NSW Council For Civil Liberties votes against freedom of speech

Astonishing scenes at the Annual General Meeting

Australia’s peak “civil liberties defender” voted to reject freedom of speech as an important civil liberty at its annual general meeting on Wednesday.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties meeting began with a speech by NSW Surveillance Devices Commissioner Don McKenzie on the procedural technicalities of how police get warrants to spy on you.

The meeting then proceeded until the opportunity arose for motions without notice.

I requested the following motion:

“That the NSW Council for Civil Liberties recognises freedom of speech as one of the most important civil liberties we have, and that it’s under attack right now - the worst attack we’ve seen in a generation - and that the NSW Council for Civil Liberties will do its best to try to support freedom of speech.”

Censorship laws now before the Parliament directly threaten everything you can hear, see, share or say on the internet, especially independent media such as Letters From Australia on Substack.

Take a minute now, before you go to crazy town, to watch the most entertaining defense of free speech ever made, below.

You would not think this motion was controversial at a Council for Civil Liberties - but you would be wrong.

Eyes widened, heads wobbled, the elderly awoke: it was on like Donkey Kong.

A group of Council members, led in opposition by Treasurer Stephen Blanks and his former intern Josh Pallas (a former Council President), voted it down, 18 to 12.

It’s ironic that Stephen Blanks was the most vocal opponent to free speech, speaking the longest against it, because his executive bio on the Council’s website says it is his special interest, having once defended a publisher bullied by a NSW Government agency.

The agency was writing to major booksellers, telling them not to sell the publisher’s book, his bio says.

Here is a Bill that seeks to censor the entire internet - the largest book fair the world has ever seen - through social media platforms (akin to his booksellers), and now he loves it.

Stephen Blanks said he is favour of censoring the internet as long as that power is shared by ACMA with the courts, based on a European model. Individuals could claim to be harmed by “misinformation” (being wrong) and apply to the courts for even more censorship than is now on the table. He calls this “democratisation” of the censorship.

Note that “democratisation” here means “sharing power with other institutions” not “giving power to the public as expressed by vote”. It would mean rich people, institutions and political gangs would game the court system to erase your dissent.

Here he is on October 17 telling the Senate Committee how important it is to censor “misinformation” (being wrong) on a European model.

His former protégé Josh Pallas is a University of Wollongong law graduate studying a PhD in “preventive detention and supervision laws” at the University of Sydney. He was put in the Council by the University of Wollongong Law School as an intern under Stephen Blanks, his bio says.

Image source: Senate Committee hearing, inset: NSWCCL website

Josh Pallas opposed free speech, on the grounds that the Council are “unashamedly not free speech absolutists” and have had a “carefully considered approach since 1963” which is “nuanced”.

Translated for normal people, that means: “we’re the experts, shut up.”

A spirited defence was mounted by long-time council member Billy Field who said free speech is the only protection against despots and tyrants, and that the very purpose of the council’s existance is to stand up for these important rights.

Journalist David Southwell spoke powerfully, reminding the room that governments lie regularly and that to submit to any arbiter of truth is to abandon free speech and its defence.

What follows is an unofficial transcript of the entire episode. At bottom are links to the Council’s new submission on the censorship bill so you can read for yourself how they support expanding this new 2024 assault on free speech, and how they reference a weak and bogus academic study riddled with errors.

As this censorship bill legally formalises what the government was already doing during covid, I have also uploaded a copy of vaccine-injured support group Coverse’s submission at bottom so you can read precisely how it will devastate medical science and punch down on those already injured by the mandated gene-vaccines.

Read on for how a simple support for free speech was obfuscated, dismantled, and defeated by Australia’s peak “civil rights” body.

Unofficial transcript of the NSW CCL discussion and vote on free speech

Alison Bevege:  I’d like to make a motion without notice:

That the NSW Council for Civil Liberties recognises freedom of speech as one of the most important civil liberties we have, and that it’s under attack right now - the worst attack we’ve seen in a generation - and that the NSW Council for Civil Liberties will do its best to try to support freedom of speech.

(Unknown man interjects in background: “and Mary Kostikidis”. Alison: “And her, too. Free speech for everyone.”)

