Libertarians consider tax to be either theft or, at best, should be low and flat to cover bare necessities. It certainly shouldn’t be as complex as it is or run to thousands of pages.
Most mainstream tax reform proponents have grandiose visions that would only add complexity and likely raise the overall tax burden. Libertarians rightly oppose those ideas as they come.
However, there is an easy win that ought to be important to libertarians: we need to limit the Commissioner of Taxation’s powers. It’s not exciting work, like developing new systems, but it is significant.
First, the Commissioner has too much power to amend assessments.
Australia has a self-assessment tax system. That means we declare income and allowable deductions, which the Commissioner accepts but can then amend if he considers the taxpayer was wrong.
Libertarians can demand fairer amendment periods, a fairer burden of proof, and less funding for the Commissioner.
For individuals the Commissioner can amend an assessment within two years. For businesses, it is usually four years.
However, the relevant section of the law for income tax – leaving aside equivalent sections for other taxes – is around 3000 words– because it contains “ifs” and “buts” to protect the Commissioner.
For example, if the Commissioner makes a tax avoidance determination, he can have four years instead of two years to change an assessment. If the Commissioner believes there has been fraud or evasion, he has an unlimited amendment period. If the Commissioner believes a particular section of the tax law relating to trusts applies, he again has an unlimited amendment period.
These powers predate most of this century’s technological advances, which enable the Commissioner to work more efficiently and collect more data. Also, many amendments to the tax law in recent years have made it easier for the Commissioner to apply the law, including changes to avoidance laws favouring the Commissioner.
It must be a libertarian position to reduce amendment periods.
Second, the Commissioner does not need to prove anything in litigation. The starkest example of this rule operating unjustly is when the Commissioner has amended a taxpayer’s assessment because he believes fraud or evasion has occurred.
The Commissioner need only believe there has been fraud or evasion.
He can form this opinion about any year – 2003, for example. And if he goes back to 2003, he will likely repeat that for many subsequent years, and he will apply penalties and interest.
Most mainstream tax reform proponents have grandiose visions that would only add complexity
Suppose the matter is in the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal or the Federal Court of Australia. The Commissioner will not need to prove the truth of his opinion. Also, it doesn’t matter if the taxpayer proves the Commissioner’s opinion was wrong. The taxpayer’s task, two decades later, is to show that its accounting was correct. Not surprisingly, most people do not have records that go back that far.
It must be a libertarian position to oppose the power to simply deem fraud, and to demand a time limit on the exercise of the fraud or evasion power. The Commissioner should have an obligation to prove fraud or evasion has occurred before the taxpayer must prove its accounts.
Third, the Commissioner is emboldened to use his amendment powers through funding. The Commissioner receives substantial funding to run the Australian Taxation Office.
Libertarians would rightly want that funding limited.
However, there is also a perpetual cycle of giving the Commissioner additional funding to use his amendment powers, particularly under the auspices of tax avoidance.
Libertarians would want that funding limited because it encourages the Commissioner to use his firmest amendment powers. It also raises questions about the management of public finances – should the Commissioner be “rewarded” with additional funding for things he should already be doing?
Libertarians can demand fairer amendment periods, a fairer burden of proof, and less funding for the Commissioner.
It would be hard to think that most taxpayers would not be libertarians regarding these issues.
A government’s balance sheet indicates whether it is engaging in intergenerational redistribution. If the government has negative net assets it is leaving future generations with more obligations than benefits. A government with positive net assets is leaving future generations with more benefits than obligations.
Governments have no advantages over individuals in making decisions about what to leave to future generations, so should leave those decisions to individuals. This means that governments should have zero net assets; their balance sheets should be balanced.
Governments in Australia do not have balanced balance sheets. The Commonwealth has a significantly negative net asset position and each of the states and territories has a significantly positive net asset position.
When it comes to setting fiscal policy, governments should ignore short-term Keynesian distractions, and focus on long-term intergenerational neutrality.
This is shown in Chart 1. It depicts public sector net asset positions relative to the size of the related economies. Commonwealth net assets are shown relative to Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while each state or territory’s net assets are shown relative to the relevant state or territory’s Gross State Product (GSP). Each jurisdiction’s public sector includes government-owned businesses such as government-owned banks.
The Commonwealth’s negative net asset position means that it is choosing to leave future generations with obligations in excess of benefits. In essence, the Commonwealth Government has locked in benefits for future generations, like security from the military assets it has accumulated to date, but has racked up far greater obligations, like obligations to pay back Commonwealth debts and fund the superannuation of retired Commonwealth public servants.
This decision of the Commonwealth Government to beggar the future is unlikely to represent the preference of Australians.
The Commonwealth Government’s intergenerational redistribution should stop, so as to leave intergenerational decisions to individuals. In other words, the Commonwealth Government should convert its negative net asset position to a zero net asset position. This should be done through a decade of surplus budgets (or surplus ‘operating results’ to be more precise) of around 2 per cent of GDP.
This could be readily achieved, for example by reducing Commonwealth Government transfers to the state and territory governments. These transfers are particularly odd given that each state and territory government is wealthier than the Commonwealth Government.
Each state and territory government’s positive net asset position means that it is choosing to leave future generations with benefits in excess of obligations. It is teeing up more benefits for future generations, like their enjoyment of public land holdings and use of infrastructure like roads, than it is racking up future obligations, like State Government debts and funding the superannuation of retired State public servants.
While leaving future generations with benefits in excess of obligations sounds nice, this is something that individuals are perfectly capable of doing without government.
