"Freedom of speech is the paramount freedom. Without it, we struggle to exercise our other freedoms. With it, we can fight for those freedoms. It may be offensive, insulting and make governments uncomfortable, but if this is the price to be paid for living in a society where all claims are open to question, then it is a price worth paying."

Well said, David.

Great to hear you saying this David. See what you can do about getting rid of Section 18C and the HRC and its egregious chairperson.

"Freedom of speech is the paramount freedom"

No, it is not, it is practically useless and diverts the attention away from our real lack of freedom - even animals in the zoo have complete freedom of speech.

The ultimate in free speech is when they let you scream whatever you like as much as you like, but won't let you out of the straitjacket - who needs it?

Well said David. Now your words need to be backed by action.

I can't see why [public] speech should be exempt from the same sort of rules that govern other behaviour in the interest of a smoothly running society.

There are civil libel and slander restrictions, and ample scope for class actions. That is more than adequate to protect genuine people from unfounded hate speech. A libel against an ethnic group, or against peddlers of a programme, would be a libel against every individual member of the group. Valid defence would be to show that the alleged libel was both true and in keeping with the public interest. Rich pickings for any law firm interested in a spot of ambulance-chasing.
The purpose of legislation going beyond libel and slander restrictions is to create open slather for securocrats and also for enthusiastic private PC police to restrict the scope for dissent.

Caution: Beware of extension into "criminal libel", making libel a criminal offence it is liable to cause a breach of the peace (like for example the Charlie Hebdo murders). That could enable Moslem outfits to suppress insults to their "prophet" by threatening to go ape in the street as they did when some felt insulted by the way that non-believing women dressed on the Cronulla beach.