David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor's shocking misinformation bill is an absolute disgrace—an appalling piece of legislation which would substantially restrict free speech in this nation. Remarkably, the government has managed to bring together pretty much all sectors of Australian society in condemning this bill. The civil liberties groups from New South Wales and Queensland, the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Law Council of Australia, the peak body for all lawyers in this nation, and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance—people are coming out everywhere to condemn this bill. The interesting thing is that we only know about the submissions on this bill where those organisations have self-published the submissions. Submissions closed more than 2½ weeks ago, but they still haven't been published by this government. We don't know why it is taking so long. We know that there are thousands of submissions, and apparently the number of submissions on this extraordinary piece of legislation may actually be in the tens of thousands. Liberate the submissions! The government needs to release these submissions and let Australians read what other Australians think about this extraordinary and unprecedented attack on free speech. It is a shocking piece of legislation. This government must be roundly condemned for it, and that's precisely what these submissions do.