Governments have no advantages over individuals in making decisions about what to leave to future generations
And the current generation may well be of the view that the degree of generosity to future generations shown by each of the state and territory governments is excessive. If there is a difference of opinion between a government and the individuals it represents, then it is the government that is wrong.
State and territory government intergenerational redistribution should be put to a stop by each government reducing its positive net asset position to net zero. This should be done through a decade of deficit budgets (or deficit ‘operating results’ to be more precise) of around 4 per cent of GDP on average.
Such deficits could be achieved by abolishing inefficient taxes like stamp duties, or by giving away assets. (Such give-aways count as losses that detract from the operating result.)
The biggest deficits should come from the wealthiest state governments, in Queensland and Victoria.
The wealth of the Victorian state government may come as a surprise. The Victorian state government has a stronger net asset position and a weaker net financial asset position than many of its counterparts (see Chart 2). It has done a lot of borrowing, which has weakened its net financial asset position, but it has done this to invest in non-financial assets. Overall this generates a positive, or at least neutral, impact on net assets.
Unfortunately for the Victorian state government, credit rating agencies tend to ignore a government’s net assets and instead focus on its net financial assets. Even more stupidly, lenders take these credit ratings into account when lending to governments. If a state or territory government wanted to defend its credit rating so as to ensure continued access to low-cost borrowing, it could still run significant deficits in line with my recommendation. It would just need to achieve these deficits by giving away non-financial assets, like land, so as to leave its net financial asset position unchanged.
When it comes to setting fiscal policy, governments should ignore short-term Keynesian distractions, and focus on long-term intergenerational neutrality.
The journalist Michael Schellenberger recently discovered that there is a formal government censorship network called the “Global Online Safety Regulators Network” (GORSN). Australia’s top Internet censor, Julie Inman Grant, an American, described it at the World Economic Forum. The group includes censors from Australia, France, Ireland, South Africa, Korea, the UK, and Fiji.
This is a concerning development for anyone who values freedom of speech and privacy. The initiative aims to create a global coalition of regulators to combat harmful online content. However, in reality it is a veiled attempt at global censorship of the internet, aimed at circumventing the protections provided by Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
At its core, GORSN seeks to coordinate censorship efforts across international borders. Libertarians and advocates of free expression have long warned against concentrated government control, arguing that it almost inevitably leads to abuse and suppression of dissenting voices.
The network’s capacity to enforce censorship and surveillance across borders is a direct threat to individual freedoms and the right to privacy.
Grant outlined the significant powers that regulators within the GORSN have at their disposal. She said that GORSN members can block internet service providers (ISPs), compel content takedowns, fine individuals or platforms that host offensive content, and impose other punitive measures as deterrents. Additionally, Grant discussed a new legislative framework that allows regulators to enforce basic online safety expectations. This framework’s scope suggests that GORSN aims to exercise substantial control over the internet, raising concerns about censorship, regulatory overreach, and the broader impact on freedom of expression and privacy.
Another alarming aspect of GORSN is its potential to invade privacy on a global scale. Grant’s remark that the network had the power to compel “basic device information and account information” are a stark warning that the network could enable mass surveillance. For libertarians, privacy is a very high priority and the notion that regulators could gather personal data without appropriate oversight is a worrying development. Broad powers to compel information from tech platforms suggests that GORSN could become a mechanism for government surveillance on an international level.
Grant’s mention of social media companies increasingly collecting phone numbers and email addresses raises the spectre of a surveillance state, where governments can easily track individuals and monitor their online activities. This level of intrusion into personal privacy should be of concern to anyone who believes in the right to remain anonymous and free from unwarranted government scrutiny.
GORSN’s push for global identity requirements and restrictions on VPNs is a direct assault on digital autonomy. VPNs are essential tools for maintaining privacy and accessing information freely, especially in countries with oppressive internet regulations. Any move to limit their use would further erode individual freedoms and strengthen authoritarian regimes.
The centralised control proposed by GORSN threatens to undermine the fundamental principle of a decentralised internet where individuals can maintain their anonymity and exercise their rights without fear of government intrusion, leading to an internet that is more tightly monitored and regulated by governments with varying degrees of respect for freedom and democracy.
GORSN seeks to coordinate censorship efforts across international borders
The sheer scope of GORSN’s power, including the ability to fine content hosts, compel takedowns, and block ISPs, is a classic case of regulatory overreach. When governments are given this level of authority, the risk of abuse is high. Such power can be used to suppress dissent, stifle criticism, and enforce a particular worldview, all under the guise of “online safety.”
From a libertarian perspective, the existence of GORSN is a troubling development that undermines the ideals of a decentralised internet. The network’s capacity to enforce censorship and surveillance across borders is a direct threat to individual freedoms and the right to privacy. Instead of a collaborative effort to address harmful content, GORSN represents a centralised approach that risks creating a global surveillance state.
The Global Online Safety Regulators Network is a danger to internet freedom. Its focus on centralised control, coupled with its broad powers, sets a dangerous precedent for governments seeking to extend their reach into the digital world. As the network gains momentum, it is crucial that libertarians and other advocates of free speech push back against this overreach and defend the principles of a decentralised internet.
Platforms like X and Rumble have taken public stances opposing intrusive government requests for content takedowns and data collection. Chris Pavlovski, the founder of Rumble, highlighted this issue in a recent post on X, stating, “Rumble has received censorship demands from Australia, New Zealand, and other countries that infringe on everyone’s human rights. We are noticing a dramatic increase in global censorship unlike we’ve ever seen before.” Elon Musk, the owner of X, endorsed this sentiment, indicating a shared concern among tech leaders.
