact with his fellow doctors and nurses, none of whom could get testing. When an email came from the medical director claiming everyone had been tested and all had been negative, he knew for a fact it was a bald-faced lie.

“I had lost trust in the system by then,” he said. “They were lying. They were not acting logically. They were not working on the problem. They were not listening to solutions that would work. Something was very wrong.”

And then, the coup d’état. He saw the NFR (not for resuscitation) and intubation orders and got a clear sense they were heading toward something very dystopian. The paranoia of viral contamination was so strong, that they were just going to let people die. No one would be getting CPR.

‘Like water on a raincoat’

To counter the insanity, Dr. Oosterhuis began aggressively researching treatment protocols. If they weren’t going to help prevent people from getting sick, at least they could treat them, he reasoned.

That’s when he discovered things like taking zinc, hydroxychloroquine, quercetin and vitamin D could have a powerful effect.

“The things they censored were very instructive,” he said. “The truth could be found in whatever that was.”

For most of 2021, he continued to follow the research and speak out, telling anyone who would listen about options for treatment. Eerily, however, it was like they couldn’t hear it. Long before Robert Malone talked openly about mass formation psychosis, he claims he could see and feel it for himself.

“It was truly bizarre. [Suggestions for treatment] would hit them like water on someone covered in a raincoat,” Dr. Oosterhuis said. “It rolled right off them.”

Alas, it soon began to make sense. The gene therapy injection was coming. The document from the regulators released in March of 2021 confirmed it. Only the vaccine, they insisted, would be able to save everyone.

By August, challenging that narrative would cost him his license.

‘Beyond the scope of authority’

During his suspension, Dr. Oosterhuis attended several protests alongside hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens. He went to one in Melbourne with a half million people. He went to another and marched on Parliament House in Sydney with a half million more. He even attended Australia’s trucker protest. They had one, too.

Although the press refused to cover the demonstrations fairly, he describes the cooperation and camaraderie of the people as nothing he had ever experienced. Everyone was so happy to know they weren’t alone, he told me.

“We had the sense we were living through history and felt sorry for the people captured by the narrative and living in fear. Human rights, bodily autonomy, informed consent — none of that seemed to matter to them.”

At the protests, several people suggested a legal brief he could take to the Australian Supreme Court to challenge the Medical Council’s decision and restore his medical license. He wasn’t going to be able to debate the merit of his social media posts, that much had been made clear.

But he was possibly going to be able to prove they didn’t follow the law in making their decision. The council had acted ultra vires, it seemed — or, beyond their powers.

He summoned the Supreme Court and Medical Council for judicial review, representing himself. Once again he found himself in his living room on a computer screen, this time in his pajama bottoms, with people trying to ruin his livelihood and reputation.

The first time around, he admits, he was nervous. By the 12th hearing, however, he was a warrior ready for battle. And on May 10, 2022, he emerged victorious. All anonymous complaints, and the suspension of his medical license, had been lifted. He had won his case.

Dr. Oosterhuis wasn’t entirely satisfied, however, as his true goal had been getting medical freedom back for all Australians. There was still work to do, he claimed. He had really hoped to get a ruling stating they had acted unlawfully, not just out of their jurisdiction. It would have overturned all suspensions — and potentially the regime of terror against doctors with it.

‘Give me my orders’

Paul now considers himself a soldier in the war for medical freedom. He sees himself as a part of the machine trying to get sanity back in science and to protect the public. In the environment of censorship and propaganda, he believes, you no longer have a democracy. Informed consent becomes impossible.

We talked for well over an hour about the parallels of our journeys for the same things, and how even though he’s later to the party than me, he’s in it for life. He insists he won’t stop fighting until they stop injecting our kids.

He also admits he just wasn’t awake. He took all vaccines without question until his horrible experience with the flu shot in 2015. He has also had to reevaluate past practices and assumptions.

Having resuscitated many SIDS babies over the years he realized, “Never once had it crossed my mind to ask, ‘When was their most recent vaccination?’”

