Wong, Sen Penny

Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:00): I thank the senator for her question, although I was anticipating a cost-of-living question. I'm very happy to respond in relation to the legislation that the government did withdraw today, and I thank Senator McAllister for her handling of that. I will say three things: first, the minister issued a statement in relation to this on the weekend; second, Senator McAllister, who is the representing minister, spoke today about the issues. Obviously, the bill did not have the support of the chamber, which is why the government made the decision to withdraw it. What I would say to you, Senator McKenzie, and this is a serious question, is that our democracy is under threat and at risk from foreign interference, foreign disinformation and misinformation, including—as people might remember—Russian bots and campaigns— The PRESIDENT: Minister, please resume your seat. Senator McKenzie? Senator McKenzie: A point of order on direct relevancy. Does this remain the Prime Minister's policy? Yes or no? The PRESIDENT: Senator McKenzie, you forgot the quite large preamble at the beginning of your question, which the minister is being directly relevant to. Senator WONG: I would say to Senator McKenzie that there is a serious question about making sure our democracy is resilient in an age where misinformation and disinformation are far more prevalent. First and foremost, I am a small-d democrat, and I believe in protecting the institutions of our democracy. I would hope, Senator McKenzie, that you do too. The problem is that there are elements who wish to use the openness of our society in order to damage the democracy. The democracy does require us to ensure that we do not have misinformation and disinformation fuelling risk to who we are and to our institutions. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator McKenzie, a first supplementary question?