Misinformation alert: Canavan’s carbon tax claim

What is the contested election narrative?

That the Labor Party plans to impose a new carbon tax on Australia.

Background

Queensland LNP Senator Matt Canavan has taken to social media to attack Labor’s climate policy, warning it would introduce “a new carbon tax”. 

Although Labor announced its climate policy in 2021, the narrative of a “new carbon tax” has re-surfaced following confusion over whether coal miners would be included in Labor’s proposal to enhance the Coalition’s current climate policy. 

There is no evidence Labor has a new carbon tax beyond measures already announced. Labor leader Anthony Albanese has promised there will be “no new carbon tax ever”.

In a series of tweets, Mr Canavan accused Mr Conroy and the Labor Party of being dishonest with constituents and continued to warn of “Labor's new carbon tax”. 

On April 28, while campaigning in Queensland, Prime Minister Scott Morrison also accused Labor of seeking to introduce a “sneaky carbon tax”.

Social media metrics

A video shared by Nationals Senator Matt Canavan currently sits at over 800 comments and has had more than 53,000 views. It has more than 1500 interactions, of which more than 1100 are likes.

The video features a Sky News reporter, Jonathan Lea, who is currently travelling with the Albanese/Labor campaign. Lea questioned Richard Marles, and later tweeted about it.  

Shares on Twitter have racked up more than 11,000 views for the video, including from regional accounts including @profqlder, which has drawn close to 300 RTs for the video tweet.

Electorate

Queensland Senate

Who spread it/sharing it?

Tinfoleak - @mattjcann - all tweets/RTs
Account Analysis - https://accountanalysis.app/twitter/account/mattjcan

What are other metrics around it?

The term ‘carbon tax’ has trended on Google in the last 24 hours as people search for the term.

Who is sharing?

(Data for shares recorded on May 3, 2022)