Censorship of Members of Parliament (such as Lydia Thorpe and Ralph Babet) recently in parliament sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the very principles of democracy in Australia some would say.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-18/lidia-thorpe-and-ralph-babet-censured-by-parliament/104613292

Parliament House in Canberra is the place where diverse views should be expressed, debated, and scrutinised and this includes on contentious issues and matters where MP's have taken a strong stance on something.

Silencing them through censorship, stifles free speech and an ability to express a viewpoint or take action on something.

While there must be limits to prevent hate speech or things such as racism and homophobia, the idea of censuring someone for expressing legitimate opinions or criticisms in Australia risks creating a culture of conformity or some sort of cancel culture. Can politicians truly be representatives of the people after being censored? My view is they cannot.

Censorship only serves to protect the status quo. If MPs and Senators are silenced, the voices of the people they represent are, too.

'While there must be limits to prevent hate speech or things such as racism and homophobia'

Why must there?

The West has found itself in an ideological dilemma.
We in the west like to constantly beat everyone else over the head with virtuous bs.

Don't like multiculturalism or immigration, you MUST be racist.
Don't like women in leadership positions, you MUST be sexist or a misogynist.
Don't celebrate homosexuality, you MUST be homophobic or xenophobe.
Complain about old people, you MUST be ageist.
Don't celebrate people eating themselves to death, you're fatphobic.

We've invented words to denigrate and show our intolerance of anyone.

No matter what the issue is, stepping out of line is akin to going awol, and requires being beaten over the head with some high and mighty virtue signalling crap.

The problem is - all this high and mighty virtuous bs amounts to absolutely nothing, when the West shows itself who it REALLY is.

When the West and our 'democracies' give tacit support to Israel, to pursue a policy of ethnic cleansing and land theft, the West for all its virtuous bs, shows that it actually stands for absolutely nothing at all.

The emperor has no clothes.

They were censored. They were censured.

Those vowels make a big difference.

or...

They wereN'T censored. They were censured.

Those vowels make a big difference.

I would have thought that a society where all people's opinions counted equally and where people had the freedom to discuss their opinions on a wide range of subjects was the basis of healthy democracy. In this respect the Voice and MAD bill are surely far greater threats to democracy than chiding a polly for bad behavior?

Hi Nathen,

The short answer is no, in the case of Thorpe me thinks she was "charged" with insulting the king. Having seen the incident on telly I'm not sure why she would be censured by the Senate, is Charlie that fragile? The other fella Babet, seems is some far right homophobic racist nut job, got a few of them on here, providing he's not calling for physical violence against others, which by default he could be, so could Thorpe for that matter, the Senate doesn't get so petulant about them anyway. I think the Coalition was big on censuring Thorpe, but no so Babet.

p/s Thorpe has been denied going on the next Senate holiday to Fiji. Don't know what was the "penalty" imposed on Babet was, they might have taken away his picture of Trump from his office and replaced it with a painting by Albert Namatjira, who knows.