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

I rise to speak in favour of the bill before the Senate, the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020. In doing so I'd like to open with what I consider to be the best articulation of the essential purpose of a university—by the founding member of my party, Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, who said that university must:

… be a custodian of mental liberty, and the unfettered search for truth.

I think that concept, that idea, that articulation of what goes to the very essence of a university goes to the heart of all that I'm going to contribute in relation to this debate. Sir Robert Gordon Menzies spoke about the 'unfettered search for truth' as being core to the university's mission. Our universities need to be unfettered by codes of conduct which overstep the mark and go too far into the realm of freedom of speech and academic freedom. They need to be unfettered by a sense of managerialism which does not give appropriate recognition to the essential essence of the university. They need to be unfettered by any submission to the wishes of donors or powerful stakeholders with respect to free intellectual inquiry which occurs on our campuses. This principle, in my view, needs to be absolutely embedded into the culture of all of our universities, because if it isn't then I would say that those institutions which do not recognise those principles going to the heart of their essence, their very being, should not be referred to as universities.

A number of important concepts came out of the French review in relation to the issues relating to free speech and academic freedom on our campuses. There are two concepts coming out of that review which, from my perspective, go to the heart of the recommendations. The first is that freedom of lawful speech on our campuses is a paramount value. It's not another value to be recognised, it's not something to be considered in the course of 51 clauses in a code of conduct; it is a paramount value. There's no better articulation, in my view, with respect to the importance of freedom of speech than in John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty, where he talked about the importance of freedom of speech from two perspectives. The first perspective is from the point of view of human rights, of the individual, of the individual's right to speak their mind in a lawful manner and to give voice to their ideas and their concepts. The second perspective is just as important: the right of others to listen and hear that point of view, so that they can consider that point of view, reflect on what they believe and out of that exchange of ideas come out with a better understanding of the reasons that they believe what they believe. That paramountcy needs to be reflected by our universities.

The second concept coming out of the French review is that academic freedom is a defining value. Again, it is not another value to be considered in the 51 clauses of a code of conduct but a defining value going to the essence of what it means to be a university. Ultimately, the French review made a number of recommendations, and these recommendations were made with a view to strengthening freedom of speech and academic freedom on our campuses. It was recommended that protection of freedom of speech and academic freedom be strengthened within the sector by the adoption of umbrella principles embedded in a code of practice for each institution. We've seen over the course of the last 12 months that recommendation being put into effect. I'd like to refer to the findings coming out of the review of the adoption of the model code on freedom of speech and academic freedom, which was prepared by Professor (Emeritus) Sally Walker and released in December 2020. There were a number of findings which I think go to the importance of, firstly, the fact that the French review occurred and, secondly, that that process of strengthening freedom of speech and academic freedom on our campuses needs to be done.

The first reflection I'd like to make in terms of the finding of that recent review in relation to implementation is that a number of the universities, when their codes were reviewed, seemed to value freedom of speech and academic freedom but not go that extra step of actually being committed to those freedoms. It is not enough simply to value academic freedom; academic freedom must be a defining value of our universities. It is not enough simply to value freedom of speech; it must be a paramount value. I do call upon all of those universities who did not in my view go that extra step—or in the view of the professor who undertook the review of the implementation of the codes at the relevant universities—to reflect on and consider the primacy which they give academic freedom and freedom of speech in their university policies.

The second observation coming out of the review by Professor Walker was that a number of the universities added provisos or qualifiers to academic freedom or freedom of speech as values. Let me give the Senate some examples. Some universities wanted to qualify freedom of speech and academic freedom with provisos such as 'standards of scholarship' and 'professional standards', or they said academic freedom and freedom of speech must be conducted 'reasonably, professionally and in good faith'. Unfortunately, in a number of these articulations of their codes there was a lack of definition given to what standard of scholarship means, what the relevant professional standards are and what it means for an academic to engage in good faith. The issue with all of these qualifications and provisos is that they water down freedom of speech and academic freedom. Freedom of speech is a paramount value, and academic freedom is a defining value of our universities.

The third point I'd like to make in relation to Professor Walker's review is to give my heartfelt congratulations to the institutions that Professor Walker identified as exemplars in terms of their introduction of the code. There were three: La Trobe University's Protection of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom Policy, the University of Sydney's Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom and RMIT's Intellectual Freedom Policy. Each and every one of those institutions could be congratulated with regard to how they have implemented the French review recommendations.

