It is no exaggeration to describe the federal government’s Misinformation and Disinformation Bill as a reworking of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in his fictional book, 1984.

The legislation is an overt attack on freedom of speech. NSW Solicitor-General Michael Sexton describes it as Orwellian legislation targeting ‘contestable political opinions on social media … based on the patronising assumption that members of the community cannot make a judgement about those opinions but must be protected from the obvious inadequacies of their [own] judgement’.