Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset, I want to say that Senator Babet is right to raise this extraordinarily important issue with respect to freedom of speech. It is appropriate and proper that we reflect deeply on our freedoms. Senator Antic is also correct in raising issues that arose during the COVID pandemic. I personally believe we should have had a royal commission into government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, I chaired a Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee inquiry which recommended that for a whole range of reasons.

Having said that, it is important that the complication of the issue is recognised. I want to quote to you from what is probably one of my guiding philosophical texts, John Stuart Mill's famous essay On Liberty. This is how he described the principle, which we should consider—frequently referred to as the harm principle—of where one person's liberty should end and another person's liberty should begin:

That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

The complication, in terms of considering where certain rights begin and other rights end, is balancing freedoms on the one hand and harm on the other. In the context of freedom of speech, what concerns me about Senator Babet's proposal is that there is no recognition of the legitimate limitations that our country—and nearly every Western liberal democracy—has had on freedom of speech.

We have laws against defamation. We have laws which say that you can't go out and untruthfully, maliciously and vilely besmirch the character of anyone in the community, publish defamatory material, and escape without a response under our legal system. Is Senator Babet saying we shouldn't have those laws? Does he recognise those limitations with respect to freedom of speech? There's quite often a debate as to where the line should be—but, in the course of this debate, I think it's important to put on the record that it is something which needs to be considered.

We have laws with respect to national security. An advocate for an absolutist right for freedom of speech should say: 'There should be no limitations. You should be able to say anything.' But what if the national security of the country is jeopardised? What if it's top-secret confidential information that is needed for the defence of the country and the defence of the people whose freedoms you are seeking to protect? Isn't that a legitimate restriction on freedom of speech?

We also have laws with respect to incitement. I've sat on a number of legal and constitutional committee hearings looking at some of the laws which Senator Babet and Senator Antic have looked at. You have to consider the real-world consequences of someone who goes out and incites other people to attack other people in the community simply because of their ethnic origin, simply because of their political views, simply because of where they worship, and on occasion incites violences against those people and violence against their places of worship and even violence against them in their own homes. Those are all elements which have to be considered in terms of the freedom-of-speech debate.

One of the wisest American jurists was a fellow called Oliver Wendell Holmes. He served with great distinction on the US supreme court. He actually changed his views with respect to freedom of speech. It's an interesting parable in many respects, with respect to how his views on freedom of speech changed. While Senator Babet refers to the US constitution—notwithstanding it had the words in it that Senator Babet referred to—it wasn't really until the 1920s that the United States really enjoyed freedom of speech as we understand that today. It used to be the case in the United States—before some seminal cases in 1919 and 1920, which I'll get to—that freedom of speech was substantially curtailed. If you were going out on the streets advocating the reform of labour laws, to protect the health and safety of workers, you could be put in jail. If you went out on the streets and called for civic reform, you could be put into jail in the United States—even though they had that clause in the US constitution.

It wasn't until after World War I—towards the end of World War I—when there were a series of legal cases brought against pacifists, social reformers and others that the Supreme Court of the United States actually carefully considered where the limit should be. Probably the best known articulation of that was by Oliver Wendell Holmes. I want to quote to you from a judgment that he gave, which perhaps gives one of the best articulations of the limits on freedom of speech:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man … falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing … panic.

In shorthand, it's called the man-calling-fire-in-a-theatre limitation on free speech—in terms of trying to understand the limits with respect to free speech. I'll read it again:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing … panic.

It has always been recognised—at least since the 1920s, in a US context, and even before then—that there are limits on free speech, but none of those limits was recognised in the contribution that was made by Senator Babet and none of those limits was recognised in the contribution that was made by Senator Antic.

I passionately believe in freedom of speech. I have a photo of John Stuart Mill hanging in my office, and I've got a bust of Voltaire in my office, both of whom were passionate advocates for free speech. Voltaire was imprisoned for exercising his freedom of speech during the 1700s and was one of the foundational figures of the Enlightenment. It is recognised in their books, including in On Liberty, the fundamental essay on the classical liberal tradition, that there are limits.

The question for Senator Babet, in putting forward his motion and in terms of his bill and his referendum—and does Australia really need another referendum? I'll just query that. The question for Senator Babet is: what limits are you going to place? We know we have laws of defamation, laws relating to national security and laws preventing people from inciting people to go out and cause harm, physical harm or property damage, against their fellow Australians, and I think all of those laws are well justified. Prior to agreeing to the step which Senator Babet is proposing, I would want to hear how those legitimate limitations would be considered and would be reflected in any referendum he would put forward, especially given that, on the face of the motion he's brought forward to the Senate, there's not even a recognition that there are valid and legitimate limitations on freedom of speech.

However, I'll conclude and say that these are important matters, and I'm pleased Senator Babet has raised them, and I'm pleased with Senator Antic's contribution. I believe it's something we, in this place, need to watch very, very carefully, but, in doing so, I think it is important that all parts of the equation are weighed.

Sean Bell (NSW, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation supports this motion. We agree that the people should have a right to decide if the Constitution should be amended to ensure greater protections for free speech. This is something One Nation believes in very strongly. It's something we've advocated for in this chamber and across the country.