Likewise, he has dug deeply into the literature on vaccine safety, or rather, the lack thereof. He understands now how they manipulate and censor science if they don’t like the outcomes, specifically citing Paul Thomas and James Lyons-Weiler’s study of the vaccinated versus unvaccinated and how the publisher pulled it, not a doctor or scientist.

“They don’t like having control groups,” he said. “One of the most sinister agendas in this whole thing is they never study any of these agents versus a placebo control.”

He went further adding, “And we know why. Because it would show it’s an unmitigated disaster.”

Paul went on to describe just how deeply this experience has affected him personally. Besides the trauma of losing his medical license after a stellar record of 30 years in practice, and for social media posts nonetheless, it has helped him formulate a new personal philosophy.

“I personally will not have another vaccine in this body in this lifetime,” he told me.

“I had made an oath a year and a half ago that that was my decision,” he said. “And so then the question was, how am I going to live in this world where they seem determined to inject every man, woman, child and animal on the planet with this thing? Like I say, I’m opposed to it. I’m a soldier. And I am opposed to it to my death.”

‘Real threat to the whole of humanity’

Dr. Oosterhuis hasn’t returned to the hospitals where he once worked. For one, they still have their vaccine mandates. And two, far too many of his colleagues have chosen to stay asleep, he feels. He can’t go back to it pretending none of this is real.

Instead, he spends his time now speaking out. In addition to being interviewed globally by people such as Steve Kirsch, Pierre Kory, and Peter McCullough, he has created a Substack with a substantial following. Topics have included the increase in the all-cause mortality signal; fraudulent PCR tests; and the shocking damage to fertility we see happening all over the world.

“In country after country, you see nine months after the roll out (of the vaccine), a collapse in birth rates, a massive increase in infertility, and problems with women’s cycles,” he said. “This is a real threat to the whole of humanity.”

He’s equally concerned about the power grab of the World Health Organization and other health agencies. When I commented that without liability, pharmaceutical companies have no incentive for restraint, he took it a step further. They don’t just lack an incentive for restraint, he countered. They are now incentivized to create disasters.

“It’s criminality that’s become an existential threat to humanity. We don’t have any choice but to push back.”

‘I hoped I was wrong’

From the very beginning, Paul insists that he wanted to be wrong. He wanted to be wrong about it all. He was simply putting questions out into the digital universe.

What if they tried a different mask? Where was the proper PPE? Why was there such resistance to treatment protocols? Why were they giving 24,000 students an experimental injection for a disease they’d never die from? None of it made any sense.

“I hoped I was wrong. I really did,” he said. “But within days I heard a report of a high school student who had died, and I heard there was going to be a service. Then there were other reports of deaths in the 24,000. At the time of my tweet, I prayed I was wrong. I would have been happy to be wrong. But my role was to put them on notice. I didn’t want them to be able to say, ‘we didn’t know.’ It’s on public record, they did.”

When top officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration resigned last year over the pressure to push for boosters, Paul says their parting letter didn’t pull any punches. The danger was not just to the credibility of the COVID-19 vaccine, these officials claimed, but to the credibility of all vaccines. Paul believes they are right, and that accountability is coming, even if it’s slow.

Meanwhile, his trust in the government, medicine, science, journalism and the media has been destroyed. He carries a sense of disgust that many of us have already carried for some time, and he is adamant that we have to rebuild our institutions from the ground up. We need true science, true integrity and an end to conflicts of interest.

“Public-private partnerships sound great until you put a jackboot on it,” he says.

Most of all, he insists, we need bodily autonomy.

“If we don’t have bodily autonomy, we are already enslaved.”

‘A coincidence theorist’

Paul tells me that he is not a conspiracy theorist but rather a coincidence theorist. I laugh, only because the name of my book, which he hadn’t known, is “An Unfortunate Coincidence: A Mother’s Life inside the Autism Controversy” (Skyhorse 2016).

Both of us notice the coincidences. When they become less and less probable, “you start to think, maybe this is the way reality actually works.”

We commiserate for a little while over the figurative costs of being in this fight, and how neither one of us could have ever imagined being a part of it, or really ever having needed to be. Science was once sacred, I remind him. He agrees, but pushes back.

