South Australia Electoral Finance Act
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:04 pm by David FarrarSouth Australia Labor have copied what NZ Labour tried:
SOUTH Australia has become one of the few states in the world to censor the internet.
The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires anyone making an online comment about next month’s state election to publish their real name and postcode.
The law will affect anyone posting a comment on an election story on The Advertiser’s AdelaideNow website, as well as other Australian news sites.
It could also apply to election comment made on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Even worse the Libs voted for it:
The law, which was pushed through last year as part of a raft of amendments to the Electoral Act and supported by the Liberal Party, also requires media organisations to keep a person’s real name and full address on file for six months, and they face fines of $5000 if they do not hand over this information to the Electoral Commissioner. …
The law will apply as soon as the writs for the March 20 election are issued. The writs for the election can be issued any time between now and 25 days before the election. The law will then lapse at 6pm on polling day.
At least it is not for all year, like the EFA was. And the EFA did have a blog (but not a general Internet) exemption.
Related posts:
- Questions and Answers on the Electoral Finance Act
- Website warned it breaches Electoral Finance Act
- The latest victim of the Electoral Finance Act
- An offer to Australians
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:25 pm
” Even worse the Libs voted for it:”
Exactly. Showing the reality is that they’re all in the same cosy little club.
Statists every one of them.
Its time to dump them all.
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 6:21 pm
The NZ EFA was designed to prevent financial influence on the electoral process, and only applied to people spending more than $12,000 influencing voters (although the public may not have realised this due to the Herald campaign to mislead them).
On the contrary, the South Australian amendments are designed to make people ‘accountable’ if they say something which isn’t true (which the act also makes an offence), and applies even to a single unpaid comment on a blog post. I personally would rather have free, anonymous, but unaccountable speech, and take this risk that anonymous speech might not be true.
The South Australian government isn’t the only government that fears anonymous speech – record labels, movie companies, and security agencies all pressure governments stop truly anonymous speech. It most likely won’t be long before National & Labour make it illegal for ISPs to provide Internet service without logging IP addresses and timestamps.
[DPF: You are wrong on the EFA. It made anonymous election related speech on the Internet illegal, unless you were a personal blog]
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 6:27 pm
With any luck they will all get voted out for being like Nazi’s.
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 6:27 pm
so, south australia is owned by the chinese, new zealand is next of course, in fact we are cheaper so we will be first to be wholly owned by the yellows!
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Sounds like a road trip DPF, shall we go show them how to demolish it?
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 6:33 pm
And Phill Goff is great mates with the Premier. I do not trust the NZ Labour Party over censorship issues in the run up to a general election. Not after this.
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 6:36 pm
It is simply bringing the law up to date. It has been law since jesus played full back for Jerusalem that true names and addresses have to be appended to any letter to the editor, etc, in the period prior to an election, not just in SA, but in all Australian states and also during a federal election campaign.
Now you may argue that this is anti democratic, as is your right, but if you do, don’t confine your argument simply to the internet aspect of the law.
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 6:56 pm
LRO – even Idiot/Savant, a strong supporter of the Electoral Finance Act (who believed it didn’t go far enough) has declared on the strength of this law that there is “No freedom of speech in South Australia”.
ref: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/02/no-freedom-of-speech-in-south-australia.html
He appears to be wrong, but still =)
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Graeme, as I said, this is just applying the prior law regarding letters to the ditor, editorials, political comment, etc. to the internet. If you see this law as an attack on free speech then so was the prior law. Funny, but in 31 years as an Australian voter, I never concerned myself about my name and address being attached to my opinion. If you only think free speech is anonymous speech, then you have a long way to go.
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 8:00 pm
You’ve got this backward. Free speech isn’t anonymous speech, anonymous speech is free speech.
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 8:38 pm
LRO – you will also note that I said I/S was wrong.
And for that matter, so is DPF.
The new law in South Australia does not apply to blogs.
The extension to the Internet is only in respect of newspapers, magazines and other periodicals published on the Internet.
Frankly, the alternative is kinda stupid. You can debate the extent to which electoral laws should impinge upon advertising in newspapers, but if a law applies to ads or commentary in newspapers in printed form, the idea that it should also apply to pdfs of that newspaper made available on the Internet should be pretty uncontroversial.
