Sandra Kanck had already got herself into trouble by showing that she was a person with the courage to speak the truth. Something considered to be very dangerous by the rest of the well paid crew who prefer to carry on with the charade of being 'caring and responsible' representatives. As if any of them are really so concerned about people committing suicide. As if anyone with a length of rope or pipe can't commit suicide without instruction.
In our society of winners and losers there should be a state-provided facility for people who have decided that the day-to-day struggle with pain or poverty is too much to bear. More than 2,000 people commit suicide each year in Australia so consideration must be given to the unfortunate friends or family members who discover the dead person; most often swinging by a rope.

Amen to the article's argument: that Hansard can be tampered with retrospectively is scandalous; that it can exist in variant hardcopy and electronic versions is simply absurd. Note: someone will obtain the hard copy and post it to the Net. This shows the idiocy of the decision. The decision itself shows a disturbing disregard for one of the cornerstones of liberal democracy.

This is a very important topic, and very much worthy of wider debate. It would be better if it was dealt with separately from the topic/s covered in the speech in question.

I agree this is a very important principle. In practice I have found almost every principle ends up running up against another principle eventually if you try to push it to an absolute.

So if a parliamentarian gave a speech listing any of the following, would it still be unacceptable to expunge it from any internet record:

- search mechanisms or website addresses for child pornography;
- phone numbers for heroin dealers;
- ways to contact hitmen for contract killings;
- seduction techniques for pedophiles;
- techniquies for mixing easily available medicines/drugs in a way which could be used to kill somebody else in a hard to detect way through (for example) drink spiking;
- easy entry points into Parliament House for terrorists or disgruntled citizens keen on killing politicians to prove their point.

Andrew B,

You make a very good point. Initially I was appalled at the decision, but upon reflection, historically, in times of war for example, parliaments have debated issues behind closed doors and indeed cabinets routinely do so without any public outcry.

Obviously it might be open to abuse, but Parliaments are still answerable to the electorate, and so if the public is unhappy with the lack of open debate the government will no doubt pay a price.

In the present case, it appears Sandra Kanck was, at best, being irresponsibly provocative in providing detailed methods by which people could break the law (ie commit suicide). At worst she was deliberately using her parliamentary privilege to flout the law.
Certainly she was showing a lack of respect for the institution in which she serves. As a member it is her role to convince parliament to change the law, not to abuse her privileges so as to defeat the existing laws of parliament. The laws may or may not be stupid, but it is for parliament, elected by the people, to make that decision, not Ms Kanck.

On the other hand, the decision to then remove the speech from the Hansard (after it had been published) was ill conceived and was always going to have the opposite effect than the one intended. More importantly, the ease with which the Legislative Council reached the decision, and apparently without any debate on the implications for open democracy, suggests these politicians need to brush up on the principles upon which the Westminster System is founded.

I should indicate that I don't necessarily agree with the decision of the SA Legislative Council to expunge the speech in question (not least because - contrary to the statement made at the start of the article - it is highly unlikely it would breach the federal law in question, plus there are already so many sites on the web which detail suicide methods it's not funny).

Rather, I am just wondering what people's views are about whether the principle of the sanctity of speeches in Parliament should be absolute, as is suggested in the article, and if not how far should it extend.

I agree that , this issue should be attributed the utmost significance as a policy issue.In my Privelidged " parley " is at the heart of the effectiveness of our learning and survival and prosperity on this planet.

However, as cited in other posts there are good cases for some impartial moderation of the speech. From my view the only category that dictates moderation is that of ethics. The goal in my view of this: " is to do the least possible harm, on balance".

This might be accomplished by the establishment of a multi partisan parliamentary ethics commitee operating by reasonable consensus. A committee who's task would be to provided a classified release of potentially harmful material, accompanied by harsh penalties for breaches of classification.

Examples that come to mind are national security and community welfare issues.

I would encourage those that seek to vilify and polarise to reflect as to whether that helps quality dialogue necessary to democracy.