FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN AUSTRALIA

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Freedom of speech isn’t protected in the Australian Constitution — and it’s disappearing faster than you think according to Senator Ralph Babet hence he is introducing a Constitution Alteration (Right to Free Speech) 2025, the purpose of which is to enshrine freedom of speech within the Australian Constitution.

Senator Babet deserves our support.

  • I’ve introduced the Constitution Alteration (Right to Free Speech) 2025 to enshrine freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Australia’s Constitution.
  • Australians assume they already have free speech; they don’t. That assumption is now dangerously wrong.
  • State and federal laws increasingly punish Australians for saying what they honestly believe, even simple biological truths.
  • Without freedom of speech, there is no freedom of thought. The right to speak your mind is the foundation of every other liberty.
  • My Bill will give Australians the chance to vote in a referendum and decide, once and for all, whether we still believe in the right to speak freely in our own country.

This Bill is urgently needed and will provide protection of a right that Australians assume they already have. That assumption is increasingly dangerous. While freedom of speech in this country is generally assumed, it is not guaranteed. Indeed, it is under perilous threat right now.

Over the past decade, the right of Australians to say what they think has increasingly come under attack. While Australian Parliaments have made no effort to protect speech, they have passed laws – at state and federal levels – to restrict freedom of speech. We are now at a point in this country where it is dangerous to openly say things that most people privately believe. It’s a brave person, for example, who opines in public that men cannot become women. Is that really the kind of country we want to live in? A country in which stating simple biological truths puts a person in danger of being dragged before a tribunal to be interrogated for their words.

Senator Babet proposes to make the following speech to the Senate:

Australia lacks, at a national level, entrenched protections of freedom of speech. Our role as elected representatives should be to provide and sustain that right.

This Bill, if successful, will give the Australian people the power to vote in a referendum and determine just how important freedom of speech is to them.

I believe the people will vote overwhelmingly in favour of free speech, because Australians may disagree on many issues, but we believe in a fair go and the right of everyone to voice their opinion without fear or favour.

Our proposed alteration to the Constitution will protect freedom of expression along similar lines to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, which provides that the Congress ‘shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press’.

The Australian Constitution already provides some express protection against legislative action by the Commonwealth. Section 116 says that the Parliament ‘shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion’.

In a similar way, our proposed protection for freedom of speech would reflect the assumption of all Australians that people have the right to express their thoughts with confidence and without fear of censure.

Moreover, it would put a brake on efforts to suppress freedom of speech that are, shockingly, becoming more and more common around the Western world, including here in Australia.

There shouldn’t be a single Senator in this chamber who would say they were against freedom of speech.

There shouldn’t be a single Senator in this chamber who would say to their constituents, I want to make it more difficult for you and your family to express your opinions.

We came to Canberra not to oppress our constituents but to defend and ensure their freedoms. This bill does that. And it is long overdue.

I commend this Bill to the Senate.

WAR ON FREE SPEECH INTENSIFIES IN AUSTRALIA

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When speech becomes a crime, democracy dies, and Australia just took that dangerous step.

  • The government recently introduced new hate speech laws that are overly broad and vague, posing a major threat to free speech.
  • These laws lower the threshold for criminal liability, allowing prosecution based on what authorities think someone’s words might cause rather than intent to harm.
  • Everyday Australians risk being criminalised for expressing unpopular political, cultural, or religious opinions.
  • Similar laws in the UK have led to arrests over trivial speech, creating a climate of fear and self-censorship.
  • The bill was rushed through the Senate with minimal debate, undermining democratic scrutiny — Few voted against it as anti-free speech and anti-Australian.

That old political maxim, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste…’ comes to mind when considering the government’s restrictions on free speech.

Antisemitism has been at crisis levels in this country for two years.

But rather than use existing laws against incitement to crack down on the problem, the government recently created new laws that are so broad, and so vague, that they will create far more problems than they solve.

These new laws are not a solution to hate; they are an attack on the free speech of ordinary Australians.

Lower Threshold for Harm

These laws may well punish radical extremists, but they will also capture everyday Australians, who could be criminalised for no more than casually expressing unpopular political or religious views.

The new laws lower the threshold for hate speech to such an extent that a person could be criminalised for what authorities decide their words might lead to.

Instead of proving that a person meant to cause harm with their words, the laws mean that authorities would only need to prove that a person’s words could have caused harm.

As sure as night follows day, these new laws will be weaponised by activists to go after people they disagree with.

If you dare to say there are only two genders, you could run the risk of being accused of harming trans people and run the risk of criminalisation.

If you dare to say some particular religions are not compatible with Australian culture, you could run the risk of being prosecuted for stirring up hatred.

If you dare to say that unchecked immigration from this region, or that, is ruining the country, you will run the risk of being pursued for inciting hate.

The result is that people will start self-censoring their own words and thoughts. How can we tolerate such a situation? If Australians are not free to say what they truly think, then in what sense are Australians free?

Chilling Effect

Worse, people could be arrested for innocuous social media posts or opinions expressed over a beer at the pub.

This is not an exaggeration. This is exactly what we are seeing in the United Kingdom, where similar laws were passed and are now used to make life a living hell for good people expressing unpopular views.

It is outrageous that Senators were given just one hour to debate these laws. That one of the most consequential bills to come before this House is rushed through in such a fashion is disgraceful.

The Senate is supposed to be a house of review. It has instead become a house of approval.