But it takes more than a couple of tech leaders to fight censorship. To push back against government intrusion and censorship there are several measures that individuals can undertake. Support platforms that actively resist censorship and champion free speech, use VPNs to preserve online privacy and bypass censorship. Importantly, connect through servers in countries that are not part of the GORSN. This can help avoid unwanted surveillance and ensure a greater degree of anonymity while online.
Expectations of the role of the government have been rising steadily over the last decade. They rose substantially during the eastern states’ bushfires in late 2019 and early 2020, and again in response to the floods that followed in NSW and Queensland. And they reached stratospheric levels during the Covid panic.
Judged by the number of lives lost, those bushfires were far from the worst on record. Nonetheless, they were characterised as ‘unprecedented’ and prompted a chorus of demands for the Prime Minister to get involved. When it was discovered he had gone to Hawaii for a holiday with his family, he was accused of being negligent for leaving the country at such a time.
The Prime Minister did not leave the country when NSW and Queensland were hit by floods, but the opprobrium he attracted could hardly have been worse if he did. The floods were again described as unprecedented amid a chorus of claims the government should have acted sooner and done more.
The Covid schemozzle was obviously unprecedented and nobody could go anywhere. Once again, the Prime Minister and federal government were blamed – there were insufficient vaccines, the border should have been closed sooner, hotel quarantine was a failure, lockdowns were inadequate, plus a multitude of other perceived failures. All this despite the worst harm being done by state governments.
Thousands of kids were inspired to join the surf lifesavers, setting an example for the rest of the world.
Perhaps it is not surprising that many people think of the Prime Minister and the federal government when they think of ‘the government’. Federal politics tends to dominate the news, while the public’s understanding of our system of government is pretty dismal. Much of the media is pretty ignorant too, although hostility to Liberal leaders is also a factor.
But what these narratives reveal is that the expectations now placed on governments, of any kind, are higher than they have ever been. Whether it is floods, fires, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones or disease outbreaks, there is a popular and growing view that the government should not only be there to pick up the pieces, but should have anticipated the calamity and done everything possible to head it off.
By any standard this is both ridiculous and contradictory. Government is, after all, made up of politicians and public sector bureaucrats. Neither are experts at how the real world works so cannot possibly know what to do.
Most people readily acknowledge that governments are inefficient, bureaucratic and slow, yet somehow cling to the belief that next time will be different and more government will get it right.
In fact, Australia’s problem is too much government. From petty, intrusive local councils to authoritarian state governments and over-taxing, over-spending, ‘more money will fix it’ federal government, there is just too much of it.
The problem with this is obvious. The world is complex and changing – in social attitudes, world economics, geo-politics and of course technology. There is no way that politicians, public sector bureaucrats or regulators can hope to supervise or manage it. They are also often remote from the problems – how, for example, can a bureaucrat in Canberra possibly know enough to make a decision about a cyclone in Broome?
The famous economist Friedrich Hayek noted how difficult it was for people to fathom that local decision making leads to more efficient outcomes than central planning by politicians and public sector bureaucrats.
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions.”
Expectations of the role of government have been rising steadily over the last decade.
There was a time, not that long ago, when Australia was a proud volunteer society. Moreover, almost everything was local.
Thousands of kids were inspired to join the surf lifesavers, setting an example for the rest of the world. Volunteer fire fighters saved whole communities. Dozens of charities, not just the Salvation Army and Red Cross, all volunteers, provided help and hope to those in need.
Indeed, prior to the emergence of the welfare state in the second half of the twentieth century, volunteer charities were involved in health care, childcare, education, unemployment and disability support. In the nineteenth century you would have been considered weird if you had predicted that most of these would end up being run by governments. These days you’d be called weird for suggesting volunteers might do them better.
Volunteers are still the first responders in many fire and flood emergencies as families, neighbours and friends rally around. Next are typically agencies such the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service in NSW, and their equivalents in the other states. Both are still volunteer based, although increasingly under the control of full-time public servants and subject to the inefficiencies of government bureaucracy. In Victoria, the sad decline of the CFA at the hands of the unions is an example of that.
A tragic example of the harm being done to our volunteer society was seen during the Covid pandemic when many volunteers were required to be fully vaccinated. Unvaccinated volunteers were turned away and not permitted to fight fires or rescue flood victims, even when working outside where infection was rare.
Even after it became obvious that Covid vaccines did not prevent infection or transmission, the obligation to be fully vaccinated was retained. This was not only unscientific but also destructive. It seriously undermined the capacity of those organisations to help people. In NSW, RFS volunteers on the Central Coast fell by about 50% and in other areas SES volunteers left and some SES stations closed.
It also led to increasing demands for the federal government to bring in the ADF. Obviously ADF members are not volunteers, but they are also not intended to be used as emergency workers. Indeed, using the ADF for anything other than the defence of the country undermines its purpose and reduces its capabilities.
While we sometimes hear governments claiming to honour volunteers, the trend is downhill. The more red tape, bureaucratic oversight and regulation imposed, the more volunteers bail out.
‘We will continue to be your single source of truth.
Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth’.
So said former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.
Covid
When Covid hit in 2020, people had no reason to doubt what they were being told by their political leaders.