I believe the last time we made some attempts to progress this issue was because we acknowledged some of the things that Senator Scarr brought up—that this is a very complicated issue. I believe it was via a reference to develop terms for a referendum. I do believe the Liberals supported that, but it was blocked unfortunately, which is a shame, because it is a very complicated issue. It is through things like the Senate committee process that we can start to unpick this and unpack that and figure out some of those matters that Senator Scarr raised about incitement to violence or shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre and how those types of language or talking don't actually constitute free speech. I don't believe that Senator Babet, through this motion, was advocating for those things.

It is a shame that we haven't had a greater ability as a Senate to unpack those questions. We have tried to. We have put forward proposals. We have looked at investigating this, but, again, we've been shut down and silenced by the other side of the chamber, who do not feel that this is such an important issue, who feel that those concerned about the continued erosion of our free speech don't deserve a voice and this doesn't deserve further inquiry. It does; it definitely does, and that is why One Nation has been so strong on free speech. It is why we have supported a constitutional change to a referendum, however that may be. As Senator Scarr rightly points out, this is a complicated issue, and the wording would have to be determined in a very careful way. It's why we pushed for an inquiry into the terms and the rules, because it's not just about politics.

Ultimately, this is about the kind of country we are handing to our children. As a One Nation senator for New South Wales, I represent families and small-business owners and farmers and retirees and young people, and all of them are becoming sick and tired of having their voices shut down. They're becoming tired of being silenced.

I am proud that One Nation has been so strong on this issue. I can say that Senator Hanson has been right on this issue. Even Senator Hanson herself has had her voice shut down. Even she is being dragged through the courts right now, because we have seen that the implied right to political expression which is in the Constitution doesn't go far enough to protect the capacity of Australians to speak and to have opinions.

If we continue to let the Labor Party and the Greens and others control language and debate, we will lose Australia. We'll also start to lose democracy, because freedom of speech and the capacity to talk freely go to the heart of our democracy. If we cannot debate clearly, if we cannot talk frankly, if we cannot speak without fear that we may be dragged through the courts or find ourselves in prison, then we cannot have a true debate and a true democracy, because if Australians can't speak freely then our elections become theatre and the government becomes something that does things to you, not something that you can affect truly. If you cannot argue for the things you believe for fear that the government will step in to silence you and censor your political expression or your freedom of speech, then we'll start to lose the Australia that we live in.

It's unfortunate. At times, it seems that those in this government think that the public needs to be managed like children. They act like disagreement is dangerous. They believe that questions are offensive. They do not believe that ordinary people can be trusted to think for themselves, so they are desperate to control what you can say. They will shame you for asking questions. They will smear you as hateful and ignorant or extreme for asking questions. A perfect example is Senator Hanson, who engages in complicated topics and raises important issues. And suddenly all of the laws of the land are turned around and people are crying for her to be put back in prison: 'Take her to court!' We see that this is occurring because there has been an erosion of our freedom of speech—of our right to political expression.

We truly believe—One Nation believes—that, unless we take steps to enshrine in our Constitution a stronger protection for freedom of speech, then this slow creep of censorship that we are seeing, which is stifling our democracy, will only get worse. Again, this is happening because Senator Hanson and we in One Nation challenge a system that, in many ways, divides Australians for their own benefit. It's a system where the reward for Australians who work hard, pay their taxes and follow the rules is to then get lectured at by people who don't have to live with the consequences of their own policies, because they might hold the right political views. So, when they express their political opinion, they are free and safe to do so, but when others express theirs, suddenly their political expression will end with them winding up in prison. And that cannot continue.

One Nation will always defend free speech because free speech is how ordinary Australians, everyday Australians, defend themselves. It is through free speech that they have the ability to say, 'This isn't working.' It is through free speech that they have the right to say, 'I don't agree.' It is through free speech that they have the right to demand an explanation and to ask who benefits. And it is through free speech that they have the right to say, 'Put Australia first. Put our nation first.' When governments and institutions start talking about policing speech, regulating opinions and cracking down on 'wrong' views, every Australian should be alert. That is why we will not ever let this issue go. In listening to Senator Scarr, we understand those points that he raises about the complexity of this problem, but One Nation believes that it has gone too far, that we can see with things like 18(c) and these hate crime laws that have come in that they move beyond the realm of some of those issues that are raised about incitement to violence. They move into censorship of legitimate political expression.

It reaches a point where the only way you can then defend against this is via a referendum. It's not that anyone is particularly keen to rush back to a referendum; that's why, the last time One Nation raised this, we sought to do so through a committee process to determine terms of reference and do things in an orderly and managed way. But, again, we get shut down. We cannot have this debate. We cannot have these complex discussions, because the other side of the chamber doesn't want to allow them. That should concern you because, when government and institutions start policing speech, it never stops at the people they deem to be the extremists. It always winds up targeting everyday people. First they go after people with the loud voices, but in the end they will go after the people with the quiet voices. They will go after the quiet Australians. And then they'll go after everyone. That is why One Nation will always stand up for free speech: without it, we cannot have truth and, without truth, we cannot have a strong country.

