We most definitely do not need the government controlling speech or opinions. Just because "the other team" thought it was a good idea doesn't make it any more palatable either.
This Bill sounds to me like it has come straight from communist China.
No thanks Michelle Rowland, you can shove your distasteful, disgusting, dishonest, disturbing bill where the sun doesn't shine. I will stick with my own common sense capability and think for myself thank you.
Growing suppression from the government and media demands our attention
Here is what we must know: Authoritarianism and totalitarianism begin by letting censorship gain an inch.
Famed writer Walter Kirn—not a conservative—recently said this on X: “The last few days have seen an almost symphonic surge of attacks on our most fundamental rights, by officials, newspapers, politicians, celebrities, & academics. It’s not rhetoric anymore, it’s an organized massing of institutional forces prior to big moves which seem imminent.”
This seems self-evidently true. Be on the lookout for busybodies in the government and media who think restricting access to speech and information is for your good. It is not.
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” (George Washington)
About a decade ago (I really forget )my good lady wife signed me up to facebook . I suppose I made about three comments about "something" and someone decided it needed censoring. I was told to sit in the naughty corner for 30 days .Not feeling very happy I messaged back asking if the book part of facebook has sharp edges ? .The puzzled reply didnt understand so I had to advise that the sharp edges should hurt when you stick your facebook up your arse And that is about what Minister Rowlands should be told to do with this attack on free speech.
We certainly don’t need our government disseminating information & telling us what they want us to believe. Free speech, as long as it’s not malicious &/or inciteful, is a pillar of democracy & not to be tampered with, especially by governments.
If, on the other hand, our government is concerned that a state-owned social media company is deliberately spreading mis/dis-information with the intent of undermining the fabric of our society, then they should man-up & ban the platform. There’s little doubt there are nefarious forces at play who are exploiting a platform & proliferating propaganda to our innocent, gullible & impressionable youth with the aim of corrupting, & turning them against us.
Our government could also look closer to home & tackle the mis/dis-information being spewed by our very own ABC by insisting they go back to grass roots, report researched facts rather than produce opinion pieces to suit a predetermined narrative.
I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again, this government of ours operates by stealth & speaks with forked tongues.
We don’t need the thought police telling us what’s right, wrong or otherwise!
The separation of Church and State is a wise separation although the Queen of England wore two hats, she never the less walked both lines with care and attempted to stay close to God’s commandments in assenting to any law or Bill put before her as she is sworn to uphold the faith. The late Queen of England was faithful and loyal to God and Jesus, however, the same cannot be said of the woke-left progressive royal King Charles who seems to be walking a lukewarm line.
The Commonwealth of Australia constitution Act 1900 (UK) reflects our laws are made under God (with the blessing of almighty God).
Thus, when faced with “obey those who govern you” any purported law can only apply if there is no contradiction between God’s laws and man made laws such as the acceptance of adultery, homosexuality and abortion.
Where government decrees directly contradict God’s word, there’s no question that we should disobey them. But for cases that are not cut and dried, we need to pray for wisdom about what to do.
One such grey area is temporary restrictions on church meetings and other large gatherings during C-19 lockdowns.
There are many ways we can meet together (as per Heb 10:25) without directly defying government restrictions. The main one is to meet in small groups in people’s homes. That’s what most early Christians did, and what millions of believers in China do today. Even if gatherings are restricted to only 5 people, didn’t Jesus say “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matt 18:20)?
When I became a Christian at age 30, I attended the SDA Church for some years, my parents were both atheists at the time, but praise God for the holy spirit power working in my younger brother who prayed and witnessed and lead me to Jesus, and some years later both my parents, praise God. Though I no longer attend the SDA Church I do strongly believe that the fundamental beliefs are Biblically sound, I regularly pray, read my Bible, and listen to SDA and Protestant Christian pastors-speakers.
So in the current situation, there are many ways we can meet our spiritual and social needs without resorting to flagrant disobedience.
As I have said before, it is one thing for Christians to put up with temporary closures of churches. And one can do Zoom meetings for a while. But genuine Christian worship involves far more than isolated individual believers looking at their computer screens. Biblical body life is far more than that of course.
