Time to use our home grown resources.
Last week I told Tom Connell that I supported the Government owning nuclear power plants for two reasons:
a) I’ve always believed Government should own base load energy infrastructure assets relating to energy and
b) Australia needs to adopt nuclear technology as its been shown to be a very cheap and reliable form of energy.
Unlike subsidies for renewables which goes into the back pockets of rent seekers, money invested into a Government owned energy asset will eventually provide billions of dollars in income.
Especially Nuclear Power plants that have an effective life of between 50 to 70 years.
Revenue from Coal fired power stations have been an important source of income for the State Government for decades.
There is no reason why Nuclear can’t be the same.
Furthermore like Coal, Uranium can also be a valuable export, unlike renewables which have to be imported at great cost to the taxpayer.
Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
11/10/2024
Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024
Senator RENNICK: Hi, guys. Given that the government is effectively forcing foreign social media companies to censor Australians, do you think the government should also provide an avenue of appeal to those Australians to appeal a decision of the foreign social media companies if they are censored? Or is the government, effectively, going to allow social media companies to be the judge and jury, with no right of appeal from Australian citizens? That’s effectively what this bill is doing.
Ms O’Shea : I am happy to try to answer that question. I’m not entirely convinced by the premise, I must say. My understanding is that the process is that ACMA requires, or has the capacity to require, the creation of codes that then determine how content might be moderated, with a view to regulating for mis- and disinformation. That is a process that would involve engagement between the regulator and the industry. I think I would agree with my colleagues from ACCAN: in these processes, there’s rarely sufficient representation for consumers, or for people who advocate for human rights or civil society generally, in the creation of those codes. That is a problem, because, in general, civil society is underresourced, and it becomes a situation where industry is very well resourced, and the regulator, at times, is as well, and there isn’t enough of a role for civil society to play in being a voice for people who use these services.
In that sense, I think it is worth recognising that that process of co-creation needs to have in it some accommodation for citizen voice that is properly resourced to do that work. If you’re asking whether there should be an appeal mechanism for people who may have had content taken down on the basis that it doesn’t meet the obligations—
Senator RENNICK: Yes. That’s what I’m asking.
Ms O’Shea : or stipulations of the code, I think there is a role for the existence of that kind of appeal process. At the moment, on these platforms, people are deplatformed all the time—and often that’s for reasons that fall on both sides of the political spectrum—and that is a problem, so I think there is some role to be played in that kind of appeal mechanism. But if you are going to follow through on this process and draft the codes right, you’d minimise the creation of that problem and the need for that appeal mechanism.