“The fight is here. It’s now,” he said. “The ultimate battle is here. And as big as the cost is of speaking out, the cost of not speaking out is exponentially larger. And the cost gets greater every day that passes.”

I am inspired again to pick up my proverbial sword. It has been almost six years since I have actively spoken out or regularly written anything. Fifteen years in the fight prior affected me in profoundly personal ways that required a reprieve.

And yet, I know he is right. The fight is here. It is time to get back in the ring. I thank him for reminding me of that and all he is doing.

“For decades, I have fought for everyone’s lives, and I’m still doing it. I’m not doing it in the operation theater, but I’m doing it on a different scale now. The only way you can protect those closest to you is to end this for everyone.”

Paul and I finish the conversation. It is late for me in Chicago while he is in Sydney. Once again, he is in his living room over a computer screen, in the same space where he lost his medical license and then took on the Australian Supreme Court to regain it.

In the same place he intends to save many more lives.

Even in his pajamas.


Julie Obradovic is a contributing editor to the Age of Autism blog, a founding member of The Canary Party and the author of “An Unfortunate Coincidence: A Mother’s Life inside the Autism Controversy.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

Democrat congressman has ‘no evidence’ to back up ‘wild’ Hunter Biden laptop scheme

Sky News Australia | December 4, 2023

‘Twitter Files’ co-author Michael Shellenberger says Democrat Congressman Dan Goldman has “no evidence” to back up his “wild conspiracy theory” about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

Mr Goldman tried to regurgitate claims to Mr Shellenberger that the laptop’s contents could have been manipulated by Rudy Guiliani or the Russians.

Mr Shellenberger testified to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponisation of the Federal Government last week about the existence of a “Censorship Industrial Complex” which, he says, includes the Department of Homeland Security, big tech companies and government contractors.

“The Democrats the whole time were saying that’s just a conspiracy theory, and here we were presenting them with files – and it’s Twitter files, Facebook files … like actual documents,” Mr Shellenberger told Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi.

“Then he goes and presents this wild conspiracy theory for which there has never been any evidence and there has only been evidence going the other way.

“When the New York Post published that article … they provided not only the computer store signature of Hunter Biden on the receipt left at the computer store repair shop he left the laptop at and the New York Post published the FBI subpoena for the laptop from him.

“Twitter’s own internal staff evaluated the New York Post article and they said there’s no evidence that this was the result of a Russian hack and leak operation.

“To have a sitting member of Congress, over three years later, continue to perpetuate a conspiracy theory without any evidence … that is literally the definition of conspiracy theorising.”

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Vaccination rates fall… ‘Quick, let’s vaccinate more people!’

A shallow, disingenuous report from the Grattan Institute.

By Richard Kelly| The view from down here | November 27, 2023

The Grattan (‘We change the nation – for good’) Institute, has released a shallow, disingenuous report calling for the government to spend lots of money, because vaccination rates are not high enough, according to them.

Not once in this report is any consideration given to the personal needs or wishes of individual Australian patients who are the ultimate targets of the recommendations. The recommendations focus solely on getting more people vaccinated, for more illness or conditions, more often.

The report’s authors are either ignorant of, or wilfully blind to, the concept of free will. So much of the language and framing of the report bends in this direction, with many examples where ‘the government’ is exhorted to take this or that action in order to bring about a behaviour change in people which results in more ‘jabs’. Even the use of the term ‘jabs’ is a sneering shorthand and betrays a desire to normalise through colloquialism the idea of blindly accepting participation in a clinical trial of a novel gene-based therapy.

The overview sets the scene. There is no evidence that the authors feel any compunction about using manipulative techniques, like bald assertions, emotional blackmail and appeals to authority:

Each year, vaccines save thousands of lives and prevent countless sick days. But millions of older Australians at high risk of serious illness are missing out.

Then the good cop routine, with a side of gaslighting:

The pandemic has left many of us sick of vaccination, confused about which jabs we need, misled by misinformation, or complacent about the risks of not being vaccinated.

Sick ‘of’ vaccination, or sick from vaccination? Now it’s our fault, because we’re ‘confused’, or ‘misled’ or ‘complacent’.