[DPF: But it is not pdfs of newspapers only. It would apply to comments sections on newspaper sites.
Are you sure it does not possibly apply to blogs? Some Aussie bloggers think it does]
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 10:29 pm
It appears that those bloggers may have been extrapolating from somewhat misleading news stories. I doubt many have actually read the section of the law in question.
The law change may apply to comments sections on newspaper websites, but I’d be pretty happy defending a newspaper charged, because even that’s not really all that clear. But I am sure the law change doesn’t apply to ‘blogs.
Only fair that I explain my reasoning of course:
The old law:
There’s an argument that even this is wide enough to cover ‘blogs (is a blog “material … in written form”?). There’s an argument, but on balance (and in light of the amendments, which would otherwise be unnecessary) I think that would fail.
The new law:
[new words in bold]
Note that it’s not just anything published in electronic form on the Internet, but only journals so published. Is a ‘blog a journal? In ordinary parlance, perhaps, but journal is specifically defined in the section:
A ‘blog is not a newspaper, magazine or other periodical. So ‘blogs are unregulated.
Quite frankly, as I note above, I’m not 100% sure that a newspaper website is a newspaper in electronic form. News in an electronic form? Yes, but is it a newspaper? I’d happily put forward an argument that a newspaper in electronic form should be narrowly interpreted (meaning something like a pdf – something that actually looks like a newspaper, rather than a website). Less clear though, so I’d be advising newspapers to play it safe nonetheless, but ‘blogs have nothing to worry about.
Vote:February 2nd, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Graeme Edgeler: “in a journal published in electronic form on the Internet”
“In this section, journal means a newspaper, magazine or other periodical”.
Periodical is a very vague term – and it seems nearly everyone defines it slightly differently. Some definitions require fixed intervals between the addition of new material (which some blogs do, like those that aim for a daily update, but many would not), while others just require that material is regularly added (which would pretty much make all blogs electronic journals).
‘Broadcast on the Internet’ is also a bit of a technical contradiction – unless people are on the same ethernet network, the closest thing to broadcast on the Internet is multicast – which is a point-to-point connection to each end-user, from nodes close to the respective end-users, and so therefore not technically a broadcast.
So yes, the law is ambiguous and poorly constructed, but I suspect that the lawmakers intended to cover blogs, YouTube videos, and similar, and I also suspect that the courts will probably interpret the law that way.
Vote:February 3rd, 2010 at 12:31 am
Michael Atkinson, the Attorney-General in South Australia, gave an interview today in which he made it clear that he thinks his legislation applies to bloggers. There’s a transcript on my blog: Taking responsibility, or being silenced – scroll down to the Update.
Vote:February 3rd, 2010 at 1:18 am
” Michael Atkinson, the Attorney-General in South Australia ”
It just amazes me that people are stupid enough to elect these disgusting intellectually perverted scum. Voting themselves into tyranny.
Vote:February 3rd, 2010 at 2:10 am
Attorney-General Michael Atkinson vows to repeal election internet censorship law amid reader furore
That was quick.
Vote:February 3rd, 2010 at 7:18 am
I get the free speech argument. But “free” is never without another side to the coin. But what about the right to fair speech?
It’s not beyond the realms of possibility for an anonymous person to post blatant bullshit about a candidate just before an election, and for the story to get legs and possibly make a difference. Someone using their own name could do the same thing but it’s less likely to work as associations or vested interests would be much easier to see.
Vote:February 3rd, 2010 at 8:06 am
Oh – lawmakers clearly intended to cover blogs.
From SA Hansard: “I have amendments coming to section 116 which require, in the blogosphere, during the election campaign, attribution. You want to know that a real person of a real address is publishing the material and takes responsibility for it. (p 2857)”
They just did such a poor job in drafting the legislation that it is monumentally clear that ‘blogs aren’t covered. A couple of extra commas would make all the difference. Seriously, this guy is State Attorney-General? You should probably reconsider that =)
A1kmm – the way the definition of journal is drafted, even if periodical often has a broad meaning, suggests that it does not in this case: “journal means a newspaper, magazine or other periodical”. The first two words – newspaper and magazine – are given by the statute as examples of periodicals (by the use of the words “or other“). A blog is nothing like a newspaper or magazine, nor like periodicals that are kinda like newspapers and magazine, but not really.
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