However, the pandemic very quickly exposed the incompetence of many in the medical and scientific establishment, with politicians and public sector bureaucrats making up rules as they went along, and ramping up censorship.
Suggestions that the virus might have come from a lab leak, or anything negative about masks or vaccines, soon became misinformation or disinformation and was immediately censored.
Politicians, public sector bureaucrats, pharmaceutical company executives, all in cahoots with one another, blatantly lied to us. The early bootleggers were amateurs compared with these people.
They were wrong on lockdowns. They were wrong on border closures. They were wrong on school closures. They were wrong on masking. They were wrong about vaccines.
Poor people were hurt the most.
Anyone, including qualified medical professionals, who said Covid vaccines were causing serious side-effects and possibly a significant number of deaths, were silenced and threatened.
The Australian Law Reform Commission has already recommended the removal of the right for Christian schools to hire staff who share their values.
Academics who had been studying lockdowns were also blacklisted. Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at the US’s Stanford University, was one of them. ‘Censorship of scientific discussion led to policies like school closures,’ he said. ‘A generation of children were hurt.’
At the behest of governments, social media platforms removed any and all content which questioned the safety or efficacy of the vaccines.
In April 2021, the Coalition government had Instagram remove a post which claimed that ‘Covid-19 vaccine does not prevent Covid-19 infection or Covid-19 transmission’, a statement that clearly was accurate.
Ivermectin was prohibited from being prescribed in Australia from January 2021, by which time the vaccination rate had reached 98%. Prohibition of Ivermectin was enforced right until the very end of the vaccine roll-out.
We now know the Covid-19 vaccines were neither safe nor effective. They did not prevent infection or transmission and have been linked to blood clots, heart conditions and other ‘died suddenly’ events.
A peer-reviewed study published in January 2024, found that more deaths were caused by the mRNA vaccines than were saved by it. Other studies suggest the widespread use of ivermectin could have saved many lives.
As Thomas Sowell once said, “It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions into the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
Climate Change and Renewable Energy
Probably no other area of public debate has been more manipulated than climate change.
What started as ‘the greenhouse effect’, soon became ‘global warming’ which morphed into the now all-encompassing ‘climate change’.
To up the ante even more, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated recently, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived”.
Global boiling obviously hasn’t yet reached the poles, as Arctic ice is currently at its greatest extent in more than 20 years.
Renowned quantum physics scholar Dr John Clauser, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics has stated, ‘I do not believe there is a climate crisis’.
More bootleggers, in the form of renewable energy merchants, have leapt on to the climate change bandwagon with unbridled zeal and are raking in billions of dollars gaming the system, raising energy prices, impoverishing consumers, destroying jobs, and fleecing taxpayers.
Indigenous matters
Toddlers and pre-schoolers in childcare centres across Australia are being taught that Australia was stolen from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Qualified medical professionals, who said Covid vaccines were causing serious side-effects and possibly a significant number of deaths, were silenced and threatened.
More than 7,000 schools and daycare centres now have formal ‘acknowledgements of country’ in place, which includes children singing or reciting that the land on which they sit belongs to Indigenous people.
At SDN (formerly Sydney Day Nursery) Children’s Services in the ACT, kindy kids are taught about ‘stolen land’ as they recite an acknowledgement of country each morning.
‘The foundation for this learning begins when the children enter the centre as infants’, the organisation says on its website.
‘Now older preschoolers participate in the daily ritual of acknowledging country to build on the explicit teaching about stolen land.’
As NSW Libertarian Party MP John Ruddick said, ‘children were being indoctrinated to feel ashamed of their country’.
The Religious Freedom Bill
There is no doubt that any ‘religious exemptions’ in the Bill will not make life less hazardous for faith-based organisations.
While certain religious groups which might comprise Labor’s voting base will be protected, other religious groups most likely will not.
As we have seen recently, clear examples of the crime of incitement to violence – perpetrated seemingly with impunity – will, undoubtedly, be given more latitude.
The only currency that matters is power – getting it and holding on to it.
Attaining power these days involves denigrating and silencing your opponents in any way possible: censoring them, branding what they say as misinformation, disinformation or malinformation, with the primary aim being to prevent them getting their message out.
As has been observed, ‘When ideas are bad, censorship will always be more attractive than debate.’
In a recent renewable energy report, Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Andrew Dyer summed up in one concise sentence why governments relish powers like the ones being proposed.
Dyer said, “Opposition is often driven by ‘misinformation’.”
That is what is called a ‘shibboleth’.
Shibboleth is a Hebrew word meaning ‘stream’. It is referred to in the Old Testament book of Judges, where Jephthah and the men of Gilead fought the Ephraimites and captured the Jordan River crossing. As people crossed the river, to distinguish who was friend from foe, they had everyone say the word ‘shibboleth’. If they couldn’t pronounce it properly, they knew they were the enemy. From this, the word shibboleth was absorbed into the English language to describe a key identifier or a dead give-away.
What we saw in the Energy Commissioner’s comment was that dead give-away.
Once this Bill is law, all the government has to do is label something ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ to have it shut down. Presto! Any opposition is eliminated.
Historically, the media has fought hard to maintain freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
Internationally, ‘misinformation and disinformation’ have risen to number one on the list of top 10 risks cited by the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Risks Report 2024.
Addressing the recent WEF conference, European Union President Ursula von der Leyen said: ‘Like in all democracies, our freedom comes with risks. There will always be those who try to exploit our openness, both from inside and out. There will always be attempts to put us off track – for example, with ‘misinformation and disinformation.’