It is another thing when that goes on for many months – often with no end in sight. Or when church meetings are finally allowed but with greatly restricted numbers – all the while when the state allows all sorts of other groups to have open slather on public meetings. And when the state decides a church is not an essential service but gives brothels, pubs, protest marches and sporting events, etc the green light, then we need to question the double standards going on here.
In my view all this has been a good test run for the state to ascertain just how easy it is to control the churches. I think they are pleasantly surprised at just how ready and willing most churches were to roll over and submit to anything and everything the state demanded. Very few pastors and church leaders showed any backbone here. That scares me big time to be honest. And yes, I did say we need to be wise and prayerful as to when and where we do resort to civil disobedience.
The realities between Church and state elsewhere the respective intents and purposes of each to the medical crisis associated with the virus and the political crisis associated with the virus. Addressing the medical crisis virtuously consistent with the teaching of the Church is most appropriate while the over reach by the state to be resisted.
Stateside, we observed early in the medical crisis that the crisis was far more political to be exploited than medical to provide for the common welfare. Cautioned by Fauci (CDC) that hook-ups between intimate strangers were ok as long as the 2 were careful (not to compromise the sexual revolution). Hospital beds provided by Samaritan’s Purse were objectionable because they were simply Christian. The hospital ship under utilized in NYC at their beginning of their panic. Attending casino operating at higher capacities were approved while church services were curtailed and in many cases preluded. The statistics to substantiate the political/medical crisis were gamed as we learned more about the exponential growth curves than we ever imagined. The medical community was awarded incremental funding that encouraged positive test and attributing the death to the virus irrespective of the cause of death.
As with any issue, how you define the issues is essential to how the issue is address, mitigated and resolved. The medical issue can and could be resolved in Christian terms consistent with the response of the Church historically. Alternately, the political crisis options are limited to only what the agnostic (at best) state can provide or worse to the extent that the state is “reasonably” atheistic and as experienced in Victoria even worse to the extent the secular authorities are of the “new” atheists.
I agree that God wants the churches influencing our states, not our states influencing our churches, so churches should be speaking out and challenging the state’s authority. Also, I believe unscrupulous people have taken advantage of the coronavirus to gain power, influence etc – we need to keep praying that God will remove most of our MPs and replace them with God-fearing ones.
Parts of NSW was being hit by a massive one in a 60 or 100-year flood. Floods like these have happened before and they will occur again somewhere but since same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide and also full-term abortion in many states we have been hit by droughts, bushfires, a coronavirus and now widespread flooding. There haven’t been as many cyclones or earthquakes/tsunamis yet but things seem to be happening more frequently, I feel. I believe God is taking His protecting power off mankind because of man’s anti-God ways and unless mankind repents and turns back to God and the Lord Saviour Jesus Christ these prophetic warnings catastrophes will continue more frequently. The Bible says to ‘submit to God and resist the devil’ James 4:7 but people are submitting to the devil and resisting God.
Who is Lord and to whom does this world belong?
Jesus and the early Christians left no room for confusion. They were making a political statement (we have another King, one Jesus). that the church today doesn’t seem to believe. If the church walked in this political truth, we would see more Christians holding parliament to a Biblical account and society looking a lot more like the Kingdom of God than it does atm.
God the Father Himself told Jesus to sit at his right hand until He makes his (Jesus’) enemies his footstool (Psa 110:1). …he ascended into heaven and sitteth upon the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead” (scripture, summarised in The Apostles Creed).
When the Son of man returns from his long journey (Mark 13:34-37) he expects a return on the talents given to his servants, not to find his kingdom pillaged. So yes, we urgently need to learn and practice the politics of the early Christians, to defy ungodly rule, and that Jesus is Lord of all creation.
Well said James. I just hope a newly elected coalition government has the spine to repeal this Orwellian garbage in its entirety from day one. Sadly though, I doubt it.
The Liberal/National coalition sadly has their own ‘misinformation & disinformation’ bill. How can they carry on about Albo’s disastrous bill when they have their own.
National’s Bridget Mackenzie tried to avoid this question at CPAC and stated that it was to stop international interference in our elections. What ???? I was hoping it was a joke!!!!!! But no!
The coalition imo, have lost the plot almost as much as Labor.
I suspect life will only be mildly different when we kick Albo & his band of merry morons to the curb. At least we can be entertained by this for a while. Dutton needs a change of heart to proper conservative values or his term in the top job won’t be long enough to help Australia overall.
