If the federal government discovers that someone is interfering in our federal election — like Russia did during the 2016 US election — whose job is it to tell the public?
It’s not clear, according to answers given by government officials given during a Senate committee hearing on Friday.
The Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media heard from representatives from tech companies Facebook, Google and Twitter about how their platforms deal with overseas threats to Australia.
Across the board, the companies testified that they have seen few or no instances of foreign states, groups or individuals using their tools to try to interfere with Australian politics, and claimed they were well prepared to deal with it if they did discover a campaign.
Australia’s response to foreign interference during our election seems less prepared.
The committee’s chair, Labor Senator Jenny McAllister, repeatedly questioned representatives from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), Prime Minister & Cabinet (PM&C), Home Affairs and the Attorney-General’s departments about which government entity or individual would head up a response.
If a foreign actor was spreading disinformation about how elections are run — for example, a campaign telling people that election day had been moved — AEC commissioner Tom Rogers said it was their job to act.
But if it was a disinformation campaign about the substance of an election, such as a policy or candidate, Rogers said that it wasn’t their responsibility to debunk messages or even inform the public.
“We’re legislatively not the arbiters of truth,” Rogers said.
Rogers added that they do run preventative “stop and consider” campaigns that encourage information literacy during election campaigns.
However, Peter Rush of the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet said that a disinformation campaign like this could be brought up in the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce, which exists to support the AEC.
This task contains senior officials from the AEC, Finance, PM&C, Home Affairs, Attorney-General’s, Australian Federal Police, and the Australian Cyber Security Centre. In this case, PM&C representatives agreed they thought the decision to tell the public is up to the electoral commission as chair.
“It’s entirely the matter of the commissioner about how a statement would be made,” Rush said.
Home Affairs’ Acting First Assistant Secretary, Counter Foreign Interference Coordination Centre Patrick Hallinan also suggested that it would be the AEC’s responsibility, hosing down Rogers’ suggestions that it wasn’t their place.
“I’m not sure I would accept the characterisation that it is inconceivable that the electoral commissioner would make a comment,” he said.
Officials also declined to say that the opposition would need to be told about foreign interference efforts if they occurred during an election, leaving it up to the federal government to potentially decide whether to go public or not.
While Home Affairs representatives said that they hadn’t seen a specific disinformation campaign around COVID-19, it’s not inconceivable that a foreign actor would use this or other subject matters to try and subvert an Australian election.
Robert Mueller published a report in 2019 documenting Russia’s efforts to sow discord by influencing the 2016 US election in favour of Donald Trump. Weeks before the 2020 election day, US national security officials warned that Iran and Russia were attempting to interfere in the election.
McAllister told Crikey that it’s concerning that government departments and agencies still can’t agree on who is responsible for responding to a foreign interference threat.
“If the Morrison government doesn’t take foreign interference seriously now, officials may have to make rushed decisions during the heat of an election campaign later,” she said. “This is a recipe for bad decisions, with potentially significant consequences for our democracy.”
What about 1975 and the hatchet job done on Gough Whitlam.There was clearly interference there, and a good trail-blazing Prime Minister was consigned to history.Was Kerr a CIA agent? We’ll never know for sure but the nudge nudge, wink wink is there.
The CIA would have had something on Kerr. Maybe the CIA actually owns Pornhub* for entrapment purposes.
I believe the drunkard bum Kerr was so damaged from alcohol abuse that he could not distinguish between reality and his position within it. Hocking has written some fantastic articles on it and there is no doubt that the CIA the parasitic Queen, Malcolm Fraser, the Coalition and Mason were involved in removing a prime minister in Australia
Yep.
Kerr’s CIA links were well enough established and known for Whitlam to have been warned against nominating him, as detailed Graham Freudenberg’s biography, “A Certain Grandeur” (1977).
Didn’t know that one. Thanks.
Kerr was part of a group run by Alf Conlon during WWII. He came into the “Army ” as a full colonel into that group which was “shadowy” . The CIA connection is likely to have started there. Kerr was desperate to be considered one of the establishment and to be accepted there.
Disclaimer – my father went to Fort Street High School with Kerr.
Our foreign interference is as always homegrown. While politicians love to point the stick at Russia, Iran or China, the evidence shows ours comes through the Murdoch house, directly from the ol’ benign US of A. That Home Affairs doesn’t pick anything of this up from the Sky ‘news’ streamed straight into Government House, or from the free copies of the Australian delivered to their front door, beggars belief.
‘Too easy’ in Oz for the LNP and media deflect and blame foreigners and/or immigrants for their own sub-optimal competence….
“When a foreign government of the “wrong persuasion” does it” – that’s “bad”….
When a “foreign propagandising media dictatorship of the right persuasion” does it – to benefit the Coalition – that’s good.”?
The diseased Murdoch family the authoritarian quasi-fascist coalition and the IPA go back 9 decades in there interference in the democratic processes of this nation . All are dangerous predators, they play a game which they are unable to resist such is their obsessive mania for winning money and power. If it was known at birth that these diseased Rogue organisms were so destructive a different society may have extinguished theur evil before it became manifest. It is an historical process repeated over and over again a flaw in the DNA of such Rogue diseased organisms
VALE Hal Wootten who served as the Chairman of the Australian Press Council between 1984 and 1986.
When the Council failed to object as Rupert Murdoch gained control of 70% of Australia’s print media, he resigned in protest, writing:
“Allowing Murdoch to assume control of Australian newspapers was unparalleled outside of totalitarian countries.
The Federal Treasurer (Keating, for non ancient history buffs) could stop the takeover if he wanted to … in this case it is a man who has renounced his citizenship to further his worldwide media power, and who makes no secret of the fact that he intends to make personal use of his control of newspapers.” Sydney Morning Herald 17 December 1986.
Also a warrior for Aboriginal rights –
https://www.nswccl.org.au/?utm_campaign=vale_hal_wootten&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nswccl
Thank you
Think their past influence is overstated while Rupert Murdoch, NewsCorp, Howard and the IPA all became empowered from the ’80s onwards; the IPA is part of Koch’s AtlasNetwork of think tanks promoting ‘radical right libertarian’ socio-economic ideology and especially influential in the UK too with IEA (and others behind Brexit).
The AEC seemed disinterested in doing anything when one political party ran Chinese language posters at voting venues which looked similar to official AEC signs.
Indeed. Instructing people new to the system on ‘the correct way to vote’.
“If the federal government discovers that someone is interfering in our federal election — like Russia did during the 2016 US election”
Excuse me? When did this happen and where is the actual evidence, other than repeated hysterical innuendo from butt hurt american politicians, echoed through the US MSM? As if Russia gives a toss who elects who in the West.
Now, if we are talking US interference in Russian elections…well….thoroughly documented interference in 96 to re-elect Boris Yeltsin…..and that worked well for them, didn’t it…..
Maybe Cam could pen an article detailing the proven links between the 2016 US elections and any Russian malfeasance to them. I don’t expect it to be too long, in fact I reckon it will be blank because none has surfaced so far other than the unproven assertions that he seems to hold so dear. I won’t be holding my breath waiting.