The politics of fear
Fear has always been a powerful political motivator. Fear makes people accept things they wouldn’t otherwise accept.
In the 16th Century, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a book that would influence political strategy and tactics for the next 500 years.
Machiavelli’s book centred on the use of fear to control the masses – ‘The best course of action for a ruler to take is to instil fear in the people’, he said.
And for people to not only fear what might happen, but that they would also ‘fear the worst’.
Minister Rowland has said misinformation and disinformation pose a threat to ‘the safety and wellbeing of Australians’ and ‘to our democracy, society and economy’.
This is the politics of fear.
And the antidote to fear is knowledge – information, facts, figures. Which is why they want the power to prevent people from receiving it.
Conflating issues also plays a useful role.
As well as the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, Minister Rowland has also announced a review of the Online Safety Act, saying the government is committed to introducing a revised version of its ‘internet censorship laws’.
The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) hit back:
“It is completely disingenuous for the Minister to seek to conflate the protection of Australians from predators online with the federal government’s plan to empower bureaucrats in Canberra (ACMA) with the right to determine what is truth, and to censor mainstream opinion through its ‘misinformation’ bill,” said the IPA’s John Storey.
“The federal government is cravenly using heightened concerns about current tensions in parts of our community, and the fears of parents and others about harmful online content, as a trojan horse to push forward laws that will in practice impose political censorship,” he said.
Climate Change
South Australia’s chief public health officer, Professor Nicola Spurrier, recently warned that the nation is facing a state of “permacrisis” as climate change fuels ‘back-to-back natural disasters and the emergence of new diseases’.
In her biennial report on the state of public health, Prof. Spurrier calls climate change ‘the most significant global threat to human health’, saying the planet is getting hotter and is experiencing more extreme weather events such as flooding and bushfires.
‘We need to respond to this threat today, not tomorrow or in the distant future,’ her report states. ‘These changes to the climate are caused by humans.’
Prof. Spurrier’s report says this will lead to exacerbation of chronic diseases such as heart, lung and kidney disease; damaged food crops; increased risk of food poisoning and water contamination; injuries from flooding and bushfires; and even an increase in snake bites after floods.
‘Other health impacts from climate change include poor air quality due to increased dust and pollens and the emergence of serious new communicable diseases in South Australia, such as Japanese encephalitis virus,’ she says.
Mercifully, she spared us plagues of locusts and frogs and the Murray River turning to blood.
Attaining power these days involves denigrating and silencing your opponents in any way possible
This is ‘permacrisis’ – permanent crisis – putting communities into a permanent state of climate fear.
Machiavelli would be proud.
The Voice to Parliament Referendum
When the Yes side didn’t win the Voice Referendum, they immediately blamed, you guessed it – misinformation.
Yes campaign director Dean Parkin, said the referendum result was due to ‘the single largest misinformation campaign that this country has ever seen’.
Yes campaign spokesperson Thomas Mayo blamed the ‘disgusting No campaign, a campaign that has been dishonest, that has lied to the Australian people’.
Teal MP Zali Steggell even introduced a private members’ bill with the title Stop the Lies.
Ms Steggall stated that it was clear that the information people had access to through the course of the Voice debate was ‘heavy with misleading and deceptive facts’.
Got that? ‘Misleading and deceptive facts’, the very definition of malinformation.
Governments, technology and third-party collaborators
Baptists and Bootleggers
Whenever there is money to be made, opportunities to do business with governments – that is, do the government’s bidding in exchange for special access and privileges – present themselves. Cosy relationships between businesspeople and governments are as old as regulation itself.
What can give these relationships real potency is what has been called the ‘Baptists and Bootleggers’ phenomenon. The term stems from the 1920s’ Prohibition days, when members of the US government received bribes and donations from Bootleggers – criminals and businesspeople eager to maintain a scarcity (and resulting high price) of their product (alcohol). These same Members of Congress then justified maintaining the prohibition by publicly adopting the moral cause of the Baptists.
The same applies here. A moral cause – ‘threats to the safety and wellbeing of Australians’, and financial rewards to those assisting governments in their pursuit of power.
Historically, the media has fought hard to maintain freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
However, new media have no such compunction. As more and more people source their news through Google, Facebook, X, Tik Tok, Instagram and other social media platforms, these global behemoths exert more and more power and influence. And while the old press barons took free speech seriously, big tech sees no problem at all in doing the government’s bidding – provided the government maintains their ‘platform, not publisher’ status and the advertising money keeps flowing. Al Capone may have invented bootlegging, but big tech has certainly perfected it.
Tech entrepreneur and former Google insider Tristan Harris says we are in the midst of a ‘great social upheaval’. Technology, he says, is being used to attack the very foundation of what we trust. ‘We are entering a Digital Dark Age’.
Digital IDs Drivers’ licences, proof of age cards, passports, Medicare cards, birth certificates, home addresses, MyGov IDs, tax returns, credit cards and banking details, remote-controlled smart meters on our homes, digital certificates of title for our properties. Once these are all linked – as the government ads say, ‘bringing together government and industry’, the government’s control will be complete.
Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly, ‘Tis the prettiest little parlour, that ever you did spy, Oh no, no! then said the fly, to ask me is in vain, For who goes up to your winding stair,
Can ne’er come down again.
Mary Howitt’s old poem could well be describing another web, the one that ensnares us all – the world-wide-web.
Every aspect of our lives is connected to this web – most notably our source of nearly all the information on which we base life’s decisions. It is because of this web, that we are now in this predicament.
