Dean Smith: Our democracy is in decline

Former US president Ronald Reagan once commented that “freedom is a fragile thing … it is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation”.

True words remind us that our way of life is never guaranteed.

Democracy, both in Australia and elsewhere, is not a finished product.

It is vulnerable by nature, and that means we have an ongoing responsibility to ensure that Australian democracy is as robust as possible.

The former Coalition government met this standard — during almost a decade of Liberal-National administrations, Australia was consistently ranked in the top 10 most democratic nations in the world by The Economist Democracy Index.

Labor has single-handedly undone this record.

Australia ranked equal ninth in 2021, but after one year of the Albanese Government, we plummeted six places to 15th and sit at equal 14th in the most recent rankings.

Given our neighbours in New Zealand are ranked second in the world, Australians have a right to wonder what is going wrong here.

Exploring the metrics used by The Economist provides a fuller picture.

While Australia has maintained perfect scores for some categories, such as our electoral process, we have been marked down significantly in others.

On the metric of “political participation” we have fallen from 7.78 to 7.22, and on “political culture” dropped from 8.75 to 7.50.

Thankfully, our voting system and our democratic institutions are doing fine.

What is under strain is our democratic culture, the extent to which Australians are encouraged to participate in the political system and the openness of our public debate.

This decline in our democratic health is deeply concerning.

But this isn’t the fault of the Australian people, nor is it the result of manipulation from a bad faith actor overseas.

It is the direct result of the way Labor governs.

And it isn’t new: imposing an oversized, cumbersome and overreaching government on the Australian people is part of their DNA.

Labor’s tendency to push bad laws that undermine freedom is confirmed by the historical record.

In 2012, the last it was in power, Labor introduced new “self-regulation” media laws that would have left the Australian press vulnerable to interference from the Government.

Then News Limited chief Kim Williams called the proposed legislation “Soviet-style” because of the dramatic changes they would have made to freedom of the press.

Mr Williams went on to say that the way Labor tried to rush it through Parliament, in just one sitting week, with limited public consultation, was like putting “a gun to the head of the Parliament, our industry, and the Australian public”.

Fortunately, that Bill failed.

But many are now feeling a sense of déjà vu.

The Albanese Government is steaming ahead with its own controversial “misinformation and disinformation” legislation.

And, rather than trusting the robustness of our parliamentary process to weed out bad ideas, or fashion them into better ones, Labor is again attempting to ram these new laws through Parliament as quickly as possible.

Australians were given barely a week to make submissions to a Senate inquiry on the Bill. Probably because when it tried to launch similar laws last year, more than 20,000 submissions were received opposing them.

Australians must not be any less vigilant this time around.

Labor’s Bill seeks to establish unprecedented powers for the communications minister — powers that would allow them to personally order misinformation investigations and hearings on terms of their own choosing.

It would also create a two-tier standard for free speech, with different rules for different people.

If a statement is made by an academic or comedian, for example, it can be counted as legitimate, but if that same statement is made by another Australian, it could be considered ‘misinformation’ and therefore ‘harmful’.

And the statement wouldn’t need to be intentionally deceptive or malicious to be illegal, meaning it could be used to stifle the genuinely held opinions of fair-minded Australians.

It stems from the loose definitions of ‘harm’ and ‘serious harm’ caused by speech, which would include remarks considered damaging to the environment or the economy.

Say someone comments online that they don’t believe in Climate Change: that could be considered misinformation, harmful to the environment, and eligible to be censored.

I am no climate science denier, but that doesn’t mean I think people who hold an opposing view should be suppressed.

In a democracy, we settle differences through evidence and open discussion, not censorship.

The Law Council of Australia takes a similar view, noting in its submission on the Bill that the definitions are “overbroad”, and that the concepts of ‘harm’ and ‘serious harm’, “each involve value judgements that are likely to be contestable and politically sensitive”.

This is especially the case when you consider the way Labor wants to enforce these new free speech caveats.

They propose a punitive system of fines, levied by the unelected officials at the Australian Communications and Media Authority, that will pressure social media companies to delete user content that could be considered misinformation or disinformation.

Meta, Twitter, TikTok, and others will not be fined for censoring too much to meet the Government’s nominated standard, but they will face significant penalties for not censoring enough.

For the most part, these companies care less for the free speech of Australians than they do about their bottom line, so it is no stretch to imagine them setting up an algorithm that automatically censors posts online without nuance.

We cannot allow this scenario to become our reality.

The fact we are no longer a top ten democracy, a distinction we have held since The Economist began its index in 2006, is a national embarrassment and needs to be immediately reversed.

But if this Bill is passed, it would further the weakening of our democracy.

There can be no doubt that misinformation and disinformation online is a problem that needs to be addressed – this is also important for our political system and societal cohesion.

But we can’t replace one problem with another, and the solution is not more government power.

Because to once again quote Reagan: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.