COVID vaccination rates have plunged. At the start of winter 2023, 2.5 million people over 65 weren’t up-to-date with their vaccinations – two million more than a year earlier.

Again, our fault for not being ‘up-to-date’ – a term which is imbued with more rigour than it deserves.

The tone-deaf nature of this kind of language is astonishing. But the report isn’t really addressed to those who are not ‘up-to-date’. It’s a rent-seeking sales pitch to those who hold the treasury purse strings. Nothing more. Here is a list of the demands for taxpayer money that appear throughout the report.

  • Supporting GP clinics, pharmacies, and aged care providers to improve, with $10 million a year, for five years. (p4)
  • Piloting Community Health Workers across six PHNs, with $750,000 a year, for five years. (p4)
  • States should develop tailored local initiatives with communities that face the biggest barriers to vaccination. Federal and state governments should contribute equally to $20 million a year, for five years. (p4)
  • Funding for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation vaccination programs should be increased by $10 million a year. (p4)
  • A budget of $22 million for two years (for a new Australian Centre for Disease Control – Ed.) should be used to raise adult vaccine awareness and acceptance, and to re-set the adult vaccine narrative. (p29)
  • Across the PHNs and the states, our total proposed funding is $150 million over five years, for improving access to mainstream services and for tailored initiatives to reach persistently low-vaccination communities.
  • We therefore recommend a budget of $3 million per campaign-month for COVID and flu, for three months in each of two years, because the campaign has to reach a wider and potentially less-engaged audience than for childhood vaccines. (p54)
  • To raise awareness of shingles and pneumococcal vaccines, we recommend a budget of $2 million for two years’ worth of a two-month campaigns, equivalent to twice the spending per month on adolescent vaccines, to target a broader audience that is not easily reached through school-based vaccination programs. (p54)

Apart from the funding recommendations, the language is the thing that betrays the authors’ utilitarian view of humans, as if we are so many cattle to be herded through the crush with ever-increasing, and frankly unregulated, frequency. To wit:

The federal government should introduce vaccination ‘surges’, resetting community attitudes and making seasonal vaccination easier by:

  • Making vaccination intervals flexible for high-risk people, so more people are eligible for vaccination during surges.

What?  Just tinker with the intervals so that it doesn’t matter when you get your next shot? They have dropped all pretence to there being some sort of valid reason for a given interval.  The underlying motive could not be clearer – more shots for the sake of more shots, and more money, of course.

Only the most fleeting acknowledgement of the intrusions into our personal lives finds its way into this report. Lamenting the drop in vaccination rate, the authors write:

In December 2021, more than nine in 10 high-risk adults had been vaccinated for COVID in the previous six months. At that time, a range of vaccine mandates and restrictions were in place. By the end of February 2023, the share of high-risk people who were vaccinated in the last six months had crashed to below one in 10 (Figure 2.2).

To borrow from Saint Greta, “How dare they!” Blithely dismissing lockdowns and the devastation they inflicted on personal wellbeing, livelihood, and lives, and the outright coercion to give up bodily autonomy on pain of keeping your job, as “a range of vaccine mandates and restrictions” is insulting in the extreme. But they still hold out hope that we can be made to suffer like that again:

It is probably unrealistic to hope to repeat the high vaccination rates achieved during the worst of the pandemic. Those levels of vaccination were supported by vaccine mandates and unprecedented public health restrictions, and came in the context of surges of hospitalisations and deaths from COVID, and constant media coverage.

“Supported by vaccine mandates” is so disingenuous. It implies that mandates were a good thing. Mandates were a bad thing, and people have voted with their feet ever since they were lifted.

In their search for the mystifying reasons why people have shunned the wonder products that are so safe and effective, the authors propose a few reasons:

There are many reasons people don’t get vaccinated. Barriers can be trivial (forgetfulness), logistical (convenience), financial (not being paid for any time off work from side-effects), or even ideological (misinformation and conspiracy theories).

But they leave out a couple of big ones. How about prudence, for a start? Why accept a rushed experimental drug when there are no long term studies, by definition? For another, why trust a TGA which is funded 96% by industry?