False narratives are defined by the perceptions of reality of progressive, minister-appointed censors: e.g. when does human life begin? At conception or after birth? The censor decides "to be clear" according to his pro-abortion preference even when biology proves him wrong. Pro-life statements are therefore 'misinformation' and will be censored.
Hear, hear! What next James? Are our Labor Sheep following the good ol’ USA? I hear that Californian Governor Newsom is considering introducing similar legislation to enable his regime to censor and decide whether ‘political memes’ are considered offensive or derogatory in their content! We will have mayhem here in Australia if the cartoonists and humorists are not ‘allowed’ to produce satire in relation to ANAL and his not so merry gang of thugs! The Shovel and The Chaser will have to ensure that they adhere to the politically correct regime or being ‘left wing’, maybe they will both enjoy dispensation? The Labor Government work on the BBB Theory James - Bs Baffles Brains - also on the average memory span of the populace being three days maximum, unless the media keep reminding us of whatever they want to push at the time to elongate the pain.
Thank you again James for bringing this situation to light - please always stay ‘the fearless keyboard warrior!
Social cohesion ? = Mo; economy ? = Curly; democracy ? = Larry. A catwalk parade of Canberra dons and donnas has ALREADY made a slapstick comedy out of these.
Is it true or false that under this new bill I shall have to watch my p's and q's, refrain from poking fun at poor "Mansion on the Headland with Taxpayer funded hot bitumen road to the front door", Albo?
Can I never tell the Truth about stupid, ignorant Ms.Always Wong's pathetic and mis-guided Diplomatic Failures? There is no disputing the disinformation and false information coming from that Department Head!
I'm uncertain if this Bill is going to Censor me, or Censure! Perhaps both!
Rowkand’s piece does nothing to reassure me. If they applied it to the media and governments then perhaps. But we don’t need this bill to protect us. We can do that ourselves.
We most definitely do not need the government controlling speech or opinions. Just because "the other team" thought it was a good idea doesn't make it any more palatable either.
This Bill sounds to me like it has come straight from communist China.
No thanks Michelle Rowland, you can shove your distasteful, disgusting, dishonest, disturbing bill where the sun doesn't shine. I will stick with my own common sense capability and think for myself thank you.
Why free speech should be a Christian priority
Growing suppression from the government and media demands our attention
Here is what we must know: Authoritarianism and totalitarianism begin by letting censorship gain an inch.
Famed writer Walter Kirn—not a conservative—recently said this on X: “The last few days have seen an almost symphonic surge of attacks on our most fundamental rights, by officials, newspapers, politicians, celebrities, & academics. It’s not rhetoric anymore, it’s an organized massing of institutional forces prior to big moves which seem imminent.”
This seems self-evidently true. Be on the lookout for busybodies in the government and media who think restricting access to speech and information is for your good. It is not.
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” (George Washington)
https://wng.org/opinions/why-free-speech-should-be-a-christian-priority-1725445940
About a decade ago (I really forget )my good lady wife signed me up to facebook . I suppose I made about three comments about "something" and someone decided it needed censoring. I was told to sit in the naughty corner for 30 days .Not feeling very happy I messaged back asking if the book part of facebook has sharp edges ? .The puzzled reply didnt understand so I had to advise that the sharp edges should hurt when you stick your facebook up your arse And that is about what Minister Rowlands should be told to do with this attack on free speech.
I agree with you, James.
We certainly don’t need our government disseminating information & telling us what they want us to believe. Free speech, as long as it’s not malicious &/or inciteful, is a pillar of democracy & not to be tampered with, especially by governments.
If, on the other hand, our government is concerned that a state-owned social media company is deliberately spreading mis/dis-information with the intent of undermining the fabric of our society, then they should man-up & ban the platform. There’s little doubt there are nefarious forces at play who are exploiting a platform & proliferating propaganda to our innocent, gullible & impressionable youth with the aim of corrupting, & turning them against us.
Our government could also look closer to home & tackle the mis/dis-information being spewed by our very own ABC by insisting they go back to grass roots, report researched facts rather than produce opinion pieces to suit a predetermined narrative.
I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again, this government of ours operates by stealth & speaks with forked tongues.
We don’t need the thought police telling us what’s right, wrong or otherwise!