We have all been caught, and to quote Mary Howitt, we’re ‘ne’er coming down again’.
In January 2023, the Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, announced that the Albanese Government would introduce new laws to provide the media regulator – the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) – with ‘new powers to combat online misinformation and disinformation’.
The proposed new bill, the Communication Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill, would:
The government, of course, will not be subject to any of these new laws. It has exempted itself.
– Enable ACMA to gather information from global tech companies and require them to keep certain records about matters regarding misinformation and disinformation and provide those records to ACMA.
– Enable ACMA to request industry to develop, vary and/or register a code of practice covering measures to combat misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms, which ACMA could then register and enforce.
– Allow ACMA to create and enforce an industry standard, should a code of practice be deemed ineffective in combatting misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms
– Empower ACMA to regulate electoral and referendum content, but NOT the power to regulate political parties with regard to misleading and/or deceptive conduct.
– Empower the Minister to direct ACMA to conduct investigations into any matter regarding misinformation or disinformation and empower the Minister to set the terms of reference for any such investigation.
The Bill also provides for significant penalties for digital platforms or individuals that do not comply with the Bill and/or the new codes and standards the Bill creates. Penalties include:
– Imprisonment of up to 12 months for providing false or misleading information to ACMA.
– Non-attendance at an ACMA investigation hearing of up to 33 penalty units ($9,000) for each day of non-attendance.
– Non-compliance with a registered code of up to 10,000 penalty units ($2.75 mill) or 2% of global turnover (whatever is greater).
– Non-compliance with an industry standard of up to 25,000 penalty units ($6.88 mill) or 5% of global turnover (whatever is greater).
Other penalties may also apply.
The government, of course, will not be subject to any of these new laws. It has exempted itself.
Every aspect of our lives is connected to this web – most notably our source of nearly all the information on which we base life’s decisions.
Ms Rowland said the government was committed to introducing legislation that would fine social media companies for allowing misinformation or disinformation to be broadcast on their platforms.
Misinformation is defined as ‘false information that is spread due to ignorance, or by error or mistake, without the intent to deceive’.
Disinformation is defined as ‘false information designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion or obscure the truth for malicious or deceptive purposes.’
“In the face of seriously harmful content that sows division, undermines support for pillars of our democracy, or disrupts public health responses, doing nothing is not an option.
“The proposal would empower the regulator to examine the systems and processes these tech giants already have in place, and develop standards should industry self-regulation measures prove insufficient in addressing the threat posed by misinformation and disinformation”.
Harsh words indeed.
In its submission to the draft bill, the Law Council of Australia warned that the proposal could have a ‘chilling effect on freedom of expression’ by allowing social media giants and the communications watchdog (ACMA) to decide what constitutes information, opinion and claims online.
And in case anyone is thinking this is solely a Labor Party contrivance, before the 2022 election the Morrison government pledged to, ‘… introduce stronger laws to combat harmful disinformation and misinformation onlineby giving the media regulator stronger information-gathering and enforcement powers’.
To cap it all off, waiting in the wings is ‘mal-information’, defined as ‘truth which is used to inflict harm on a person, organisation or country’ and ‘information that stems from the truth, but is often portrayed in a way that misleads and/or causes potential harm.’
To invoke Climate Czar and former US Presidential candidate Al Gore, malinformation might be otherwise described as ‘an inconvenient truth’.
Another day, another court case, and the scandal that just keeps on giving… keeps on giving.
Justice Michael Lee has handed down his verdict in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation suit against Channel Ten and Lisa Wilkinson — and what a curious judgement it is. On the one hand, Lee states what has been obvious from the beginning, that both Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann are “unreliable historians”. Both, as he notes, have told a great many lies.
He also hints that the case would likely not have passed the bar of a criminal trial.
Yet, for all that, he feels justified in “I just reckon”ing what happened in a senator’s office that night.
‘I’m convinced … that sexual intercourse did take place, and that took place with Mr Lehrmann on top of Ms Higgins on the couch in the minister’s office’
Yet, the only evidence for this is the assertion of a woman whom he also says “was not fully aware of her surroundings”.
The only thing that’s certain about this whole sordid affair is that the media-political class will continue to exploit it for all they can milk.
Justice Lee states that, as video and witness evidence shows, both Lehrmann and Higgins were drinking and “passionately kissing and posing for selfies taken by Ms Higgins”. Higgins also willingly accompanied Lehrmann on the fateful Uber ride, when everyone else elected to go home. He further just reckons that:
He has found it’s unlikely Brittany Higgins said “no”, and more likely she was passive during the incident.
Those of us unburdened by a prestigious legal career might be given to wonder how the learned judge feels justified in making such a crucial statement, given that he is, as he says, relying on two most unreliable people.
Still, he’s the learned judge, and I’m just a tosser with a keyboard. I guess we’ll just have to defer to his learned wisdom.
Bruce Lehrmann “told deliberate lies” when giving evidence, but is not a compulsive liar, Justice Michael Lee says.
As such, he will not accept any evidence from Mr Lehrmann unless it is corroborated by a reliable witness or a document, or amounts to an admission.
Yet he accepts Higgins’ uncorroborated evidence, despite also finding that she also lied about a great many key matters, and,
“selectively curated material” on her phone before handing it over to the AFP and “told untruths when it suited her”.