This is a bureaucrat’s report lobbying for a bureaucratic gravy train. The patient is nowhere to be seen or heard in the entire 58 pages. New administrative organs are proposed. Experts will be required. New agreements between federal and state governments are demanded. Millions of taxpayer dollars will be needed.

The Agreement should also establish a Vaccine Implementation Committee, to coordinate effort, troubleshoot problems, and evaluate progress. This committee should be made up of experts, and representatives from federal and state governments and the Australian Centre for Disease Control (ACDC). (p24)

For bureaucrats, ‘targets’ are the stuff of dreams. Wet dreams in this case. They want to measure everything, and reward those who hit the targets. Conflict of interest, anyone? Get more vaccinations done in pharmacies? Sure – but who is better placed to advise a patient of risks and benefits?

Pharmacy vaccination should be continued, with red tape removed

The federal government has recently committed to four years of funding support for pharmacists who deliver free COVID and NIP vaccines to eligible people.

This makes it much easier to organise adult vaccines, increasing the number of locations where people can get vaccines by about 60 per cent. Increasing the pool of vaccinators also means people can more easily get vaccinated by someone who speaks their language, or who (sic) they already trust. By the end of 2022 nearly half of all COVID vaccinations were delivered in pharmacies. (p30)

The word ‘adverse’ appears only 4 times in the whole report. The most glaring example here:

Public insurance could cover other vaccination costs

Although vaccines on the National Immunisation Program are free up-front, people might worry about the cost of adverse reactions.
The government should evaluate whether Australia needs a vaccine injury compensation scheme, like 24 other countries already have. These schemes help cover costs if someone has a moderate or severe reaction to a vaccine. (p30)

No – the cost is not what people worry about. It’s the pain, disability, and death that people worry about.

I could go on about this report. But I think you get the drift.

December 2, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption | , | Leave a comment

Experts refute Australian charge claiming PLA destroyer’s use of sonar ‘unprofessional,’ question Australian frigate’s location, purpose

By Liu Xuanzun and Guo Yuandan | Global Times | November 19, 2023

Chinese experts on Sunday refuted accusations from Australia claiming that a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) destroyer used sonar to force divers from an Australian frigate to exit the water, saying that the Australian statement is vague and one-sided, and aims to hype the “China threat” theory.

The HMAS Toowoomba, an Anzac-class frigate of the Royal Australian Navy, on Tuesday sailed in “international waters inside of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone” en route to commence a scheduled port visit during “operations in support of United Nations sanctions enforcement in the region” when it stopped to conduct diving operations in order to clear fishing nets that had become entangled around its propellers, the Australian defense department said in a press release on Saturday.

While diving operations were underway, a PLA Navy destroyer, the Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyer Ningbo (Hull 139), operating in the vicinity closed toward the HMAS Toowoomba, the Australian press release said.

According to the Australian press release, the two countries’ vessels were able to establish communications, before the Australian ship detected the Chinese ship operating its hull-mounted sonar “in a manner that posed a risk to the safety of the Australian divers who were forced to exit the water.”

The Australian press release is widely questioned by Chinese military experts, especially about the vague location given where the incident is supposed to have taken place.

Zhang Junshe, a Chinese naval expert, told the Global Times on Sunday that while Australia claimed the incident happened in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, it did not give the exact location.

If the incident took place in waters to the west of Japan, China and Japan have not carried out maritime delimitation in relevant waters, so Japan’s self-proclaimed exclusive economic zone could be well within waters administered by China, Zhang said.

Another Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday that Australia likely intentionally chose not to disclose the exact location because it has a guilty conscience.

“Did the incident take place near China’s Diaoyu Islands or the island of Taiwan? Or was it close to a PLA training exercise? If that is the case, it was obvious that the Australian warship provoked China in the first place,” the expert said.

Analysts pointed out that the Australian press release is one-sided as it failed to mention the Chinese input during the communications between the two countries’ ships.

Since the Australian side admitted that it had established communications with the Chinese side, it is very likely that the Chinese ship issued verbal warnings which the Australian ship had ignored, and the Chinese ship was forced to take the ensuing step which was to send a warning through sonar, the abovementioned anonymous expert said.

