Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate notes that the people of Australia deserve the right via referendum to decide if our constitution should be amended to ensure that the Commonwealth or a state must not make any law that limits the freedom of speech, including freedom of the press and other media.

'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they just don't want to hear.' Those are the words of George Orwell, and they are as true today as they were when he wrote them. I stand here today in defence of something that many Australians assume they already possess but which in truth remains dangerously exposed in this country. I stand in here today in defence of the Australian people's right to free speech.

Earlier this afternoon, I had intended to utilise my time to debate my bill, the Constitution Alteration (Right to Free Speech) Bill 2025. However, the government chose not to allow that debate to occur. I will talk about it anyway. The purpose of my bill is very simple, but it's profoundly important. It's to enshrine freedom of speech within the Australian Constitution so that no government, federal or state, can erode that freedom. Though the bill is not before us for debate today, the motion that I moved is modelled directly on the wording of the bill.

My proposal is quite straightforward. It would insert a new chapter, 3 (a), into the Australian Constitution, and a new section, 80 (a). That provision would state that the Commonwealth or a state must not make any law that limits freedom of speech, including freedom of the press and other media. In other words, it would do something that many Australians mistakenly believe that they already have and has already been done. It would constitutionally guarantee the right to speak freely.

This bill is urgently needed because freedom of speech in Australia rests on increasingly fragile ground. Most Australians assume they possess a fundamental right to express their opinions without any fear. That assumption is understandable, but it is also increasingly dangerous. Unlike many other Western democracies, Australia does not have an explicit constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech. Instead, we rely on a patchwork of legal interpretations and political restraint, both of which are now under great strain. Over the past decade, we have seen the right of Australians to say what they think come under growing pressure. While parliaments across this country have made no meaningful effort to strengthen protections for speech, they have repeatedly passed laws, both state and federal, that restrict it.

We are now approaching a point where it is quite dangerous to openly say things most people might privately believe. It's a brave person, for example, who states that men cannot become women. Think about that for a single moment—a simple biological observation, one that would have been considered self-evident since God created Adam and Eve, can now place a person at risk of being dragged before a tribunal, interrogated for their words and publicly condemned. Is that the country we want to live in? It's a country where citizens must measure every sentence, weigh every opinion and censor their own thoughts out of fear that the state or one of its many administrative tribunals might come knocking at their door.

That is not a free society, and the problem is getting worse. Just look at the plethora of so-called 'hate crimes legislation' recently passed at state and federal levels. Whatever their stated intentions might have been, these fast-tracked laws represent a serious and dangerous expansion of state power at the direct expense of fundamental civil liberties. They form part of a worrying trend across state and federal parliaments, a steady encroachment on speech, association and dissent. Piece by piece, law by law, our freedoms are being narrowed. The last thing this country needs is Canberra or the states giving themselves more power, especially when that power is built upon the wonderfully elastic and entirely subjective concept of hate.

Now, history teaches us something very simple. Laws drafted in moments of moral urgency often out-live the crisis that gave rise to them. When they do, vague wording and poorly defined concepts stop protecting people. What do they do instead? They start to police ideas. The fatal flaw in these attacks on speech should have been obvious from the beginning. Who decides what 'hate' is? Who defines what 'extremism' is? Who defines what 'harm' is? These terms are fluid by their nature. What is labelled 'mainstream' today could be labelled 'extreme' tomorrow. What is condemned as hate in one political climate may be regarded as genuine political criticism in another.

Today, extremist groups may be banned; tomorrow it may be any group that disagrees with the orthodoxy of the day. How long before holding a biblical worldview on sex, gender or marriage is deemed hateful? How long before opposing mass migration or questioning multiculturalism, criticising powerful foreign lobbies or challenging prevailing political narratives attracts scrutiny under these types of laws? Hate is subjective; freedom is not.

We are already seeing the consequences of this creeping authoritarianism. Federal senators have been threatened with legal action over words spoken in debates. Australians have been dragged through court for things they said at rallies. Some have been sent to prison for words alone. Let's be clear on this one. There are many opinions expressed in this country that I may strongly disagree with, but disagreement is not the test. Freedom of speech exists precisely to protect speech that we may not like. Having a bad opinion should never be enough to send someone to prison. Once Australians begin to fear that their opinions, their religious beliefs, their political arguments, their associations or their participation in protests could expose them to investigation or sanction, public debate will inevitably narrow. When debate narrows, democracy will start to wither.

Yet this place continually nibbles away at our freedoms like termites in a weatherboard cottage, while too many in this chamber applaud quietly from the shadows. Too many in this place like to sell the illusion of safety while quietly undermining liberty. If we truly want to protect freedom in Australia, we must go further than repealing bad laws. We must entrench the principle itself—that is, the principle of free speech. That is precisely what my amendment seeks to do. It would provide Australians with a clear, unambiguous guarantee that governments cannot pass laws limiting freedom of speech or freedom of the press. It would bring Australia closer into line with other western democracies that recognise speech as a foundational liberty.

Consider, for example, the first amendment to the United States Constitution, which states 'Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press'. That simple sentence has served a powerful shield for liberty for more than two centuries. Our Constitution already recognises the importance of protecting certain freedoms from government interference. For example, section 116 prohibits the Commonwealth from establishing a religion, imposing religious observance or prohibiting the free speech of religion.

In a similar way, my proposal would recognise something that Australians instinctively understand—that people must be free to express their thoughts without fear of government reprisal. Without speech there can be no true expression of thought. Without freedom of thought, there can be no meaningful freedom at all. The enlightenment which lay the foundations of the modern democratic world was built on the simple but revolutionary idea that individuals should be allowed to challenge prevailing beliefs. Progress became possible because people were free to question authority. But if we begin to suppress speech again, if certain ideas become untouchable and beyond criticism, we risk sliding backwards into a new dark age of intellectual conformity, and that serves nobody. What good are all of our other freedoms if people are not free to think independently of the state and express those thoughts openly?

This is why my bill ultimately places the question where it belongs: in the hands of the Australian people. It would give Australians the opportunity to vote in a referendum and decide for themselves just how important freedom of speech is to them, and I have great confidence in the judgement of Australians. We may agree or disagree on many issues, but we also believe in a fair go. We believe in open debate, and we believe in the right of every citizen to voice their opinion without fear or favour.

There should not be a single senator in this chamber who would oppose free speech. There should not be a single senator here who would tell their constituents that they want to make it harder for Australians to express their opinions. We didn't come to Canberra to oppress our constituents; we came here to defend their freedoms, and my proposal does exactly that. It is long overdue.