Is freedom of speech at risk in Australia? A list of notable recent incidents
For a long time now I’ve been worried that there is a troubling pattern of suppression of free speech in this country. I sat down to catalog instances, and unfortunately, it seems like I might have a point. Because my primary goal here is to anthologize, I’ve contented myself with links rather than writing out a full summary. At the end I have a few words on how we got into this situation, and what we can do about it.
A PARTIAL LIST OF NOTABLE RECENT ATTACKS ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN AUSTRALIA
Christian Porter’s attempts to stifle and punish rape accusation against himself
Social media gag for public servants
2016 Broadband leak raid on Parliament House
Attempt to prosecute Dan Oaks for reporting on war crimes
Attempt to prosecute David McBride for revealing war crimes
Raid on the ABC for war crimes journalism
Prosecution of Witness K for revealing Australian misconduct in relation to Timorese Oil & Gas
Prosecution of Bernard Collaery for the same
Crackdown on inclusion morning teas in defense
Threats to crackdown on charities for engaging in political advocacy
Attempts to regulate what teachers can and can’t say in schools about sexuality & gender
Australia’s silence on the persecution of Julian Assange
A few comments on the situation:
A word about political correctness
The right has been trying to make quite a point about political correctness lately. I take it that the most charitable reconstruction of complaints about political correctness conceives of political correctness as:
A practice of attempting to stifle debate and discussion by bringing to bear civil-society pressure which is disproportionate or in some way undue, against those who have expressed opinions that some consider objectionable.
I’m happy to concede on this definition that Australia does have a political correctness problem. Contra the right though, it is not purely a left-wing phenomenon. I’m not even convinced it’s mainly a left-wing problem, although the left certainly does exhibit it on occasion. Examples on the right of “political correctness” include the almost annual tradition of getting a journalist fired (or trying to get them fired) for being insufficiently patriotic on ANZAC day, e.g.: Scott McIntyre, Yassmin Abdel-Magied.
What I would say about political correctness though is that irritating as the policing of public discourse by self-appointed civil-society moralists is, it pales in comparison to the dangers of policing of the public discourse by the actual police.
Power not weakness: The sad truth of why the coalition is doing this
There’s a comforting story I could tell here about what’s going on. I could argue that the government is running scared of criticism. I don’t think that’s what’s going on, at least in the main. Rather, I think that the Liberals have become so emboldened in their electoral position that they feel they have enough stretching room to punish their critics. This is what happens in the absence of serious opposition from the left.
“What are they hiding”, not “think of the principle” How to fight for freedom of speech.
My advice on fighting back against this sort of thing is don’t just respond by whinging about freedom of speech as an abstract principle. It’s not that I don’t care about freedom of speech as a principle- personally, I do- it’s just that the media and the educated middle class generally care about this much more than Australia as a whole.
Instead, focus on questions like what are they hiding? Why are they so thin-skinned? This is not to say you shouldn’t mention freedom of speech as a principle, but I wouldn’t make it the focus of your presentation.
I could be wrong about this, but I suspect this approach is much more likely to prevail than an abstract concern about human rights.