David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020. This bill will provide stronger protections for academic freedom and freedom of speech in our universities. The amendments are a reflection of the recommendations made by Justice French in his 2019 inquiry into freedom of speech in higher education providers and the so-called model French code.

Freedom of speech in universities is what this bill is referring to, but there is an issue in broader society about freedom of speech as a whole. In Australian society and the Western world, freedom of speech is very topical. We live in a time of digital platforms which deliver the modern-day equivalent of the public square. When I was growing up, if you wanted to raise a big issue or topic, you wrote a letter to a newspaper or you turned up in the Domain in Sydney, hopped up a ladder and started ranting and raving about your issue of choice. But, now, digital platforms are a vehicle for public discourse. Unfortunately, these platforms that are meant to be neutral and just a platform for people to discuss things have become more like publishers, deplatforming people and taking them off their platforms. You've only got to look at what's happened recently with Facebook to see that in our negotiations over payment for intellectual property of news items. But I am digressing.

In the broader current maelstrom of Australian society, the phenomenon of deplatforming is alive and well. People get cancelled if they say anything outside of the accepted orthodoxy of various sides of political discourse in Australia. Particularly the Left tries to cancel or deplatform people. You see media pile-ons. You see people shouted down. You see the Twitterati attack people. You see trolls and real people attacking individuals who speak out about issues on either Facebook or other similar platforms.

These amendments go to the heart of ensuring that there is freedom of speech and also academic freedom in universities, which has been critical to the functioning of modern democracies in Australia and elsewhere. This bill will define 'academic freedom', enshrining in law, principles of expression which are essential for academic study and to allow hypotheses to be constructed and inquiries and discussion about those hypotheses.

Universities in Australia were essentially established by state and territory founding legislation. Generally already the terms of these founding pieces of legislation promote scholarship, research, free inquiry, interaction of research and teaching, and the search and striving for academic excellence. There is federal legislation apart from this bill. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 mandates that, to be registered as a university, a university must develop and maintain an institutional environment in which freedom of intellectual inquiry is upheld and protected. The higher education standards framework within that and in the HESA bill also insists that, in course design and in assessments, teachers and researchers must be committed to free inquiry and systematic advancement of knowledge.

Why, then, do we have this bill before the House? That's what I was just alluding to. Those thoughts and actions in public social media that I mentioned have infected university processes. The former speaker mentioned the experience of Drew Pavlou, a very brave and active university student at the University of Queensland who got shouted down and had charges brought against him. He was taken off the senate and suspended from the university, all because he was using his right of free speech to defend people demonstrating in Hong Kong and also the Uighurs in China. But a whole lot of trumped-up charges were brought against him and his life was made really unpleasant, as the member for Kennedy outlined. He had three years of his life pretty much destroyed. You've also got to look at what happened to Professor Peter Ridd at James Cook University. He went against the orthodoxy. He was a professor of physics and head of marine studies, but he crossed the line and criticised his university. That should be a right, and it will now be enshrined in these amendments. This bill is really important.

Throughout the rise of Western civilisation, during the Enlightenment, free speech was the vehicle that allowed the Age of Reason to come into being. If we hobble that right, we're cutting away one of the pillars and foundations of democracy. The Age of Reason led to the flourishing of human endeavour, the acquisition of knowledge and the building of science and all the other organs of pluralist, liberal, free democracies, and we have been taking it for granted for too long. Open discussion, critical debate, the free flow of information, the exchange of ideas, challenging accepted positions, putting a hypothesis forward and then proving it with evidence and experiments—all of this is fundamental to what happens in universities, and it should continue. Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights allows for the expression of opinions about educational institutions.

In these amendments to the Higher Education Support Act 2003, the phrase 'free intellectual inquiry in learning, teaching and research' will be substituted with 'freedom of speech and academic freedom'. In his review of freedom of speech in higher education in Australia, Justice French noted that freedom of speech and freedom of intellectual inquiry would be subsets of and adjuncts to academic freedom. The amendments will therefore align with the terms of the so-called French model code. The first of these will establish the freedom of academic staff to teach, discuss and research and to disseminate and publish the results of their research. It sounds pretty straightforward, but to have to put this in as a specific definition is a reflection of how far things have strayed from what has been accepted practice for centuries. The second is freedom of academic staff to engage in intellectual inquiry, express their opinions and beliefs and contribute to public debate in relation to their subjects of study and research. Similarly, the third ensures the freedom of academic staff and students, most importantly, to express their opinions in relation to the higher education provider that they are enrolled in or employed by. There's also the freedom of students to participate in student societies and associations and the freedom of academic staff to participate in professional or representative academic bodies. That is a sine qua non of being involved in a university. But we are having to legislate these things because these principles, which fed the Enlightenment and developed the modern, democratic Free World, are being eaten away both in our society and in our premier research and teaching and training institutions. It's a sad reflection on where society has got to that we have to do this, but this is a really important bill.

Finally, the bill ensures the autonomy of the education provider to choose courses, offerings and research activities, as well as the ways in which they are taught. I want to register some of my concern about this. Educational bias is another sinister thing that can creep in. If you don't apply the rigours of true academic pursuit and judge it on hypotheses, proof, argument and debate, you can, in the way you structure a course, bias the teachings and learnings that the students have delivered to them, and students have to be smart and principled to try and rebut that. If you have a course director who is giving a skewed opinion, in a practical sense, you can get marked down if there is obvious educational bias.

These concerns reflect problems that were occurring in our universities. Now they're addressed in this bill, and I support the changes coming in. It's sad that we've had to reach this stage, as I've said, but it is a really important principle that our universities, which are internationally renowned, maintain that intellectual rigour, aren't afraid to allow debate within their halls, by both students and academics, and let thought, argument and the pursuit of true knowledge flourish. I commend this bill to the House.

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