DEAR News Of The Area,

BOB Harris’ letter (NOTA 14 March) highlighting the trap of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ is timely given the upcoming Federal election.

Of course historically there has always been the good old fashioned strategy of ‘character assassination’, outlandish promises, and downright lying, but with personal pride and the threat of defamation hanging in the wind, there was usually a sense that you needed to be reasonably close to the truth.

Recent tactics, used to great effect by Steve Bannon in the US during Trump’s first term and of significant concern in a healthy democracy, is the deliberate spread of false or misleading information which creates fear, anger, skepticism, and confusion, given the term, “spreading the zone with sh@#”.

While we all have our own prejudices and will either seek out information to make intelligent informed choices or believe what suits us, each of these four factors have the ability to seriously undermine public confidence in democratic processes, as has been borne out in the US and globally.

We all need to be awake to the major forces in this Country which are manipulating popular opinion.

While Pauline Hanson has used fear and anger to considerable effect over the years, No campaigner Matthew Sheahan’s Advance, which has apparently managed to secure over $15 million in donations to target the Greens and Teals, via social media, emails and mail outs is one such culprit.

God knows we need a deeper debate, major structural changes and greater scrutiny within our Federal Parliament.

The current Greens and Independents have at least added some integrity, often holding the current two major parties to account and forcing beneficial change.

Contrary to much of the disinformation, the wheels of government have not fallen off, nor the sky fallen in.

Regards,
Dave WOOD,
Boambee East.