A little under a year ago, Michelle Rowland, who was then communications minister, had to make a humiliating retreat.
Rowland conceded the government’s sweeping legislation to combat “misinformation and disinformation” would not proceed, because the numbers were not there to get it through.
The government claimed the plan would have held big tech platforms to account in having to deal with false information. It would have “ushered in an unprecedented level of transparency”, it said. Opponents saw it as the government wanting to censor the internet.