Some of the main purposes of a sonar system is to detect submarines and underwater terrains, similar to how a radar system is used to detect aircraft, the expert said, explaining that active sonar generates sound waves that vibrate underwater.

Pinging with sonar is also a means to communicate, and in this case, was likely used to warn the Australian operation, the expert said.

Australia claimed that the sonar pulses likely caused minor injuries to the Australian divers, but the wording is also very vague and has no proof, analysts said.

“Australia said it had fishing nets that had become entangled around its frigate’s propellers. It shows that such a close-in reconnaissance attempt not only posed threats to China’s national security, but also to the normal maritime work of fishing boats,” Zhang said.

In the recent period, countries like Australia and Canada have been repeatedly accusing Chinese warships and warplanes of “unsafe, unprofessional” interactions, as these forces from outside of the region conducted close-in reconnaissance operations on China’s doorstep in the name of UN sanctions enforcement, observers said.

Alert patrols by Chinese warplanes and warships on China’s doorstep are normal and should not have been hyped as “China threat,” Zhang said.

These countries should stop sending warships and warplanes from thousands of kilometers away to stir up troubles and flex their muscles on China’s doorstep, experts said.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

Don’t gaslight me

By Richard Kelly | The view from down here | November 13, 2023

An email from the editor of a major daily Melbourne newspaper has come into my possession. I won’t say how, since it might incriminate me as being part of a household that pays for a subscription. Let’s just say that it’s possible that the subscription was taken out using an email address that I have access to. Or something. The very first words of the email are:

As a subscription benefit, from today [masthead name redacted] editor [name redacted] will send you an exclusive analysis of the week’s most important stories each Friday. 

That’s what I call a ‘marmalade dropper’, a statement so utterly preposterous that to read it over breakfast would cause such a fit of apoplexy that one would choke on one’s marmalade toast and drop it on the floor, for it to be consumed by the dog.

Luckily, I’d had breakfast already. Intrigued by this alleged ‘benefit’, which might better be regarded as a ‘threat’, I read on. The newish editor started off by quoting a former editor:

[Masthead redacted] “does certain things differently from other newspapers simply because … we’re not there as a means of simply passing a word from a mouth to an eye, we’ve a responsibility to our readers and to society in general”.

That is an unabashed endorsement of the practice of selecting and then framing the stories they deem fit to print, rather than simply reporting the bare facts. Then this:

Readers of [masthead redacted] want more than the kind of imitable journalism they can find on countless free-to-read news sites and unoriginal, uninspiring and sometimes unhinged publications.

The editor couldn’t resist, either through spite or an inferiority complex, a swipe at other news sites. Too gutless to name those he thinks ‘unhinged’.

It goes on:

… our readers want depth and quality, excellence and rigour. They want a publication with scruples that is willing to fight for its readers, its city, and hold power to account, without fear or favour. One that will doggedly pursue public interest investigations to shine light on the darkest parts of our society, but also celebrate Melbourne’s successes and be constructive and mature in its approach to difficult subjects.

“Fight for its readers”? Did it fight for those who were shot in the back with rubber bullets when Victoria Police corralled them at the Shrine of Remembrance? “Doggedly pursue public interest investigations”? Did they doggedly pursue the hotel quarantine fiasco? As I recall it was only Peta Credlin who had the guts to ask the then Premier any hard questions about this and other Covid crimes. Did they ever get to the bottom of who ordered the curfew? Was it the Premier, the Chief Health Officer, or the Police Commissioner?

“… be constructive and mature in its approach to difficult subjects”? What a string of weasel words that is! The translation is “ignore totally any concerns about vaccine safety and smear anyone who raises the issue”.

But there’s more. The email goes on to list the things they did talk about in the last 12 months. See if you can spot what’s missing.

… war crimes of Australia’s most decorated soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith. We promoted mature discussion about the future of Melbourne and its suburbs. We broke the news that the nation’s biggest plastic bag recycling scheme was continuing to operate even though its recycling function had collapsed, resulting in millions of bags being stuffed into warehouses across the country.