A senator on the other side of the House who I always listen very carefully to—

Senator Ciccone interjecting—

No, Senator Ciccone, I'm not referring to you in this case. I do listen to you very carefully, but not in this case. This is amongst others, including Senator Ciccone and Senator Watt—I won't leave him out. It is Senator Carr. Senator Carr did tend to focus somewhat on the fact that French in his review did not find that there was a crisis of freedom of speech or academic freedom in our campuses. I think Senator Carr did make a reasonable point that that was certainly the finding that was contained in the recommendations from the French review. However, that is not to say that there aren't issues which need to be addressed, because there are issues which need to be addressed and addressed very carefully.

On 13 February 2021 I was listening to Saturday Extra with Geraldine Doogue on the ABC, as I sometimes do. Senator Ciccone, you obviously are also a frequent listener of Ms Doogue. She was interviewing Mr Greg Craven. Mr Greg Craven is a very esteemed academic in this country. He was Vice-Chancellor and President of Australian Catholic University from January 2008 to January 2021, and he had a long, esteemed career prior to that. Whenever Mr Craven writes an article or gives a view, I listen extraordinarily carefully. I want to read you a quote from that interview which caused me great concern:

… people in conservative parties who think about this sort of stuff—intellectual—conservatism are now looking at universities and saying: 'Well, this is odd. You're meant to play both sides of the intellectual street. We don't think you could be a conservative at your university. We don't think you could get tenure. We don't think you could publish.' So it's moved on from, I think, what was sort of a club-type thing to a very serious question. I mean, if we have universities which are, by definition, meant to be universal but really are only prepared to tolerate one side of debate then it's not surprising that the political expression of the other side of the debate is suspicious.

Mr Craven continued, and this is perhaps the most damning indictment I've read for some time about the state of academic diversity in some of our universities:

… as someone who's been an academic for 39 years, I have seen universities in multiple contexts pretty well crush conservative academic careers. If I had a young, conservative-thinking, brilliant academic come to me and say, 'Gee, would it be a good idea to pursue an academic career in Australia in history or law or political science or literature?' I'd say, 'No.'

That's what Mr Greg Craven, who was vice-chancellor and president of ACU from January 2008 to January 2021, said, and that would be his advice to a young, conservative-thinking, brilliant academic embarking on their career.

That troubles me greatly. I think it should trouble chancellors and vice-chancellors of our universities that Mr Greg Craven, someone who has been a vice-chancellor and an esteemed academic, has come to that view. These are his words, not mine: 'If I had a young, conservative-thinking, brilliant academic come to me and say, "Would it be a good idea to pursue an academic career in Australia in history, law, political science or literature?" I would say, "No."' That is not good enough, and our universities need to do better to make sure that we have diversity of academic thought.

In conclusion, in that respect, in terms of academic thought, I reflected on a great professor I had. I know Senator Watt went to the University of Queensland, so, hopefully, he would fondly remember—I'm sure he would, being the fair, magnanimous person that he is—a great university academic by the name of Dr Suri Ratnapala, who was a professor of jurisprudence when I went to university. Professor Ratnapala was one of the world's leading experts in relation to the writings of Friedrich Hayek, one of my heroes in terms of academic thinking, who, in his text The Road to Serfdom, wrote what is I think the most powerful rebuttal of socialism that has ever been written.

The story I want to tell about Suri Ratnapala is of how he assessed the exam that was written by one of my friends at university who was of a totally different political persuasion to mine. This was someone who would declare himself to be a Marxist—unashamedly Marxist. He did Dr Ratnapala's course with me and in his exam he wrote as his main essay a Marxist critique on Hayek's theories. My exam contribution was somewhat different from my Marxist friend's, but my Marxist friend got a high distinction—a 7 as we used to call it—from Dr Ratnapala in terms of his Marxist critique. I got a distinction. I was pretty happy with that, but my Marxist friend got a high distinction. Why? It was because the professor was impressed with the critical thinking, the contribution and the intellectual thought that was put into that exam. There was no favouritism given to one political perspective or the other. There was recognition of a student who had put a lot of thought into the material, had read the material and had made an extremely well thought out, prepared critique of Hayek.

That's what our universities should aspire to. They should aspire to the whole breadth and width of intellectual thought. Our students should be taught how to think, not what to think.