Let me be clear: asking questions is not fearmongering. So often it is that questioning things, questioning the government or having difficult discussions gets you accused fearmongering or dividing the country. I believe that asking questions is your job as a citizen and that it's our duty as senators, which is why One Nation raises this issue. It's why we supported Senator Babet on this. It's why we pushed for an inquiry into terms of reference for a referendum. Australians, when they're asked to vote on something as serious as constitutional change—look at the last referendum, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. That was such a pivotal moment, and you could see how the other side—the Labor Party, the Greens and others—so desperately wished to crack down on the capacity for parties like One Nation to staunchly oppose their side and to staunchly argue for our side. In the end, it was through that debate and that argument that the public turned around. When it started off, the polling showed that they were in favour of the voice. Then One Nation led the way. We said: 'No. We believe this is wrong. We believe this is divisive. We believe this makes our country worse, not better. We should all be a nation of people united together. We should not be putting this in our Constitution.' We led the way on that, and we won the argument. Then others came across and began to make the same arguments—arguments I believe many wished to essentially make illegal. I believe it's no stretch to say that some of the things we were arguing for others wished would be illegal. They wished they would have shut us down, and that would have been a tragedy. If we did not have the capacity to make those arguments then we couldn't have won the debate, and then that voice to parliament—the terrible, divisive voice to parliament—would have become a permanent fixture in our nation's constitution. That would have been a tragedy for this nation.

It was only through free speech and an implied right to political expression that we were able to win that debate. As a result, you can see that others then said: 'We can't let that happen again. We can't continue to allow a situation where people are able to argue those points.' They will move to shut them down, which is why I do believe the Senate needs to take more seriously the issue of protecting free speech. Words matter, definitions matter and, when legislation passes in a rushed way, legal consequences matter.

The last example of that was in laws we took post Bondi with the hate crimes legislation. We talk about doing things in a responsible way, but there was nothing responsible about the way that legislation was pushed through. What we had was a very complicated bill that was put to a committee process, and there was a limited time to look at it. Then, all of a sudden, overnight, that bill was pulled apart and a new one was plonked down, and people were given mere hours to look at it. So, when people talk about being responsible and treating the issue of free speech in a responsible way, perhaps they should reflect on that instance, because protecting free speech is a difficult and complicated thing in many ways, but, if you're not careful, you destroy it too. If you are not careful about the process, if you don't allow debate, if you don't allow scrutiny of new legislation, you suddenly start picking away at free speech, and Australia becomes a much worse place for it.

I'll finish with this. Australia is a nation held together by rules, principles and common understanding, and one of those values is free speech. We have a right to speak and to criticise the government. We have a right to advocate for ourselves, we have a right to advocate for our nation first, and we have a right to a shared belief that we're all Australians regardless of our background, that all of our opinions are equal and that they should not be censored or stepped on by the government. So, when you see others then attempt to demonise those advocating for free speech as extremists, that is divisive in itself. I commend you, Senator Babet, for raising this issue. We do need to take the time to look at this more. It is something One Nation has spent a lot of time on. We will again in the future because, again, if we do not protect this valuable thing that we have, one day it will be lost, and we'll never get it back.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the short time that is available to me, I'd like to thank Senator Bell for his contribution, because there's actually a lot in that to reflect and comment on. There are two words that Senator Bell used which I think are very important to amplify. The first is 'responsibilities' and the second is 'carefulness'. Our freedoms and rights in this country are to be exercised responsibly, and, when people get aggrieved about the expressions of freedoms and rights, it's often because people choose to express them with irresponsibility.

The other is the matter of carefulness. When it comes to legislative change and when it comes to constitutional reform, we must always act with abundant care and caution. That is the Edmund Burke in me.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Scarr. I suspect there's some Edmund Burke in you, and listening to Senator Bell's contribution, I suspect there is some Edmund Burke in him as well, and that is to be applauded.

But Senator Bell, I think, has expressed, as many have, a misunderstanding of the events and preconditions that led to the 'no' vote at the last referendum. I have to say that I think it's probably the least understood referendum in our whole country. There are certain features of our referendums that exist irrespective of the subject matter. Those are, first, a great caution amongst Australians in changing the Constitution, whatever the merit; and, second, the fact that constitutional referendums start with high levels of support and end in strong levels of resistance, which speaks to Australians' suspicion of central government, the sense of isolation that citizens feel and the strong affirmation they feel for their states and their regional communities.

It is important to recognise that the freedom of speech we have in our country is consciously limited. As Senator Scarr remarked, it's limited in a number of ways. But there is a free speech debate that I think we should start to talk about in our country and in this Senate chamber, and that is the ambition of some people on the left of Australian politics to introduce a bill of rights. Our founding fathers made a very conscious decision that we would have a constitution, that we would instil the strongest of parliamentary sovereignty and that we would not embrace a bill of rights. In this parliament already, in various committees, there are plans and ambitions to have a federal bill of rights. Those of us who are institutionally conservative, have a great respect for and want to uphold the freedom of speech in our country—in the Australian context, in the Australian way—can find a sense of unity not necessarily around Senator Babet's bill but in opposing a bill of rights.

Debate interrupted.