Without a bill of rights to protect us Australians are vulnerable to the tyranny of politicians who make our laws. Though as our country is a healthy democracy with low levels of corruption, we tend to trust that our government will make laws that will not unnecessarily take away our freedom and if they try, we can vote them out.
And tyranny, really? Do we really need this eternal
vigilance against an oppressive regime – this isn't bloody North
Korea. But in recent times there have been serious assaults on our
freedom in this country and while you may have forgotten them, I have
not. And I don't mean by Human Rights Commissioners or social justice
warriors but by elected politicians.
Back in 2007 the Rudd Labour government tried to censor
the internet in the same way the Democratic Republic of North Korea
does by blacklisting websites they considered offensive. Costing
upwards of $60 million of taxpayer's money, the secret blacklist of
banned websites was initially proposed to counter child pornography
and benignly described as a 'filter' by then Communications Minister
Stephen Conroy, who later admitted that it would also target “other
unwanted content”.
As the US State Department was mounting a diplomatic
assault on internet censorship worldwide, the Obama administration
condemned the Australian government's blacklist, along with those of
Iran, China, Cuba and good old North Korea.
When Wikileaks rode to the rescue and published the
secret list, only half were child pornography the other half being
online poker, YouTube links, gay and straight porn, Wikipedia
entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions and
mysteriously - links to a boarding kennel and a dentist.
The Liberal / National Coalition in opposition seemed to
warm to the idea so long as it did not affect Internet speeds and
commerce. So it was thanks to opposition from the Greens, and Fiona
Patten's Australian Sex Party that the plan was finally dumped in
2012. Good thing too as it is generally held that the ultimate aim
was to censor all pornography to secure the votes of the Australian
Christian Lobby.
In that same year the Labour / Greens coalition
government tried to censor the media in a way that both Trump and
Putin would have cheered - the first peacetime government to attempt
restricting press freedom since censorship was abolished in NSW in
1823.
Then Greens leader and Deputy PM Bob Brown fired the
first shot at the free press when he described News Limited
newspapers as the "hate media".
PM Julia Gillard convened an inquiry into media
regulation and report concluded the Australian media was 'failing the
public interest'. It recommended a new government funded regulator,
the News Media Council, with the power to make findings against
journalists and without a course of appeal. Those who disobeyed the
council would face fines or imprisonment. This censor would even have
power over online sites that get 15,000 hits a year which these days
is just about every half decent blogger in the country (except me).
This brilliant idea became the Public Interest Media
Advocate Bill 2013 that would regulate Australian media mergers and
acquisitions as well as journalists and publishers by way of
regulating the Australian Press Council.
It failed to get up - not because the opposition
rejected it on the grounds of press freedom but because the
crossbench found it unworkable. But it was damn close.
In 2012 the same Labour government tried to censor our speech. Attorney-General Nicola Roxon was feeling frisky following
her stunning victory over Big Tobacco. Fancy packaging of cigarettes
was a thing of the past so naturally freedom of speech should be next
to go.
Chillingly claiming that her Discrimination
Consolidation Bill would "help everyone understand what
behaviour is expected", her proposed legislation sought to make any
conduct that 'offends, insults or intimidates' into unlawful
discrimination.
The proposed law would have reversed the burden of proof
so that the offended one didn't have to provide evidence that someone
offended them, the offender must instead prove that they did not. And
that would be tough as there was to be no reasonable person test and
discrimination was redefined as "unfavourable treatment"
of a person. Ways you could discriminate against a person include
their “social background”, of which there was no definition.
That's right – anything you do or say to anyone
anywhere - if it offends someone they can take you to court and free
of charge too (well actually compliments of the Australian taxpayer).
Amazingly but not, this dystopian future hyper nanny
state nonsense was initially championed by the notorious Gillian
Triggs of the Human Rights Commission who later backed away from it
as ridicule poured from all sides.
Roxon resigned. Triggs did not.
And just last year you might remember how big government
tried to end the free market in the transport industry by regulating
self-employed truck drivers into submission or death, whichever came
first.
Set up by Labour leader Bill Shorten in 2012, the Road
Safety Remuneration Tribunal sought to shut down owner drivers by
fixing the rates that their customers paid them to prevent the
drivers from from undercutting bigger unionised companies. Failure to
pay these 'Safe Rates' would result in prosecution and fines of up to
$54,000 for the customer, not the truck driver.
The only way out was to quit working for yourself, sell
your truck and become an employee of a big company and join the
Transport Workers Union. Brilliant work, and it only took four years
and God knows how much of our money to to come up with.
It would be nice to say that the Liberals leapt to the
defence of the truckies and free markets, but no – consecutive
Prime Ministers Abbot and Turnbull dithered until the eve of an
election in 2016 before abolishing the tribunal.
All these attacks on freedom occurred in the last 10
years. All by elected politicians and funded by you and me. Imagine
if all of these laws had passed - government agencies would be
regulating the internet, the media, and everything you and I do and
say. And having crushed the truckies under their boots – looking
around for their next target. And no porn. None.
It would be easy to take the view that the Australian
Labour Party is the enemy of freedom. It is true that the Liberals
are unlikely to propose such laws as these while in government. But
they have shown that they will consider selling out our freedom while
in opposition or in any position where they can blame their
colleagues on the other side of the house.
Freedom and democracy won the day over tyranny in all
these cases. So you could say this is proof that our system works –
and it does. But tyranny lurks there in the schemes of those who seek
power over others, waiting for us to drop our guard for that crucial
moment to deliver a knockout blow.
A law once made is hard to unmake - as evidenced by the
reluctance and subsequent failure of the Liberal government to
abolish 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.
My brand of libertarianism is a rejection of law making
as the solution to all society's evils. These examples go well beyond
that - they are of laws made to do evil on our society.
Remember u r free ()
No comments:
Post a Comment