Fraser Anning (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

There is nothing more vital to a liberal democracy such as ours than protecting the freedoms on which it was built. Freedom of speech, one's ability to speak freely and frankly without constraint, is central to all other freedoms. Freedom of speech is likened to other fundamental freedoms such as freedom of religion, thought and conscience. It is a fundamental tenet providing for open and honest political discourse—discourse about things like radical Islam, black African gangs, opportunistic economic migrants and the Aboriginal industry. These are some of the issues under the egregious 18C where mums, dads, university students and news presenters have been hauled before the courts as a result of offence taken from something that someone has said.

I was taught that offence is taken, not given. A lot has changed from when I was young, and not for the better. Without open discussion, free from fear of retribution, as a society we will never address these issues. We will never close the gap. We will never stop the ever spiralling crime sprees by disaffected African youth and we will never stop the rising threat of radical Islamic extremists. In the eternal words of George Orwell, if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. However, every day we see instances of the Left and radical Greens shutting down debate and stifling political discourse. People in this chamber continually deny me and other conservatives the right to debate issues that we are passionate about. This is a sad indictment of our democracy. If we cannot have freedom of discourse to discuss important issues in this place, then where on earth can we?