Rather than being stacked with party-aligned rubber-stampers who simply vote for bills along party lines, the Senate needs to be reconfigured so that independent members give genuine consideration to proposed bills.

That is not what is happening here; the system is entirely broken. The free speech of Australians is now greatly diminished as a result of this badly written and ill-considered law, which was waved through the Senate by members who are more concerned about lunch than about the consequences.

This is a bad law. It is anti-free speech and anti-Australian but it fits exactly with the Biblical end times prophesies about Jesus second coming this time as king to restore righteousness and usher in His Millennial Kingdom. If you want to know more about what is next on God’s agenda for planet Earth go to http://www.millennialkingdom.net.

Published with thanks to Senator Ralph Babet, Federal Parliament, Australia

CHRISTIANS EXCLUDED FROM JURY DUTY

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The nation’s finest legal minds warn that ongoing efforts to exclude Christians from serving on juries due to their biblical beliefs is part of a campaign “relegating Christians to second-class citizen status.” The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Missouri case in which potential jurors were kicked off the jury after saying they went to a “conservative Christian church” that taught that having homosexual behavior is sinful – even after assuring they could properly apply the law. Barring Christians from serving civic functions based on their beliefs “exemplifies the danger that I anticipated in Obergefell v. Hodges,” the controversial 2015 Supreme Court decision that invented the “right” to same-sex marriage, wrote Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The legal fracas began when a woman named Jean Finney, who identifies as lesbian, said the Missouri Department of Corrections fired her because she “presents masculine,” which she says violates statutes barring discrimination based on sex. The Obama-Biden administration significantly altered the judicial landscape by promoting a novel legal theory that landmark civil rights legislation intended to ban discrimination against women actually applies to people who identify as homosexual or transgender.

Finney’s attorney asked potential jurors if any of them “went to a conservative Christian church” where “it was taught that people [who] are homosexua[l] shouldn’t have the same rights as everyone else,” because “what they did” was “a sin.” One pastor’s wife reportedly told the lawyer that “homosexuality, according to the Bible, is a sin,” and “so is gossiping, so is lying.” Another agreed homosexual relations are sinful, because “it’s in the Bible,” but “every one of us here sins. … It’s just part of our nature.” Furthermore, whether someone sins “has really nothing to do with” the case at hand.

“The jurors specifically said, ‘We are Christians, we have some sincerely held Christian beliefs but can follow the law,’” Bailey told Hice. “Christians can follow the law just like anybody else.”

But Finney’s attorney insisted “there’s no way … somebody [who] looks at a gay person and says … ‘You are a sinner’” could fairly apply the law and denied the Christians their right to fulfill their civic duty.

The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the Christians’ dismissal, saying the belief that sodomy is “sinful (meaning immoral and wrong)” gave Finney reason to believe “that they could not impartially and fairly decide her claim that she was unlawfully harassed due to her homosexuality — even if [they] claimed that their religious beliefs would not prevent them from serving.” The court said the Christians weren’t thrown off the jury because they’re Christians, but because their Christian church holds to traditional views of same-sex behavior.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, Missouri Department of Corrections v. Jean Finney, last Tuesday — a decision Alito reluctantly affirmed due to technical, procedural issues. But in a rare comment on the order, he wrote the case bore out concerns he identified nine years ago at the time of the ruling.

In his dissent to Obergefell, Justice Alito dismissed assurances from the court’s activist bloc that Christians’ “rights of conscience will be protected.”

“We will soon see whether this proves to be true,” wrote Justice Alito. “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.”

Since that time, left-leaning legal organizations and governments have targeted Christian photographers, bakers, florists, and adoption agencies to deny them their right to practice their religion in business, or in the raising of their children.

Justice Alito similarly warned Obergefell, like Roe v. Wade, constituted a raw exercise of judicial power. “If a bare majority of justices can invent a new right and impose that right on the rest of the country, the only real limit on what future majorities will be able to do is their own sense of what those with political power and cultural influence are willing to tolerate,” wrote Alito in the dissent. “All Americans, whatever their thinking on that issue, should worry about what the majority’s claim of power portends.”

Years later, he sees his warning coming to fruition. “I see no basis for dismissing a juror for cause based on religious beliefs,” wrote Justice Alito on Tuesday. “I am concerned that the lower court’s reasoning may spread and maybe a foretaste of things to come.”

“When a court, a quintessential state actor, finds that a person is ineligible to serve on a jury because of his or her religious beliefs, that decision implicates fundamental rights,” wrote Alito.

The Founding Fathers agreed. In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson listed “freedom of religion; freedom of the press … and trial by juries impartially selected” as part of “the bright constellation” of “essential functions of our government.”

“The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment,” he said.

Jefferson’s predecessor and political rival, John Adams, agreed. “Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hounds, says Adamas.

Christian jurors grounded in the Constitution say they refuse to sit by as believers to be systematically stripped of their rights and excluded from a civic duty the Founding Fathers described as analogous to voting. “We’re not going to let radical left-wing progressives relegate Christians to second-class citizen status. … We can’t let that happen,” Bailey said. “The right to participate on juries is codified in the United States Constitution. And that’s a right of citizenship.”

“The only people being discriminated against when the states pass these anti-discrimination laws too often are Christians, Christians who believe in biblical truth.”

Fortunately, Jesus told us in advance that the persecution of Christians would escalate in the time before His return to restore righteousness. It will be a time when God refines His church. Sadly, we already see a great falling away in the institutional churches with them compromising with the world on gay marriage and transgender issues.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:9-14