Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

There are another few areas where the minister’s record is more than questionable. One of them—again it goes to core human rights issues—is free speech. In Australia we pride ourselves on having a robust democracy. We think that people should be able to criticise the government and should be able to argue their political views peacefully. We in this parliament know the ridiculous position we were put in when this Attorney forced the House to vote for sedition laws that he knew were out of date, ill-conceived and ill-suited to do the job of actually targeting those who are causing violence within our community. Now the Law Reform Commission has agreed with us—not surprisingly, as everyone else in the country except the Attorney thought these sedition laws were a joke. And now the Law Reform Commission has said as much.

The Law Reform Commission, which was asked to do the serious job that the Attorney would not allow this parliament to do when we were debating these laws, has come up with a range of recommendations. The Attorney has already said he will not consider the two most important ones. He is not prepared to look at intention being a component. The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that the Attorney is determined to keep the media, journalists, artists, academics and others clearly within the government’s sights. He is not prepared to say that we should make sure that those people are protected within our democracy and that peaceful criticism or satire is protected. Imagine there being satire of the Attorney. I am sure that no-one really serious about their artistic worth would be doing that, but they might want to, and it is the sort of thing that in a democracy we should be prepared to support.

Interestingly, one of the other things that the Attorney has said is that the greatest protection against sedition laws being abused in a country like ours is that the Attorney has to consent to any sedition prosecution being brought. Is that a great relief to anybody on this side of the House? The most politicised Attorney-General of our history is going to be the person who has to consent, and he has the audacity to say that that is a safeguard in our system.

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