> Australians by and large don't want American style, unfettered free speech.
Most Australians don't know that there is no legislative or constitutional protections for everyday free speech rights they exercise. The High Court has had to stretch the constitution's wording to breaking point in order to rule in favour of more freedom on the side of the public.
Maybe we don't want American-style free speech, but maybe we want some other variant of free speech protections such as in any other developed country (we are the only developed country which doesn't have any free speech or privacy laws on the books). The entire argument of not having constitutional language for free speech was that English common law was sufficient. I think that view has been shown to be incorrect.
> And are quite happy with "say whatever you want so long as you don't libel or slander someone or some group of people" approach.
There are no legal protections for this kind of speech in Australia -- so if they're quite happy with it then they do want free speech laws. Also, America has libel laws restricting freedom of speech in specific ways (as does every other country which has free speech laws).
Most Australians don't know that there is no legislative or constitutional protections for everyday free speech rights they exercise. The High Court has had to stretch the constitution's wording to breaking point in order to rule in favour of more freedom on the side of the public.
Maybe we don't want American-style free speech, but maybe we want some other variant of free speech protections such as in any other developed country (we are the only developed country which doesn't have any free speech or privacy laws on the books). The entire argument of not having constitutional language for free speech was that English common law was sufficient. I think that view has been shown to be incorrect.
> And are quite happy with "say whatever you want so long as you don't libel or slander someone or some group of people" approach.
There are no legal protections for this kind of speech in Australia -- so if they're quite happy with it then they do want free speech laws. Also, America has libel laws restricting freedom of speech in specific ways (as does every other country which has free speech laws).