Bruegel the Elder, “The Tower of Babel,” 1563, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Charting the passage from sovereign state to feudal appendage

By Gary Scarrabelotti

The Mis & Dis Bill is dead. Dead, but not yet buried. The Albanese government was forced to withdraw that legislation on Monday 25 November.

Very unfortunately, however, Albo & Co got up their Social Media Minimum Age Bill a few days later on Friday 29 November.  This legislation, like the Mis & Dis Bill, also has major adverse implications for free speech.

For these good-bad outcomes, we are indebted to the majority of Coalition Members and Senators who failed to grasp the contradiction between opposing the Mis & Dis Bill and supporting the Minimum Age Bill.

For now, however, let’s focus on the Mis & Dis Bill: on how, in the end, it was defeated and on why it has been so important to defeat it.

Denoument

Since my Death in the Senate post of 17 November, the number of Senators who lined up to vote against the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2024 increased dramatically.

On November 17, Senate numbers were tied 38/38 over the Bill which, according to the Senate’s rules, would have killed the legislation.

In the following days, however, not only did two more independent Senators declare their opposition — Senators Thorpe and Van – but The Greens, who command 11 Senate votes, also tipped their hand. On 22 November, the Greens issued a press release calling on the government to withdraw its Bill.

So, with the Greens coming on board, that meant that 51 of 76 Senators had decided to reject what has come to be known as the MaD Bill.

In the face of such numbers, the Albanese government had no choice but to retreat.

Given, however, what was to happen in the Senate a few days later over the Minimum Age Bill, it would be lacking in sobriety to glory in the defeat of MaD.  Still, we’d do well to pause and ponder what has been at stake.

Two-edged sword

First, a consideration which ought to have weighed heavily with The Greens, at least in their private counsels: the MaD Bill was a two-edged sword.

Consider this scenario.

Imagine that one day conventional wisdom about (say) climate change were to shift to a popular ‘rejectionist’ position.  Imagine also that a future Australian government might wish to exploit such a widespread contrarian conviction for its own political advantage.

In such circumstances, a future Minister for Communications, acting in accord with powers envisaged under MaD could direct the Australian Communications and Media Authority to crack down on the advocacy of our present-day version of climate science as “misinformation”.  Given the evidence of rising so-called “populist” sentiments in electorates abroad and here too, such an alternative future is not inconceivable.

In their public statements, The Greens have given every impression of having rejected MaD because it did not go far enough!  However much The Greens might wish that kind of future upon us, I (at least) have no desire to repay them in kind.

Sovereign – or not

Secondly, the MaD Bill was not simply about free speech.  It also engaged the issue of national sovereignty and self-government.

To illustrate, we need to dive into the “Explanatory Memorandum” which accompanied the Bill.

If we turn to page 9, we find this:

“ .. experience from around the world suggests that misinformation and disinformation of this nature can influence public opinion and sway voter behaviour to such an extent that the outcome of an electoral process can no longer be said to represent the free will of the electorate. The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report warns that ‘misinformation and disinformation may radically disrupt electoral processes in several economies over the next two years’.” [My emphasis.]

And then, reading further on to pages 48 – 49, we find the following:

The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report warns that ‘misinformation and disinformation may radically disrupt electoral processes in several economies over the next two years’. That report notes that to combat the growing risk, ‘governments are beginning to roll out new and evolving regulations to target both hosts and creators of online disinformation and illegal content’…” [My emphasis.]

“Who cares what the WEF thinks?” you might ask.

Well, clearly, Albo Labor does. Otherwise, why would approving references to the WEF and its recommendations have appeared in government documentation supporting the Bill?

To answer this, let’s leave to one side suspicions about globalist puppet-masters pulling the strings that make our political leaders jig and jive.

That suspicion could have some truth in it.  But such a possibility depends upon broader currents of influence without which the alleged string-pulling would have little effect.

Techno web

I think we can say without controversy that across the highly interconnected nations and peoples of the Western world – and, perhaps, especially across the anglo-sphere — there are ways of thinking and acting that vault national boundaries to unite multinational groups in common causes or movements.

One such movement is so impressed (it purports) by the enormous complexity of the world, that our leading political echelons (it concludes) are compelled to accept the guidance of experts and that (as a corollary) non-experts should not be permitted to exercise influence over decisions of political or social importance.

We could call this movement “expertism” or “technocratism”.  Ugly terms, to be sure. Nonetheless, they represent an idea (or an ideology) compatible with almost any segment on the political spectrum from fascist to communist.  Even liberals and conservatives find the force of technocratic claims persuasive.

As a political philosophy, technocracy is a cuckoo.

As a result, technocratic thinking has the effect of radicalising the political centre and of nudging its occupants closer toward one or other ideological extreme.

As a political philosophy, technocracy is a cuckoo. It’s capacity for laying eggs in any suitably capacious nest is aided, in the Australian case, by a persistent sense of insecurity about our standing in the world, evident particularly among those of our leading politicians and most influential bureaucrats who exhibit a deep-rooted deference to exotic influences – and, among a certain subgroup of these elites, a susceptibility to influences d’outré mer that come arrayed in imperial colours.

Technocratism poses as an eminently sensible, rational posture in the face of complexity; and it contrasts itself to the supposedly irrational simple-mindedness of inexpert opinion. This inbuilt assurance of superiority appeals to members of the political and bureaucratic classes who, given their high stations, are vulnerable to vanity and an immodest conception of their abilities.

A technocratic movement that is global, therefore, carries within itself the expectation that political (and bureaucratic) elements under the sway of technocratic thinking – if not the actual technocrats themselves – should rise to power at national and sub-national levels.

Liege homage

Here, then, is the key to why these WEF-referring paragraphs appear in the Explanatory Memorandum.  True, they’re only a small part of a 143-page document.  Yet they signify much.  They reveal an act of allegiance and an aspiration for the seal of legitimacy bestowed by the one to whom allegiance is paid.

But who is worthy to be signed with the sign of legitimacy? And how can we recognise them?

They have been signed who understand that

“ […] misinformation and disinformation […] can influence public opinion and sway voter behaviour to such an extent that the outcome of an electoral process can no longer be said to represent the free will of the electorate […] ”

and who are resolved

“ […] to roll out new and evolving regulations to target both hosts and creators of online disinformation and illegal content […]”

These paragraphs repay close attention.  We catch in them a glimpse of the possible future into which, consciously or otherwise, our highest political and bureaucratic echelons are steering Australia: from a sovereign state governed by a widely elected ruling class through the agency of parliamentary institutions into a feudal appendage of a remote and largely hidden power to whom fealty ought to be paid by our rulers. In return for an alternative right to rule over this Australian domain, our political class would assume an obligation to the overlord to keep us in check.

Welcome to the New World Order.  If you want that, then you’ll be in grief over the failure of MaD.

If, instead, you want Australia to remain free and self-governed, then understand that our legacy political parties do not share with you that hope – at least not simply and full-bloodedly.