The separation of Church and State is a wise separation although the Queen of England wore two hats, she never the less walked both lines with care and attempted to stay close to God’s commandments in assenting to any law or Bill put before her as she is sworn to uphold the faith. The late Queen of England was faithful and loyal to God and Jesus, however, the same cannot be said of the woke-left progressive royal King Charles who seems to be walking a lukewarm line.
The Commonwealth of Australia constitution Act 1900 (UK) reflects our laws are made under God (with the blessing of almighty God).
Thus, when faced with “obey those who govern you” any purported law can only apply if there is no contradiction between God’s laws and man made laws such as the acceptance of adultery, homosexuality and abortion.
Where government decrees directly contradict God’s word, there’s no question that we should disobey them. But for cases that are not cut and dried, we need to pray for wisdom about what to do.
One such grey area is temporary restrictions on church meetings and other large gatherings during C-19 lockdowns.
There are many ways we can meet together (as per Heb 10:25) without directly defying government restrictions. The main one is to meet in small groups in people’s homes. That’s what most early Christians did, and what millions of believers in China do today. Even if gatherings are restricted to only 5 people, didn’t Jesus say “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matt 18:20)?
When I became a Christian at age 30, I attended the SDA Church for some years, my parents were both atheists at the time, but praise God for the holy spirit power working in my younger brother who prayed and witnessed and lead me to Jesus, and some years later both my parents, praise God. Though I no longer attend the SDA Church I do strongly believe that the fundamental beliefs are Biblically sound, I regularly pray, read my Bible, and listen to SDA and Protestant Christian pastors-speakers.
So in the current situation, there are many ways we can meet our spiritual and social needs without resorting to flagrant disobedience.
As I have said before, it is one thing for Christians to put up with temporary closures of churches. And one can do Zoom meetings for a while. But genuine Christian worship involves far more than isolated individual believers looking at their computer screens. Biblical body life is far more than that of course.
It is another thing when that goes on for many months – often with no end in sight. Or when church meetings are finally allowed but with greatly restricted numbers – all the while when the state allows all sorts of other groups to have open slather on public meetings. And when the state decides a church is not an essential service but gives brothels, pubs, protest marches and sporting events, etc the green light, then we need to question the double standards going on here.
In my view all this has been a good test run for the state to ascertain just how easy it is to control the churches. I think they are pleasantly surprised at just how ready and willing most churches were to roll over and submit to anything and everything the state demanded. Very few pastors and church leaders showed any backbone here. That scares me big time to be honest. And yes, I did say we need to be wise and prayerful as to when and where we do resort to civil disobedience.
The realities between Church and state elsewhere the respective intents and purposes of each to the medical crisis associated with the virus and the political crisis associated with the virus. Addressing the medical crisis virtuously consistent with the teaching of the Church is most appropriate while the over reach by the state to be resisted.
Stateside, we observed early in the medical crisis that the crisis was far more political to be exploited than medical to provide for the common welfare. Cautioned by Fauci (CDC) that hook-ups between intimate strangers were ok as long as the 2 were careful (not to compromise the sexual revolution). Hospital beds provided by Samaritan’s Purse were objectionable because they were simply Christian. The hospital ship under utilized in NYC at their beginning of their panic. Attending casino operating at higher capacities were approved while church services were curtailed and in many cases preluded. The statistics to substantiate the political/medical crisis were gamed as we learned more about the exponential growth curves than we ever imagined. The medical community was awarded incremental funding that encouraged positive test and attributing the death to the virus irrespective of the cause of death.
As with any issue, how you define the issues is essential to how the issue is address, mitigated and resolved. The medical issue can and could be resolved in Christian terms consistent with the response of the Church historically. Alternately, the political crisis options are limited to only what the agnostic (at best) state can provide or worse to the extent that the state is “reasonably” atheistic and as experienced in Victoria even worse to the extent the secular authorities are of the “new” atheists.
I agree that God wants the churches influencing our states, not our states influencing our churches, so churches should be speaking out and challenging the state’s authority. Also, I believe unscrupulous people have taken advantage of the coronavirus to gain power, influence etc – we need to keep praying that God will remove most of our MPs and replace them with God-fearing ones.
