How about if they come from a country where there is free speech they are allowed temporary entry? If the home does not allow free speech well they are blocked, simple really.

JBowyer

You bring up an interesting point.

The good Wiki says "Freedom of speech is the concept of the rights to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country

Probably most countries claim "free speech" in law. But "free" depends on:

- who is speaking (a poor average citizen Or member of The Party Or upper class Protester kids (who do not expect to be imprisoned for more than a few hours))

- secular law, religious law, tribal law or

- mob lynch "law"

So yes Australia could lock its borders to just about everyone (including all genuine refugees) who naturally are escaping countries because they do not have "free speech".

Non "free speech" refugees are probably "economic refugees" and we would want them either.

But free enterprise requires a growing population.

So each person with X million $$ gets in - who may well be from Saudi Arabia or China...

Thus the loop of loopy life loops.

Poida

The idea that art, literature and filmatic creativity should not suffer from the heavy hand of censorship, is a noble one. By giving creative people the freedom to explore social issues, our society can evolve by critically examining it's long accepted cultural values, as changing times alters the basic premises upon which contemporary values are built. But this worthy ideal has been perverted by cynical entertainment entrepreneurs who market a "youth culture" that does not make the slightest pretence to artistic merit. It is merely a racket where young people have an anti social culture invented and dictated to them by an entertainment industry only concerned with the bottom line.

This "youth culture" constantly extols to our youngest, our most impressionable, and often our most vulnerable, behaviour endorsing drug abuse, serious criminal behaviour, violence, and disrespect for all authority. If John Slater came home from work and found a man in his house telling his kids that bashing women and taking drugs was fashionable, that defying your parents was cool, while trying to sell them products, I am sure that John would immediately grab the bum by the neck and throw him right out of his house. But here is John defending that same bum by equating his behaviour with the right of free political speech on serious social issues.

Like the aristocrats of yesterday, the entertainment industry now has too many fabulously wealthy barons. too many vulgarians, and too many drug addled fools, who claim to own the culture of their own people. Their people's culture. they claim, is entirely their own property, to interpret as they wish. Unsurprisingly, their interpretation is entirely to their own benefit, and to hell with their own society.

Well heeled artists and promoters are no longer pushing the boundaries of accepted tastes, they are now burrowing busily under the very foundations of family values upon which our civilisation stands. People like John think that artists have a right to undermine the culture of his own people, and that the people to whom this culture rightfully belongs have no right to define it's composition.

All my favourite buzz words- 'offended', 'do-gooders', 'moral guardians', 'outraged wowsers'- all used to describe women who have called out men who advocate violence against women.

I agree people should not be censored for controversial opinions, and find the trend of educational institutions 'no-platforming' speakers for voicing unpopular opinions to be disturbing. But that is not what is going on in the case of artists like Tyler the Creator, and it is disingenuous to conflate criticism of Tyler's treatment of women (which is not limited to sexually violent lyrics, as the author incorrectly alleges) with the silencing of unpopular opinions.

The author's entire argument seems to be made on the premise that those opposed to Tyler the Creator's misogyny are merely offended- that the issue is our delicate sensibilities rather than Tyler's incitement of violence to specific Australian women who dared to criticise his work- women who have had to seek assistance from police after an onslaught of threats of violence and rape.

Why should the supposed free speech of men to advocate violence against women trump women's rights to dignity, justice and equality?

I note the author recently wrote a piece decrying the demise of Zoo Weekly, a titty mag sold in supermarkets. Is this really a crusade about free speech or the freedom to demean women for entertainment?

Hi LEGO

I'm in total agreement. Always a dangerous thing.

The rich of the entertainment industry are masters of spin, who recognise that freedom can be bought, not earned.

Take James Dean's four movies. Rebel Without A Cause was a movie by the hero who popularised the dangerous art of switchblade fighting, then died a real life speed freak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Without_a_Cause#Plot

Jaye

Well said. The right to challenge and defeat reprehensible and dangerous speech perpetrated by people in positions of power, influence and authority is in itself an important form of free speech in its own right.

To shame, despise and trivialise this fundamental democratic right as simply a matter of sensitive people getting offended by something they don't like or disagree with, is in itself censorship by humiliation.