From Andrew Bolt to Macklemore: a brief history of Tony Abbott on free speech

“With less common knowledge, shared understandings become more difficult.

“What’s deep and lasting becomes harder to distinguish from the ephemeral and we end up taking sport more seriously than religion.”

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So said freedom of speech warrior Tony Abbott last year, in a speech to the Samuel Griffith Society, as he lamented his inability to repeal section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.

That is because, Abbott told us in 2011, in response to Andrew Bolt losing his Racial Discrimination Act case, freedom of speech was a “sacred principle”, in that he believed it to be “the right of people to say what you don’t like, not just the right of people to say what you do like”.

Wrangling of Evelyn Hall’s descriptor of Voltaire’s ideals aside, Abbott had been moved to defend the right to express yourself, after Bolt was found by a court to have written articles which contained “multiple errors of material fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language”.



Freedom of speech is part of the compact between citizen and society on which democratic government rests Tony Abbott

It was this breach of the “sacred principle” that prompted Abbott to promise to repeal section 18c, telling the Australian in 2013 people should have the right to say what they liked.

“Any suggestion you can have free speech as long as it doesn’t hurt people’s feelings is ridiculous,” he said as opposition leader.

“If we are going to be a robust democracy, if we are going to be a strong civil society, if we are going to maintain that great spirit of inquiry, which is the spark that has made our civilisation so strong, then we’ve got to allow people to say things that are unsayable in polite company.”

Ultimately, Abbott made a “leadership call” in 2014 to abandon his campaign to scrap the race-hate laws, because the issue had become a “complication” as he strove to unite the community.



“In the end, leadership is about preserving nation unity on the essentials and that is why I have taken this action,” he said at the time.

It was a backdown from his 2012 speech to the Institute of Public Affairs, Freedom Wars, where he argued freedom of speech “is not just an academic nicety but the essential precondition for any kind of progress”.



“A child learns by trial and error. A society advances when people can discuss what works and what doesn’t. To the extent that alternatives can’t be discussed, people are tethered to the status quo, regardless of its effectiveness,” he said.

Going further, Abbott added that without “free speech, free debate is impossible and without free debate, the democratic process cannot work properly”.

“Freedom of speech is part of the compact between citizen and society on which democratic government rests,” he said.

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“A threat to citizens’ freedom of speech is more than an error of political judgment. “It reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the give and take between government and citizen on which a peaceful and harmonious society is based.”

Abbott in 2012 would not only support things being said that he agreed with:

“It’s human nature of course, to support free speech, as long as it’s agreeable. The trouble is deciding which opinions can be censored.”

Late last year he was back to calling for an end to restrictions on freedom of speech, which he focussed on 18c, in the wake of the case against Queensland university students, which was ultimately dismissed, and the Bill Leak case, which was dropped.



“What happened to those students in Queensland is just outrageous, what’s happening to Bill Leak right now is just outrageous,” he told the Australian in November 2016.



“We are not precious little flowers in this country, we have robust debate and the best antidote to something that you find offensive or even insulting is to point our exactly why it’s not true and not fair.”

But the man who shaped his later political career out of standing as a defender of freedoms, most crucially of expressing what you believe, even if he doesn’t care for it, now wishes to see a popular song by an American rap artist banned from the rugby league grand final.



Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) Footy fans shouldn't be subjected to a politicised grand final. Sport is sport! https://t.co/1uRh4eZ61Z

Footy fans, he said, shouldn’t be “subjected to a politicised grand final”, despite his very public support for a campaign he said the nation had to have, while the artist in question was announced a week before the survey was ruled lawful by the high court, following a request from a NRL fan focus group.

The man who stood side-by-side with Abbott in 2013 in support of reforming 18c, a task he once said he was “born for”, exercised his own freedom of speech in response to Abbott’s call on Thursday.



“It is one of his most popular songs and for Mr Abbott and anyone else to say that it should be banned I think is a bizarre thing to say,” George Brandis told ABC TV.

“I thought Mr Abbott believed in freedom of speech.”

As for how Macklemore himself feels about potential intrusions on his right to free speech? He’s just said he will “go harder”.