We exposed huge failings in the Department of Home Affairs across a range of stories that exposed a failure to prevent human trafficking and questionable payments of Australian taxpayer money to foreign officials. When we reported that the influential head of that department, Mike Pezzullo, had attempted to influence and cosy up to politicians, he was stood down pending an investigation.

We pored over every detail of the state government’s cancellation of the Commonwealth Games and exposed the shambolic management of that decision. We sent reporters to cover a war in the Middle East with huge emotional impacts on many in Australia, and indeed on domestic politics.

We led the coverage of one of the most extraordinary murder investigations in recent history. We’ve looked at the schools we send our children to and turned our attention to the burgeoning suburbs where Melburnians are increasingly choosing to live.

We fought for our readers’ right to know what is happening within the justice system, by opposing suppression orders and battling for access to court documents in the Magistrates’, County and Supreme Courts, all the way up to the High Court of Australia.

We’ve celebrated the city’s major events. We didn’t miss a beat during one of the great AFL seasons. We took readers inside the Lord’s Long Room at one of the most controversial moments in its history and we replayed the Bairstow dismissal as frequently as we possibly could.

What great stuff. Plastic bag recycling. Australian Rules football. Cricket dismissals. Phonics in schools. A reporter sent to a war zone. A spectator at the bankruptcy of third-world Victoria, epitomised by the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games and the Airport Rail.

There’s an enormous gaping hole in the coverage, just like there’s an enormous gaping space in the foyers of office towers all over the city, as the utter destruction of our once beautiful Melbourne echoes the utter destruction of lives and livelihoods caused by mask mandates, ‘social distancing’ and vaccine mandates. Nothing about the morality of excluding people from daily society. No mention of excess mortality. No mention of the Forest of the Fallen. Nothing about the imminent WHO changes. Nothing about the dangers of Digital ID or the Misinformation Bill. Nothing about the risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies. Evidently the editor sees no “responsibility to our readers and to society in general” in respect of these issues. I’ll be waiting for an age, I think, to get that kind of coverage.

A final quote from the email is even more chilling:

You, our subscribers, made all this and more possible by supporting our journalism. And I can assure you, this is only the start of what we believe we can accomplish as a newsroom.

So what is it that they are only at the start of accomplishing as a newsroom? What is it, other than suppressing some stories and promoting others, that they want to do?

At least I don’t pay for this stuff. Oh, wait.

November 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 2 Comments

Australian whistleblower for Afghan war crimes stands trial

Press TV – November 12, 2023

The Australian government is set to put a former military lawyer on trial for leaking classified documents about the perpetration of crimes by Australian occupation troops during the invasion of Afghanistan.

David McBride is scheduled to appear in the Supreme Court in Canberra on Monday for breaching the Defence Act and unauthorised disclosure of information. He could be facing a “life sentence” if found guilty at the Australian top court.

McBride is accused of leaking classified defence information to three senior journalists at the ABC and the then Fairfax Media newspapers.

The material later formed the basis of “The Afghan Files,” a 2017 ABC expose revealing allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan, including possible unlawful killings. The disclosures also led to a much-publicised federal police raid on the ABC’s Sydney offices in 2019.

McBride has pleaded not guilty to five charges, including the unauthorised disclosure of information, theft of commonwealth property and breaching the Defence Act.

He has not been the first or only person to reveal information about alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.

Back in 2020, an Australian military investigation confirmed that Australian forces had murdered dozens of civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

The report, released by Major General Justice Paul Brereton, determined that Australian special forces had murdered 39 civilians and prisoners, including children, in Afghanistan.

The Australian government had previously spent years trying to gag whistle-blowers or dismiss reports of wrongdoings by the country’s military personnel.

Australia, which is not a member of NATO, has had an active role in Afghanistan since the US, along with a number of its allies, invaded the country in 2001.

November 12, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | 3 Comments

A new law is about to kill free speech and democracy in Australia

By Augusto Zimmermann | RT | November 5, 2023

The Australian Government has recently introduced in Parliament a new law proposal to ban officially unapproved online content. Digital companies are expected to adopt a code of conduct which will see them censor speech based on broad, vague and far-reaching directives.

