George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President:

The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive … to prescribe opinions to them—

that is, the people—

and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.

They are not my words but the words of John Stuart Mill writing not now in the early 21st century but more than a century and a half ago, in 1859, in On Liberty. How bizarre that what was considered beyond argument more than 150 years ago, the defence of the absolute liberty of the press, is now necessary in the second decade of the 21st century in Australia, but it is. It is necessary because the freedom of the press can no longer be taken for granted in the era of the Gillard Labor government.

I see a member of the cabinet, Senator Penny Wong, is in the chamber. So listen carefully, Senator Wong; I have a challenge for you. We heard Senator Mark Bishop, in the contribution he just made, say that there has never been an occasion in the life of this government when there has been any interference with the freedom of the press. Well, Mr Deputy President, you may recall, as I do, that late last year a column by the respected veteran political journalist Mr Glenn Milne was actually removed from the Australian newspaper. It was withdrawn after it had been published and it was taken down from the Australian's website. That column contained serious allegations concerning the Prime Minister. Let Senator Wong deny, because I am giving her the opportunity to do so, that the withdrawal of Mr Milne's column and its removal from the Australian's website was directly consequent upon the Prime Minister demanding of the then CEO of News Limited, Mr John Hartigan, that the piece be removed. Was it a defamatory piece? No defamation was alleged. No proceedings were ever issued by the Prime Minister against News Limited or Mr Glenn Milne. Do you deny, Senator Wong, that that act of political censorship was demanded by the Prime Minister of the then CEO of News Limited? If a government, a Prime Minister, can get away with that, then the freedom of the press, particularly the freedom of the print media in this country can no longer be assured.

You are a member of a government, Senator Wong, which is in coalition with a political party, the Greens, whose policy is to license journalists presumably so they can express politically correct opinions, opinions congenial to the Green's ideology. You are a member of a government whose 'minister for truth', Senator Conroy, refused in question time today to rule out greater government regulation of the print as well as the broadcast media. You are a member of a government, Senator Wong, whose ministers opened the champagne bottles last year when a conservative columnist, Mr Andrew Bolt, was the subject of censorship by a court ruling applying an act of parliament, the Racial Discrimination Act, which a previous Labor government instituted. There has not been a time when the freedom of the press in this country has been under such threat.