If the data retention laws are passed every email we send or receive, every telephone and web browse we make will be stored indefinitely and will be able to be accessed by a large number of public servants and officials and used against us.

What the government is proposing is that they will be able to record and probe our every conversation and thought. 

It would be the same as granting the government power to open and read a letter we send by Australia Post; the idea is repugnant. 

Under the proposed metadata legislation, privacy and free speech, and in turn the very core of our democratic society, will be severely compromised. 

The metadata proposition doesn’t make any sense. 

Wasting $400 million of taxpayers' money to fund such a horrid idea is disgusting, especially at a time when the government is being so mean-spirited towards the most vulnerable people in Australia. 

Let’s call it what it is - not metadata retention, but instead the absolute erosion of free speech in Australia by stealth. 

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