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 foreshadows the imposition of a legal obligation on digital platforms to police alleged ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. If that does not work, the law proposal provides for the full empowerment of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to directly intervene for the purpose of preventing ‘harm’.

Section 2 of the proposed legislation defines ‘harm’ as follows:

  • (a) hatred against a group in Australian society on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion or physical or mental disability;

  • (b) disruption of public order or society in Australia;

  • (c) harm to the integrity of Australian democratic processes or of Commonwealth, State, Territory or local government institutions;

  • (d) harm to the health of Australians;

  • (e) harm to the Australian environment;

  • (f) economic or financial harm to Australians, the Australian economy or a sector of the Australian economy.

The concept of ‘harm’ peddled by the bill is illusory, and its content would be subjectively determined by a powerful government agency. The definition of what is and what isn’t harm is malleable and can expand and contract depending on ACMA’s prevailing views. Ultimately, any type of speech with which the government is uncomfortable could be deemed ‘harmful’. For example, describing “disrupting social order” as serious harm could be interpreted to stop the organization of legitimate political protests. This could certainly be used to suppress legitimate political speech that should be part of a functioning democracy.

Above all, ACMA would gain sweeping powers to require any person to appear at a time and place of its choosing to answer questions about misinformation or disinformation. These powers include infringement notices, remedial directions, injunctions and civil penalties, including fines of up to AU$550,000 (US$358,000) for individuals and AU$2.75 million for corporations. Criminal penalties, including imprisonment, may also apply in cases of alleged “extreme harm.”

The provisions found in this law proposal put the communications and lives of free-thinkers, human rights defenders, independent journalists, and ordinary citizens under constant risk. They go in direct opposition to international human rights experts’ advice that “general prohibitions on the dissemination of information based on vague and ambiguous ideas, including ‘false news’ or ‘non-objective information’, are incompatible with international standards for restrictions on freedom of expression… and should be abolished.”

It is noteworthy that the Australian Government is exempted from the proposed legislation. Hence, the content issued by the government is never to be considered ‘misinformation’ but criticisms of the government by ordinary citizens can. It is certainly ironic that views incompatible with the government’s preferred narrative could be deemed to ‘harm’ the integrity of Australia’s democracy since it would disallow speech and expressive conduct that is integral to the maintenance of democratic processes.

In its 12-page submission to the Law Council, the Victorian Bar Association explains that this proposed legislation effectively creates an “unlevel playing field between governments and other speakers” that disadvantages government critics in comparison to government supporters. “The bill’s interference with the self-fulfilment of free expression will occur primarily by the chilling self-censorship it will inevitably bring about in the individual users of the relevant services,” says the Victorian Bar.

Above all, ACMA’s enforcement of the proposed legislation will inevitably stymie discussion of controversial topics, especially if they involve criticism of government policy and actions. This scenario is likely to unfold when the impugned speech is incompatible with the government’s official narrative. Thus, the proposed legislation targets those who, merely exercising their right to free speech, critically assess the desirability of government decisions and actions.

Other concerns with the proposed ‘misinformation’ legislation include the possibility of suspending the activities of internet companies in Australia if they fail to comply with the obligations created, as well as increased criminal penalties for libel and defamation which are incompatible with international human rights standards.

As can be seen, the proposed legislation constitutes a serious attack on the democratic right of Australians to free speech. Digital platforms will be legally obliged to police commentators’ discussion of controversial topics. Under this ‘misinformation’ legislation, any honest and robust debate about government policies will be effectively outlawed.

To conclude, our freedom of political communication is under attack in Australia. If the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill is enacted, then the free expression of ideas will be basically outlawed by the Australian Government. In short, the enactment of this law proposal will spell the end of authentic democracy in Australia. Australians are basically witnessing the transformation of their system of representative government into nothing more than a less open, or more disguised, form of elective dictatorship.


Augusto Zimmermann, Professor and Head of Law at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education in Australia, President of WALTA – Legal Theory Association, and former Law Reform Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia

November 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment