As we’ve written before, Coalition backbencher Craig Kelly — presumably annoyed that deaths caused by his relentlessly spruiked coal industry are taking too long — has dived headlong into spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
He spent a great deal of 2020 endorsing the drug hydroxychloroquine over the protests of Australia’s chief medical officer, and now he’s going after masks. Yesterday he shared a (non-peer-reviewed) paper looking at the side effects of mask wearing, which led him to the conclusion that forcing adolescents to wear masks was child abuse.
This drew the ire of the Australian Medical Association, whose vice president Dr Chris Moy who said misinformation like this was “torching the foundation of community health and science”.
Of course, going against public health advice would be bad enough for any elected representative, but Kelly’s Facebook page is one of the most popular of any Australian politician — which may not be unrelated to his relentless misinformation.
Kelly’s Facebook posts tick pretty much all the boxes that keep Australian doctors up at night: the focus on early studies that haven’t been peer reviewed; promoting mistrust in health institutions; emotively focusing on “miracle cures” like hydroxychloroquine, the antiseptic skin ointment Betadine, or the drug ivermectin.
Canberra Law School assistant Professor Bruce Baer Arnold tells Crikey that Australia was not well set up to counter pandemic misinformation.
“That’s partly a result of messy law — a mix of Commonwealth and state and territory law regarding health, business, crime, telecommunications,” he said.
“Partly a result of expectation that influential people will behave responsibly, and partly because we haven’t faced a population-scale pandemic for many years and we’re not seeing the death toll [like that of] the US, UK, Ireland, etc.”
But action is most definitely possible, it just has to come from other mechanisms.
“The Commonwealth has power to persuade digital platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to label fake news (which we’ve seen in the US with Trump) and indeed to deplatform people engaged in hate speech, fake health news, etc,” he said.
“The platforms have traditionally claimed that, one, they just can’t do it, and two, they shouldn’t have to do it because it’s contrary to free speech.
“They’ve now demonstrated that they can do it and — responding to public condemnation and threats of government regulation in Australia, the EU and US — have started to do so.”
Part of the problem, Arnold says, is inconsistent rules governing harmful speech and misinformation.
“Health practitioners, especially doctors, can expect investigation and possibly discipline if they spout fake health news,” he said.
“MPs are special animals, protected under parliamentary privilege. Some of them are tempted to become trolls — putting attention ahead of responsibility. As long as they have the numbers and colleagues don’t condemn them they will get away with it.”
The News and Media Research Centre, looking at misinformation in the age of COVID-19, conducted a survey in which 62% of respondents said they engaged with at least “one type of news verification behaviour” regarding claims around the virus and, significantly, that people who come across misinformation on social media are more likely to attempt to verify it than those who come across misinformation from news media or politicians.
And of course with a virus as infectious as COVID-19 it doesn’t really matter if 62% of people verify what they read — the 900 people who shared Kelly’s post could well be plenty.
Beyond the practical implications, does Kelly’s persistent misinformation rise to the level of breaking the law? Once again, according to Arnold, it’s “messy”.
Kelly’s speeches, say on hydroxychloroquine, are protected under parliamentary privilege and he’ll “keep gabbing for as long as he sees he can get away with it”.
Thus a situation like Kelly’s required the PM and and deputy PM to “get a spine” and condemn him for spreading of fake news.
Yeah, about that. Crikey has long noted Kelly has done nothing but function as a kind of perpetual embarrassment generator for his entire career. But not only can not a single senior Liberal find a bad word to say about him for reasons no one can quite work out, he has had prime ministers and senior party officials consistently intervene to make sure he stays where he is.
Indeed, following this latest episode, Kelly’s senior colleagues bravely stood up and defended his right to say whatever he wants. Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack said that as a former newspaper editor (oh, we remember…) he’s “not in favour of censorship”, while Health Minister Greg Hunt was equivocal, simply reiterating that Australians should follow official health advice.
We asked McCormack if there was anything that Kelly could say that would be too harmful to fall under the banner of free speech absolutism, but he didn’t get back to us.
‘Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack said…he’s “not in favour of censorship”’
FFS. If McCormack, or anyone else in the government, says Kelly is wrong there is no censorship involved whatsoever, it’s just more free speech. Hiding behind these specious free speech arguments to protect Kelly from even a whiff of criticism or contradiction is an absolute disgrace. McCormack is not just ‘useless’, as he is described in another article. With his weird bigotted obsessions and delusional views on the world he is as pernicious as Kelly.
Yes, it’s always interesting, how rapidly they oscillate to and from, ‘I’m a bold truth teller’ and ‘help, help, I’m being oppressed’: with pretty well nothing in between.
My question is why did Morrison push to have such an ignorant person to stand once again in Hughes. The branch there did not want him. Why do the Liberal and National Parties have such an overwhelming number of duds
A good question. Does anyone at Crikey know?
The answer to the first question, I mean. Does he have some sort of hold over them?
Yeah, but he DID get elected. Turnbull’s first choice ultimately prevailed too.
A lot of Electors do not know or want to know who their Representative is, they just vote for the Party.
The implications being … perhaps … Kelly?
And more to the point why did people vote for him in sufficient numbers to be elected!
Morrison will never answer that. It might prompt someone to ask why he and the other white supremacists in the Liberal Party couldn’t let a Lebo have Cook.
Morrison’s probably solidifying his position at the top by allowing duds, who would have no hope of challenging for leadership positions, to flourish.
I have seen that strategy in the public service!
Seems like he’s spent the last few years auditioning for a spot on Sky After Dark. SAD!
There are reasons why those in charge don’t rein in someone like Kelly, and none of them are good. Howard used to use Heffernan as an attack dog and in so doing tested the water in regard to some unpleasant ideas or tactics. Heffernan at least appeared at times to have a modicum of what we might call ‘intelligence’ but I suspect Kelly is simply useful because he mindlessly spews rubbish, it may be that the reaction to the rubbish is what makes that worthwhile. If you are going to spin lies, half-truths and misinformation it’s useful to know where the boundaries between ‘acceptance’ and any form of pushback are. Kelly might provide that or else he has something on Morrison but given that the Australian media has largely left Morrison’s outright lying to the Australian public and his mentoring by a person whose sworn testimony to a Royal Commission was appalling one wonders what that might be.
They won’t rein him in because he represents a sector of the electorate (respect them or not) and they (presumably) vote. It’s political calculus.