Well, well, well - Is this a harbinger of how our rights will be handled should the ACMA mis and dis-information legislation be passed?

I made 3 calls to The Department of Infrastructure, Transportation, Regional Development, Communication and the Arts this morning on their general number - 1800 075 001.

The first 2 times, I asked to speak with someone at ACMA - the first time nobody was in and the second time I was told that ACMA actually had nothing to do with this Consultation - it was all being done by the Department named above which is too long to repeat here.

So I called back a third time and explained to the person on the switchboard that I had called twice already and been told by ACMA that I needed to speak with someone there. The operator asked me what the call was about and I explained that I had some questions about the process for this particular consultation.

“Oh”, she replied, “there is absolutely nobody you can talk to about this!”

I was confused and asked, well who can I ask questions of then?

And she replied that there was no direct phone number so I can’t speak with anyone.

I explained that I wanted to know when the submissions were to be published on the website and that I had other questions too and she simply replied.

“You will just have to wait.”

And hung up on me!

Perhaps the definition of the term Public Servant wasn’t taught when she trained for her job?

And far be it from me to suggest that anyone else contact the phone number 1800 075 001 to see if they have better luck than I do with this, but I will be contacting the Federal Parliamentarians who I know support freedom of speech to ask for their assistance in getting to the bottom of this issue. Again, the questions we need to know the answers to are these:

1. When will the submissions be posted to the website and will all of them be uploaded there?
2. How many submissions were received in total.
3. How many were in favour of censorship.
4. How many were opposed to the censorship legislation.
5. Whether someone from ACMA was required to read each submission or not.

Oh, I forgot! I did ask the person at ACMA who I spoke with before calling that number above whether ACMA would be reading any of the submissions or if it was all going to be done by the Department of Infrastructure. I was told that they weren’t sure how they would be shared amongst the department. So how do you like that? The body that is going to be given the power to silence any Australian who disagrees with the government may not even know why Australians have objected to these proposed rules?

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