Useful links
If you're reading this site for the first time since the ALRC Inquiry was announced (beginning of March) I suggest you start with the March 10 blog and work your way backwards.
Adam Simpson from Simpsons Solicitors has published a paper entitled Friendly Fire An Overview of Sedition Laws. It's an easy read and uses the recent controversy over the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and John Pilger's comments on Lateline to analyse the implications that the provisions have for free speech.
He also comments in details about the drafting of the provisions:
how the word "urging" can be intepreted to go beyond direct encouragement and possibly include drama, imagery and other forms of expression (in this he quotes Peter Gray SC's advice to Peter Garrett MP in October last year);
a clear explanation of how notions of "intent" have been removed and replaced with a definition of "recklessness" which widens the scope of the kinds of offences that can be considered seditious; and
in analysing the new defence provisions, points out that "publishing a report or commentary about a matter of public interest" does not cover speeches, satirical writings, fiction, theatre, or visual art of any kind.
Adam Simpson from Simpsons Solicitors has published a paper entitled Friendly Fire An Overview of Sedition Laws. It's an easy read and uses the recent controversy over the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and John Pilger's comments on Lateline to analyse the implications that the provisions have for free speech.
He also comments in details about the drafting of the provisions:
how the word "urging" can be intepreted to go beyond direct encouragement and possibly include drama, imagery and other forms of expression (in this he quotes Peter Gray SC's advice to Peter Garrett MP in October last year);
a clear explanation of how notions of "intent" have been removed and replaced with a definition of "recklessness" which widens the scope of the kinds of offences that can be considered seditious; and
in analysing the new defence provisions, points out that "publishing a report or commentary about a matter of public interest" does not cover speeches, satirical writings, fiction, theatre, or visual art of any kind.
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