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

I am delighted to join this discussion into government incursions into Australia's right to privacy and the freedom of the individual, though I find it a little surprising that the issue has been raised by the Greens. Nevertheless, I stand as a representative in this place of the only political party in the Senate which was established for the very purpose of defending and expanding the rights of the individual. As Mr Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, said in a very fine speech he gave to the Institute of Public Affairs in Sydney on 6 August, when speaking of the Liberal Party:

… we are the freedom party. We stand for the freedoms which Australians have a right to expect and which governments have a duty to uphold. We stand for freedom and will be freedom’s bulwark …

That was the purpose for which the Liberal Party was created in 1944. It is the purpose that animates us today. It is the purpose that will animate us always.

I caution against the use of privacy as a Trojan Horse argument to conceal further invasions of the freedom of the individual rather than to protect it. We have seen that in this country within the last year or more when privacy has been used as a Trojan Horse argument to conceal attempts by this government to restrict freedom of speech and, in particular, freedom of the press. That began in the middle of last year when the Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, misleadingly referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission's 2008 report on privacy and made the false claim that that report contained grounds for restricting freedom of the press. In fact, when one examines the 2,694 pages of the Australian Law Reform Commission's report into privacy—this is an exercise on which no politicians or journalists cared to embark, apparently—one finds that only one of the 74 chapters of that very long report dealt with the question of journalistic abuses of privacy and found not that there were grounds to restrict freedom of the press but, in fact, recommended that the freedom of the press be extended by broadening the definition of 'media organisation' in Australian law. That is an example of the misleading use of concern about privacy as an excuse to restrict freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

I referred a moment ago to Mr Tony Abbott's very inspiring speech to the Institute of Public Affairs on 6 August 2012 entitled 'Freedom Wars'. In the course of that speech, he said:

History's lesson is still that countries are stronger, as well as better, with democratic freedoms than without them.

Freedom of speech is not just an academic nicety but the essential pre-condition for any kind of progress.

That was Mr Abbott's view and in expressing that view he drew upon the deep commitment of the Liberal Party to the philosophy of freedom—freedom of speech, freedom of the individual and freedom of the press. What was the government's reaction? The government's reaction could be seen two days later when the Attorney-General, Ms Nicola Roxon, was interviewed on ABC 774 by Rafael Epstein. She was asked about Mr Abbott's speech two days earlier in which he mounted a trenchant defence of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the Attorney-General said:

… we don't have the sort of obsession with free speech at any price or the right to carry arms, the sort of American view that these are rights that never have to be balanced with any other public good.

When I read that, I thought how extraordinary in this day and age that the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth of Australia should attack a political opponent for being obsessed with freedom of speech and with freedom of the press, and should compare his concern about freedom of speech with the American view of the right to bear arms. What an extraordinary proposition! It just goes to show how limited, how hopeless and how unenthusiastic is this government's commitment to a fundamental democratic right.

This is the government that in September last year commissioned Mr Ray Finkelstein QC to prepare a report, a copy of which I have with me, into independent media regulation in Australia. Mr Finkelstein's report recommended the creation of an Orwellian new structure, somewhat reminiscent of George Orwell's Ministry of Truth, called the News Media Council, to impose limitations on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Mr Finkelstein said:

It could not be denied that whatever mechanism is chosen to ensure accountability speech will be restricted. In a sense, that is the purpose of the mechanism.

Do not let anybody be surprised that, when the government's response to the Finkelstein report is received, then there are new and additional burdens and impositions on freedom of speech embraced by this government.

What I find very alarming is the reasoning behind the Finkelstein report, for this is what its author writes in chapter 2, talking about the philosophical justification for freedom of the press:

Libertarian theory was developed in the period of the Enlightenment … The theory was informed by a liberal belief that truth would emerge from the clash of competing opinions, and by a belief in the 'self-righting' capacities of public debate—