The scandal that just keeps on giving… keeps on giving
At least one of Justice Lee’s findings is indisputable:
Justice Michael Lee says the Bruce Lehrmann defamation matter has become “a proxy for broader cultural and political conflicts.”
He said responses to the judgment would vary, due to a variety of responses and attitudes to sexual assault.
“Some jump to predetermined conclusions because they are disposed to be sceptical about complaints of sexual assault, and hold stereotype beliefs about the expected behaviour of rape victims described by social scientists as rape myths,” he said.
“Others say they believe all women, surrendering their critical faculties by embracing and acting upon a slogan arising out of the #MeToo movement.
“Some have predetermined views as to the existence or otherwise of a conspiracy to suppress a rape for political purposes.”
The claims of a political conspiracy are blown out of the water.
Justice Michael Lee says any allegation of a political cover-up of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins is “objectively short on facts”. (The Australian)
Which, if nothing else, casts a grave shadow on the Albanese government’s weaponisation of the case.
The only thing that’s certain about this whole sordid affair is that the media-political class will continue to exploit it for all they can milk. And that a woman who “told untruths when it suited her” is now at least $2.5m richer, courtesy of the same politicians who falsely peddled a “a conspiracy to suppress a rape”, for their own obvious political gain.
“By 2050, over three-quarters (155 of 204) of countries will not have high enough fertility rates to sustain population size over time; this will increase to 97% of countries (198 of 204) by 2100.”
Global fertility in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2021, with forecasts to 2100: a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021, Lancet.
Fertility rates around the world are falling off a cliff. From 1950 to 2021, total fertility rate (TFR) more than halved from 4.84 to 2.23 globally. By 2021, over half of all countries and territories were below replacement level of two births per woman.
Prolonged fertility rates of 1.3 children per woman reduce a country’s population by half in less than 45 years. Many European countries have already reached this point. Australia’s current fertility rate is 1.63 births per woman.
The world is experiencing a real baby bust.
Robust fertility rates are essential for economic prosperity and societal stability. They ensure a continuous influx of a younger workforce, fostering economic growth through increased productivity and innovation. Moreover, higher fertility rates stabilise social systems by providing intergenerational support for older demographics. Additionally, growing populations drive consumer demand, promoting market expansion and providing business opportunities crucial for sustained economic development.
Economic downturns, including a lack of affordable housing, also often prompt couples to delay having children, at least temporarily.
From a libertarian standpoint, robust fertility rates underscore individual freedom, allowing people to make autonomous decisions about family size without undue interference. Furthermore, they contribute to economic self-sufficiency, reducing reliance on government welfare programs and fostering a culture of personal responsibility. Sustainable population growth also maintains market dynamics, encouraging competition, innovation, and entrepreneurship organically, without the need for artificial population control measures.
Governments know that a population in decline is a bad thing. In a bid to increase fertility rates, numerous countries have implemented pro-natalist policies. According to the United Nations, 10% of countries had such policies in 1976, 15% in 2001 and 28% in 2015 (being their most recent data). However, assessing the results of these is quite challenging.
Governments often fail to reevaluate their policies, including those designed to increase birth rates. This phenomenon was described by Milton Friedman: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
Governments are spending big, but have not stopped to study the results of their pro-natalist policies. From the available evidence, it appears clear that pro-natalist policies result in small and transient effects on total fertility rates.
The USSR pioneered the implementation of pro-natalist policies.Following the fall of the union, some countries in Central and Eastern Europe continued pro-natalist benefits in spite of severe economic conditions and budgetary pressures.
Two examples from 2005 – in Czechia, spending per child equalled 60.8% of GDP per capita, and 51.3% in Slovakia. These are twice the average of OECD high income countries, which was 26.8%. The birth rate increase in both countries was modest: Czechia’s birth rate in 2005 was 1.29; by 2010 it was 1.51 and by 2021 it was 1.83, still not at replacement level. Slovakia’s birthrate in 2005 was 1.25. By 2010, it was 1.34 and in 2023 it was 1.55.
By 2021, over half of all countries and territories were below replacement level of two births per woman.
From 2007 to 2016, Russia offered mothers who had their second or third child 250,000 roubles (about US$12,000), approximately the average annual income. Evidence suggests that the birth rate for women aged 25-29 increased from 78.4 per 1000 women in 2006 to 99.8 in 2011. However, the annual birth rate change dropped from +2.460% in 2013 to -0.320% in 2014 and has remained negative ever since. In other words, it only had a short term effect.
Complex social and economic factors intersect to shape fertility patterns. These are far beyond the purview of government control. High-income countries particularly witness a steep decline in fertility rates, possibly influenced by increased educational opportunities and changing societal expectations. Later marriage, postponed childbearing and an increase in single motherhood all emerge as trends, as a country’s income levels increase.
We also see factors such as higher levels of education empowering women, and evolving cultural norms around marriage and career aspirations. This is particularly noticeable in the United States, which has decreased fertility rates among second-generation immigrants.
Economic downturns, including a lack of affordable housing, also often prompt couples to delay having children, at least temporarily. This has been seen in the United States, where fertility rates have been declining since 2008.
From a libertarian perspective, declining fertility rates are of concern. However, the question is whether governments should continue to spend money on costly pro-natalist policies. For example, is spending billions on childcare and paid parental leave preferable to allowing single income families to split their income for taxation purposes? Not likely.
The government should concern itself with removing obstacles. By prioritising individual freedom and self-reliance, individuals would be encouraged and empowered to make their own decisions regarding their own family size, without government intrusion.
