The Liberal senator Andrew Bragg has shown a “disdain” for free speech that “smacks of autocracy” in threatening legal action against a website that purports to explain MPs’ voting records, the Institute of Public Affairs has said.
The OpenAustralia Foundation has rejected threatened legal action from Bragg over publication of his record on its site, They Vote For You, as “ludicrous”.
Bragg this week engaged legal counsel to demand the foundation amend the website “to accurately reflect [his] voting patterns”, claiming failure to do so may constitute “misleading and deceptive” conduct.
The website uses a mathematical formula by scoring MPs’ actions – either voting for, against or abstaining from a vote – to generate an assessment between “votes consistently for” or “consistently against” an issue.
Bragg and fellow Liberal moderate Dave Sharma have criticised the website for reporting they had voted against protections for LGBTQ people, despite being strong voices for such protections in parliament.
Sharma crossed the floor in parliament to vote with Labor for an amendment to protect LGBTQ+ students in the religious discrimination bill in February, while Bragg signalled he would do the same thing before it was ultimately pulled from the Senate schedule.
The Liberal MPs claimed the website was “partisan” and Bragg unsuccessfully tried to have it stripped of its charity status last year.
After receiving the legal demand, the foundation’s lawyers reportedly responded that there was “no cause of action” because the foundation is not engaged in “trade or commerce”.
It said it stood by its work, and claimed confusion on Bragg’s voting record stemmed from issues inside parliament itself that needed urgent reform.
The chief executive of the Institute of Public Affairs, John Roskam, said Bragg’s action against the website “seems to be another example of Coalition’s disdain for the principle of free speech and free political debate”.
Roskam cited Bragg’s threat and an unrelated complaint by the Liberal senator Sarah Henderson about the charitable status of the Parenthood Project as examples of government figures engaging in an “arbitrary and draconian overreaction” by targeting groups “for their vigorous opposition to the Coalition”.
“This is not the question of condoning unlawful activity. It is a question of attempting to censor political debate.”
Roskam warned that such efforts “weaken democracy” because they set a “dangerous precedent for a potential Labor government to follow by targeting, for example, those who question the efficacy of Covid control measures or the impact of climate change”.
“What they’re talking about smacks of autocracy much more than democracy.”
Bragg rejected the criticism. “They’re entitled to their opinion … but I don’t agree with that analysis,” he told Guardian Australia.
OpenAustralia Foundation co-founder Matthew Landauer said he stood by the website’s formula for calculating a politician’s support for an issue, which he said was “open and transparent”. He explained that an MP’s stance on a “substantive” vote was weighted more heavily than non-substantive votes, such as minor procedural motions.
“We’re confident our methodology is a good one,” he said. “It applies exactly the same to every member of parliament – there’s no bias in the process.”
Landauer said the site showed how a politician actually voted, not what their public remarks or intentions were. He said the stoush with Bragg and Sharma made the case for reforming how parliament managed and recorded votes in the chamber, saying procedural quirks such as passing a motion “on the voices” – that is, without a formal voting record being taken – made it more difficult to track an individual’s behaviour.
“We need to make some sort of concerted push on some level to get parliament to improve its parliamentary record of voting. So many votes happen on the voices, you can’t figure out who voted each way or if they are in the room at the time,” Landauer said.
“[This] is a fundamental problem and a huge gap in the parliamentary record. The work we’ve done has made that all the more obvious to a lay person.
“We need a complete record of all votes that lists how every single MP votes on every single vote.”
Bragg said the website’s records “don’t correspond with the official record maintained by parliament”.
“It is wrong, misleading and debases public debate,” he said.
“They Vote For You is trying to reduce a very important and complex Westminster system into oversimplified captions and graphics. It’s devoid of any nuance or context and uses hyperbole to promote a partisan objective.”
Bragg insisted consumer law would apply to the foundation, citing its “corporate activities” such as soliciting donations.
Landauer said his legal team had responded to Bragg’s lawyers and was waiting for a further response.
