Ludwig wrote, "But hey, we could do a pretty good job with it if we put our minds to it. Certainly a whole lot better than just allowing open-slather unfair speech!"

Dear Ludwig,

I vehemently disagree. I don't feel competent to decide for other people what is unfair speech, and I distrust you or anybody else to decide for me what is unfair speech.

Who is the 'we' who could do a pretty good job of it? I prefer the open slather with opportunity for people who disagree to speak their piece.

I agree david f; open slather is the way to go.

Let me ask Ludwig if he would be happy if I was deciding what he could read, hear and look at?

Davidf, I am surprised at your vehement disagreement.

<< I don't feel competent to decide for other people what is unfair speech, and I distrust you or anybody else to decide for me what is unfair speech. >>

It is not a matter of you, me or any single person deciding what is fair and what isn’t. It is a matter of society making those judgements - of our expert advisers and decision-makers understanding what is and what is not acceptable to the majority of people, and of the people giving feedback about decisions, so that the best boundaries between fair and unfair speech can be attained.

Some things fall pretty clearly under the banner of unfair speech, such as verbal defamation, false assertions and rank offensive insults blurted out and innocent passers-by with no cause other than for a gang of yobbos to get their subintelligent kicks!

When you think about it, all manner of stuff is clearly unacceptable.

So we cannot have a regime of unfettered free speech, which would be a licence for some people to spout all manner of grossly unfair utterings.

We’ve got to have guidelines, parameters, limits and laws governing our behaviour.

And of course, some authority has to make the decisions as to what those parameters are.

Now, in Stalinist Russia, we could argue that those parameters were not at all fair and reasonable. But in Australia they are, even if they are a little less than idea in some peoples’ opinions.

So again, our efforts to define what is fair and unfair speech, although imperfect, has got to be vastly better than unfettered unfair free speech.

Dear Ludwig,

I trust a committee even less than I would trust a single person to decide what I should see or hear. We don't have unfettered free speech as it is.

Lionel Murphy on page 3886/3 in the Current House Hansard of 16 December 1992 was quoted as saying, "Free speech is only what is what is left after due weight has been accorded to the laws relating to defamation, blasphemy, copyright, sedition, obscenity, use of insulting words, official secrecy, contempt of court and of parliament, incitement and censorship..." Is "due weight" not given to free speech? "Only what is left over" means free speech has no value in itself. Any other consideration can override it. Hopefully, this is not the prevailing attitude to free speech in Australia. "Only what is left over" is consistent with the value of free speech in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or Khomeini's Iran. People in all three countries had the right to say anything the government didn't ban them from saying. Free speech points out the wrongs in our society and protects cultural expressions that differ from the prevailing view. It has great value in an open society.

You want to add more restrictions on top of what we already have? You want somwe committee to decide what is fair and unfair speech? We should get rid of some rstrictions that we have. We should get rid of laws against defamation, blasphemy, sedition, obscenity, use of insulting words, some of official secrecy and censorship. There are too many restrictions on speech as it is.

Dear Ludwig,

I'm sorry. I left something out. The racial vilification laws should also be repealed. The laws attack a sympton of racism rather than racism itself. They serve to shut people up and give the illusion that shutting people up does something against racism. Meanwhile polite racism using code words continues.

<< You want to add more restrictions on top of what we already have? >>

No I don’t david f.

Perhaps you have wrongly assumed that I do. I’m sorry if I somehow misled you to that conclusion.

I agree; we could do with fewer restrictions, in some areas, such as the general use of ‘obscene’ words.

But I think overall we’ve got it pretty well worked out and that the law isn’t too bad. Trouble is, as is so often the case with the law, what is written in law and what actually applies are two different things, and the authorities don’t act even-handedly towards everyone.

What is left over after due weight has been accorded to the laws relating to defamation, blasphemy, copyright, sedition, obscenity, use of insulting words, official secrecy, contempt of court and of parliament, incitement and censorship, is still pretty good. There are good reasons, some more-so than others, for restrictions on speech regarding all of these categories.

We still have a very good level of free speech despite them.... and a better quality of free speech at that.