Parts of NSW was being hit by a massive one in a 60 or 100-year flood. Floods like these have happened before and they will occur again somewhere but since same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide and also full-term abortion in many states we have been hit by droughts, bushfires, a coronavirus and now widespread flooding. There haven’t been as many cyclones or earthquakes/tsunamis yet but things seem to be happening more frequently, I feel. I believe God is taking His protecting power off mankind because of man’s anti-God ways and unless mankind repents and turns back to God and the Lord Saviour Jesus Christ these prophetic warnings catastrophes will continue more frequently. The Bible says to ‘submit to God and resist the devil’ James 4:7 but people are submitting to the devil and resisting God.
Who is Lord and to whom does this world belong?
Jesus and the early Christians left no room for confusion. They were making a political statement (we have another King, one Jesus). that the church today doesn’t seem to believe. If the church walked in this political truth, we would see more Christians holding parliament to a Biblical account and society looking a lot more like the Kingdom of God than it does atm.
God the Father Himself told Jesus to sit at his right hand until He makes his (Jesus’) enemies his footstool (Psa 110:1). …he ascended into heaven and sitteth upon the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead” (scripture, summarised in The Apostles Creed).
When the Son of man returns from his long journey (Mark 13:34-37) he expects a return on the talents given to his servants, not to find his kingdom pillaged. So yes, we urgently need to learn and practice the politics of the early Christians, to defy ungodly rule, and that Jesus is Lord of all creation.
Well said James. I just hope a newly elected coalition government has the spine to repeal this Orwellian garbage in its entirety from day one. Sadly though, I doubt it.
I share your pessimism.
The Liberal/National coalition sadly has their own ‘misinformation & disinformation’ bill. How can they carry on about Albo’s disastrous bill when they have their own.
National’s Bridget Mackenzie tried to avoid this question at CPAC and stated that it was to stop international interference in our elections. What ???? I was hoping it was a joke!!!!!! But no!
The coalition imo, have lost the plot almost as much as Labor.
I suspect life will only be mildly different when we kick Albo & his band of merry morons to the curb. At least we can be entertained by this for a while. Dutton needs a change of heart to proper conservative values or his term in the top job won’t be long enough to help Australia overall.
False narratives are defined by the perceptions of reality of progressive, minister-appointed censors: e.g. when does human life begin? At conception or after birth? The censor decides "to be clear" according to his pro-abortion preference even when biology proves him wrong. Pro-life statements are therefore 'misinformation' and will be censored.
Hear, hear! What next James? Are our Labor Sheep following the good ol’ USA? I hear that Californian Governor Newsom is considering introducing similar legislation to enable his regime to censor and decide whether ‘political memes’ are considered offensive or derogatory in their content! We will have mayhem here in Australia if the cartoonists and humorists are not ‘allowed’ to produce satire in relation to ANAL and his not so merry gang of thugs! The Shovel and The Chaser will have to ensure that they adhere to the politically correct regime or being ‘left wing’, maybe they will both enjoy dispensation? The Labor Government work on the BBB Theory James - Bs Baffles Brains - also on the average memory span of the populace being three days maximum, unless the media keep reminding us of whatever they want to push at the time to elongate the pain.
Thank you again James for bringing this situation to light - please always stay ‘the fearless keyboard warrior!
This Labor government is down right dangerous.
The enemy within!
Social cohesion ? = Mo; economy ? = Curly; democracy ? = Larry. A catwalk parade of Canberra dons and donnas has ALREADY made a slapstick comedy out of these.
Golly, had to order a second latte to get through that..
I am NOT afraid of lies on the internet, I’m afraid of the Gov’t deciding for me, which are lies and which are not.
Dear Keyboard warrior.
Is it true or false that under this new bill I shall have to watch my p's and q's, refrain from poking fun at poor "Mansion on the Headland with Taxpayer funded hot bitumen road to the front door", Albo?
Can I never tell the Truth about stupid, ignorant Ms.Always Wong's pathetic and mis-guided Diplomatic Failures? There is no disputing the disinformation and false information coming from that Department Head!
I'm uncertain if this Bill is going to Censor me, or Censure! Perhaps both!
Yours faithfully,
Burnt out Censer.
Social engineers cannot help themselves from telling us what is good for us,
Rowkand’s piece does nothing to reassure me. If they applied it to the media and governments then perhaps. But we don’t need this bill to protect us. We can do that ourselves.