By promoting a culture of autonomy and self-reliance, libertarian solutions would address declining fertility rates while respecting individual liberties and preserving economic vitality.
Shortly after 4pm on the 27th of March, the X account @churPanic commenced a live broadcast on a mobile phone from the streets of Gisborne, New Zealand.
Against a backdrop of community outrage at taxpayer-funded Rainbow Storytime in the local library, a pedestrian crossing had been whitewashed. Residents of this small North Island town were protesting at the repainting of it in the colours of the Rainbow flag. There was a heavy police presence manhandling the demonstrators and making arrests.
Minutes earlier the livestream on Facebook from one of the protest groups had gone dark when police arrested the cameraman. It didn’t take long for the internet to discover the small @churPanic account on another platform: a link to his broadcast was rapidly shared and reshared, and hundreds of people tuned in. Two hours later tens of thousands had watched the footage. Shortly after midnight photojournalist Chris De Bruyne in Sydney published a subtitled remix of a clip someone else had cut from the original as a service to the deaf community. 75,000 people viewed De Bruyne’s version. It was one of many.
Within a day hundreds of thousands – if not millions – had watched the footage in one form or another, most with no idea of its origin. This is raw news, proliferating through the democratising process of the internet.
And it’s killing mainstream media.
4pm is too late in the day for the story to make the 6 o’clock news on TV channels. The first mainstream coverage was at 9 pm in online newspapers and late evening broadcasts. By the time the creaking legacy media fabricated a narrative fitting their editorial slant for consumption by a domestic New Zealand audience, the entire world had already seen @churPanic’s footage in one form or another and formulated their own interpretations.
Legacy media perceive the social media giants as the greatest threat to their business models.
Blatant biases aside, the reason for the demise of the legacy media is their slavish devotion to antiquated businesses models that stymie innovation. In failing to evolve, audiences have abandoned them for more reliable sources elsewhere, and advertisers have shifted with them.
The legacy media isn’t going down without a fight though, and its death throes are interesting to observe. Far from reviewing their own approach, the legacy media have declared war on everyone else: social media corporations, independents, imagined disinformation programmes by shadowy international organisations, even their own audiences.
The reality the legacy media refuses to accept is that We, The People, Are The Media Now. Where once it was said to be unwise to “quarrel with a man who buys his ink by the barrel”, the reality isthatevery person today has a video camera in their pocket with social media providing the capability to reach millions with the click of a button. In seeking out alternative information sources, the people changed the channel.
Back to Chris De Bruyne. It’s mid-afternoon on the 24th of March and British author Douglas Murray is speaking in Sydney. Murray’s presence attracts a pro-Palestine demonstration, one of whom assaults a pro-Israel counter-demonstrator in full view of NSW police, who don’t intervene. The incident is caught in De Bruyne’s livestream which, as an experienced independent, he broadcasts with an embedded watermark. Realising the newsworthiness, he offers to sell the footage to the major Australian news agencies, all of whom decline.
Citizen journalists and independents are, after all, objects of derision amongst the great and good of legacy news desks. They are qualified to arbitrate content to the public while De Bruyne, in their opinion, is not. But they rip off his footage anyway.
At 9pm Rita Panahi introduces the story on Sky News with the watermarked livefeed, scraped from De Bruyne’s social media account. She’s doing him a favour; other channels broadcast his material with the watermark blurred out.
Against a backdrop of community outrage at taxpayer-funded Rainbow Storytime in the local library, a pedestrian crossing had been whitewashed.
Paying compensation for copyright infringement is relatively inexpensive on the rare occasions an independent has the financial means to sustain litigation. As a bonus, legacy media can avoid the operational costs of employing cameramen in the field while there is content to be misappropriated and independents who can be exploited.
It happens to De Bruyne so regularly he keeps a spreadsheet.
Legacy media perceive the social media giants as the greatest threat to their business models. Utilising their incestuous relationships with predominantly left-wing political parties, they’re forcing those platforms to pay compensation for disseminating local news content. In Australia it’s called the News Media Bargaining Code and in New Zealand, the Fair Digital News Media Bargaining Bill.
The irony of demanding fees to redistribute their content whilst they themselves habitually infringe the copyright of independent producers is lost on the legacy media. But the deliciousness of the irony is that it isn’t the social media platforms that are their enemy. Rather, it’s the people who utilise them. While legacy media are distracted by a war they cannot win with social media corporations, Chris in Sydney and some bloke who goes by the handle “@churPanic” in Gisborne are the people on the ground, reshaping the media landscape by delivering unvarnished news and enabling audiences to reach their own conclusions.
And they are one component of a much broader trend. Traditionally trained journalists such as Chris Lynch Media in Christchurch are increasingly going independent. Blogs such as The BFD in Auckland are evolving into fully-fledged media operations. Writers publish to their subscribers on sites such as Substack in the first instance and take offers from legacy media to republish.
Desperate to navigate the new realities of a dying industry, NZME appointed a blogger to head their NewstalkZB+ division. Alternative media operators have emerged with innovative business models as varied as The Platform, financed by old money, and RCR, with support from their audience. The Underground Daily provide platforms to deliver services enabling new talent.
Collectively these individuals and organisations comprise the new media landscape. Legacy media no longer controls the medium. It is the independents that create the message because content is king and they produce it. Time will tell, and the market will decide, if these new players can develop revenue streams beyond advertising to sustain themselves.
But one thing is certain: the media landscape belongs to them and its future is theirs to determine.
