Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I don't intend to speak for very long on this subject, but I did want to take the opportunity to commend Senator Babet for the motion and for the prospect of introducing a bill for a referendum to amend the Constitution. I must say that I never really thought that we would be in a position where that would be needed in this country. I don't think any of us expected to see the sorts of incursions on free speech that we've seen. Over the last five or six years in particular, it appears to have been turbocharged. Some of the examples that Senator Babet gave are, of course, very important ones. Those from the last 12 to 18 months, in particular, when we've seen incursions in relation to the ludicrous notion of hate crimes and the difficulty we have, as he rightly points out, in defining those are perhaps good examples of how this can go.

He's right to say that this is one of the most important issues and that it's glossed over in this place in a manner that it really shouldn't be, because, if we do not have free speech, we don't really have a democracy. That would be something that, explained in that manner, every Australian would agree with. If you were to hold a vote in a referendum on a constitutional amendment like the one he is suggesting, you would expect that the result of the vote in every jurisdiction in the country would be yes. I'd be very confident of that, particularly as we emerge from the COVID period, 2020-23, when that point was made very clearly. It was an era that saw a perverse mixture of mass hysteria and authoritarianism that overtook the country, making us a laughing stock on the world stage. That period destroyed families, friendships and businesses and led to worse health outcomes across society in the long run.

So much of that hardship and destruction could have been avoided if Australians had had the opportunity to speak their minds, but instead their speech was continuously suppressed by all manner of means, including through social media, through the media itself and indeed through the freezing of speech in a social sense as well, I might say. The consequence of the suppression was that bad policies based on outdated and poor research were kept in place far longer than in other nations where there was a more robust debate in place, and the damage that these policies had was greater than it should have been, resulting in social and economic ramifications that I think we're still battling today. As an example of how important this is—this is not just an esoteric concept; this is a concept that has real-world ramifications—that regrettable chapter in our nation's history exposed much of what's wrong with the political culture in this country at the moment.

If there was one positive that came from the COVID era, I think it was that it woke up millions of Australians to the precarious state our freedoms are in, particularly in relation to freedom of speech. It was through that period that many Australians first discovered the harsh truth that we really don't have free speech in this country. All we have, as Senator Babet pointed out, is the implied right to free speech, which, when put to the test, is a very difficult and problematic concept, one that I think should now be reduced to writing in our foundational document, the Constitution. Perhaps we shouldn't be relying on the implied right to freedom of speech. We have for too long. Our cultural, academic and political leaders have shown contempt for this key value.

Of course, COVID has not been the only example over the last few years. We saw it all the way through the Voice referendum. There are actually too many examples to cite, but all of them follow the same basic pattern: cultural, academic and political elites are pushing illiberal ideas onto the Australian people and, when they realise they can't defend them in the market of free speech, they resort to limiting speech. That's what we've seen with all of those examples. The strategy was originally confined to shutting down speech through bullying and harassment, but increasingly the trend has been towards legal enforcement through state and federal legislation. So, when we talk about the erosion of free speech, we're actually talking about the erosion of our democracy.

The countries which actually take this as a virtue and protect free speech enjoy robust democratic processes, culturally dynamic spheres, strong institutions and greater protections of human rights, while those that don't take these steps end up with corruption, human rights abuses, arbitrary laws, entrenched institutional problems and ever-increasing totalitarianism—exactly what we saw during COVID. Indeed, I think we can appreciate the importance of this concept more by observing the outcomes in countries where free speech was once an established norm but has been weakened over time. There's no greater example of that than the United Kingdom, which, despite once being a beacon of free speech and the exchange of ideas, has more recently become a veritable online police state.

According to their statistics, the UK government is now arresting tens of thousands of people every year for things they say online, with only a small proportion of these arrests resulting in convictions. But there's that chilling effect, which has arisen from the hate crimes laws and the online safety laws. Many Australians, I think, have found their social media posts removed for pointing out lies and inconsistencies and for asking the wrong questions. While many Australians were censored during COVID, many more self-censored out of fear of the consequences they might face if they spoke their mind. I'd argue that that self-censorship continues in Australia, when it comes to the debate on a wide range of political issues.

The fact is that Australians simply no longer feel that their right to free speech is properly protected, and for the health of our democracy this has to change, because, while it might suit those opposite in the short term, the pendulum of politics swings, and what was once a shield could be used as a sword. Australians rightly feel their freedom of speech is under attack, so I think we should be taking the opportunity to correct course and set ourselves upon the path of securing free speech for present and future generations. I support the motion from Senator Babet.