Freedom of Speech in Australia - Importance, Legal Issues, and Relevance

Freedom of Speech in
Australia

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION
Freedom of speech is nothing but the right to freely express the views, ideas and concerns
by the individual. With freedom of speech many questions arise relating to the point that whether
there should be restrictions and who benefits from this freedom. It has been noticed thus that it is
very essential for people to voice their opinion and thus it allows the public and media to
comment and express their dissent if they find anything that is inappropriate or wrong. Despite
the debates on Freedom of speech it is still not protected under the constitution of Australia. It is
the country which does not have a bill of rights where this freedom gets defined(Benson, 2018) .
In Australia, free speech is only a common law that was adopted from the Westminster system.
This essay will cover in detail about the concept of freedom of speech, its legal issue in
Australian country, its relevance to the people of Australia, opinions of different authors on the
issue, all the legislations or bills relating to freedom of speech, sections and famous cases. It
shall also make comparisons between the federal law and Victorian law and also talk about the
historical development of speech.
TASK
Free expression of opinions is an important part of self-expression. Freedom of speech
does not only mean the right to say anything, anytime, anywhere you want. It comes with
responsibilities and restrictions so that it is exercised and used legitimately and with proper care.

It is basically the freedom to seek, receive and impart thoughts, ideas and information. Free
speech is highly misunderstood due to the freedom it gives to the people. In reality, when we talk
about its positives it is the most essential right for people so that they are free to express
themselves without having to fear any type of power or authority while doing so. The key legal
issue that freedom of speech addresses is how it provides protection to people with respect to
freely expressing of their points and also criticize any person, someone or some authority when
required(Cave, 2019) .
With respect to the Australian country, it does not have an explicit freedom of speech
like the other nations that comes from the constitutional or statutory declaration of rights. But
this country only has an exemption for political speech because this is granted protection from
the criminal legal action at the common law system. This implied freedom of political speech
and communication in Australia was recognised in the famous case of Lange vs Australian
Broadcasting Corporation(French, 2019). Australian freedom of speech is not absolute, it has
various responsibilities which if not fulfilled can be restricted stating several grounds. Freedom
of speech has a lot of relevance attached to it, it is an constituent point of rule of law which helps
in ensuring the accountability of the government. The citizens of Australia do not have this
freedom directly by the constitution which makes it necessary that the government in the country
should adapt to the dynamics of the other democracies and enforce it within their system so that
the citizens can enjoy this freedom to speak and express their opinions directly on several
matters. It defines the importance of Freedom of speech in the lives of people because they do
not have it so its value for them increases making it necessary to bring out amendments.
A famous expert in media and free speech who works at the University of Adelaide by
the name of Dr. John Budarick believes that Free speech can be considered by most Australians
as being free from government interference (Gelber, 2019). Free speech has never been
considered as saying whatever you want top say and getting protected from the consequences
that might arise from what you speak. Australia does have a law that relates to free speech but
the drawback of them is that they are all concerned with limitations and protections. Australia is
the only western country without the bill of rights which is why public criticism of officials can
have negative consequences for the people. Australia guarantees freedom of speech by being a
party to the seven core international treaties that relate to the human rights. Among them, the
International Convent on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) gives the right to freedom of