The proposed "Misinformation and disinformation" bill

is wrong. This is the  proposed Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill which gives the Communications and Media Authority increased powers of censorship to "combat misinformation and disinformation".

It sounds good in one way. It would be good to think there would be ways of getting rid of information which is harmful but it won't work like that.  It is much more likely it will negatively impact what we like to call "freedom of expression" and the free flow of opinion. It is much more likely it will be used by government to prevent information being available.

The recent referendum would almost certainly have passed if the legislation had been in place. The "no" side would not have been able to raise the issues they did. This would not have been because they were "misinformed" or "misinforming" or because they were using "disinformation" but because the government could have used the proposed law to suggest they were doing that. The "no" arguments did not suit the government's agenda. In other words the government could use the legislation to censor anything which went against their agenda.

They could also use it to censor opinion pieces about topics like climate change and renewable energy, vaccinations, race relations, proposed developments in sensitive areas of any kind and much more. The "but we won't do that" protests are ridiculous. Any government would use it in that way, especially if it meant retaining power. Indeed the proposed legislation actually excludes the government from being subject to all this.

I don't like any of that but there is something else that concerns me even more. It seems to me that all this is going to have an enormous impact on the free flow of actual information. We are going to be less well informed as a result. We are going to be less informed in a country which requires attendance at the ballot box. Misinformation and disinformation will still be there but people will be more ready to believe it. They will believe it because we will now be told that we are rid of such things. There will be "underground" sources of information, especially from cranks and crackpots who find their way around the legislation. There will not be the opinion pieces in the press and other media. Columnists will not be free to express their views in quite the same way.

Of course all of that may come as a relief to some. They will no longer need to think at all. They will simply need to be told. As for those of us who try to write a blog....