Incoming President Timothy Roberts: A notice of motion about, I think it’s acknowledgment that freedom of speech is under attack

Alison Bevege: And that it’s one of the most important rights we have and that we must do more to protect it.

Stephen Blanks: How is it under attack, Alison?

Alison Bevege: well there’s a Misinformation and Disinformation Bill before the Parliament right now, and there’s other ways it’s been under attack as well

Stephen Blanks: I’d like to speak against that motion

President Tim: is it seconded?

Bill Short: I’ll second it (President: what is your name?) Bill Short

President: Does anyone like to speak against that motion, Stephen I think you’ve already indicated -

Stephen Blanks: Yes, I have. Umm, so, uh Council of Civil Liberties has made a submission to the Parliamentary inquiry in relation to the Misinformation Disinformation Bill, and ahh, Tim and I gave evidence to the Committee ahm, earlier this week - last week, last week. And we are critical of one aspect of the bill. I should point out that the position NSW Council for Civil Liberties has taken is different and opposite to the position taken by the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties and the position which Alison has just, ahh, articulated is the line that the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has taken.

The position that NSW has taken is that measures are necessary in order to deal with online misinformation and disinformation and the measure that we put for appropriate legislation is legislation that would prevent the kind of misinformation and disinformation that led to the Southport riots in the UK and the belief in the US that immigrants eat their neighbour’s pets.

There are two examples of egregious online misinformation and disinformation and unless there is effective government regulation of the online sector there is nothing to stop that kind of misinformation and disinformation being spread. The criticism of the government’s bill that we made is that it concentrates the power to regulate the industry in the hands of ACMA and does not do what the European legislation in this field does which is create objective standards and allow the community to make direct complaints to the courts where harm occurs as a result of misinformation and disinformation, in other words the European model doesn’t concentrate power solely in the government regulators, it is democratic in that the courts have the ultimate say. That’s the position we advocated for in Australia. Queensland take the view that there should be no regulation at all. It’s in my opinion a ridiculous view after all we have well-established 50-year-old legislation which provides consequences for misleading and deceptive information in trade and commerce. Anybody who suffers a loss as a result of misleading info in trade or commerce can take action in the courts and get a remedy.

The same should be the case in relation to other misinformation and disinformation and free speech is absolutely a fundamental and important right but free speech does not include the right to shout fire in a crowded theatre without cause.

And the need for legislation to stop the kind of stuff that would lead to the Southport riots and what’s going on in the US is in the category of dealing with people who shout fire without proper cause.

(crowd mumbles, people try to interrupt – President: “sorry I’ve got a fellow who has had his hand up”)

President: Next speaker in favour of the motion

David Southwell: I’d like to say I’m happy to disagree with everything that’s just been said. And it’s not up to government to decide what is dis or misinformation I’m a journalist I know that governments lie, they lie regularly. To set up any arbiter of truth is totally against the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. If we have to answer to an official keeper of truth then I think we’ve completely abrogated right to free speech and we’ve abrogated the duty that we should be pursuing to protect it.

(attendees applaud)

President: thank you, OK another speaker against, Mr Pallas at the back

Josh Pallas: Fundamentally I speak against this motion because the policy propositions that we put to the AGM are careful and considered policy motions that have been developed over time in accordance with careful consideration of our body of policy over decades since 1963 and so we have not had time to carefully consider the motion as put against the policy propositions that we have passed. As Stephen has indicated we NSW CCL are not and never have been free speech absolutists and we have a body of policy since 1963 reflecting carefully considered approach to freedom of speech. I urge that the AGM to vote against this motion I don’t think that we should stop having a conversation about this but I think that we need to have reserved, careful and nuanced conversation in light of our body of work over the past decades, but again we are not and we never have been free speech absolutists at the NSW CCL and I urge us – if you don’t agree with my primary proposition which is to carefully consider this, I urge us to vote against this in support of that proposition that we are unashamedly not absolutists in this area.

President: I’m calling anyone in favour of this motion now just procedurally, for the benefit of the room – yes I heard you Phil - I think we lost track of the original motion, as I read it is: the NSW Council for Civil Liberties acknowledge that freedom of speech is under attack and that the NSW CCL do its best to defend freedom of speech.

Alison Bevege: It was that it was one of the most important civil rights we have,

President: That’s not how I remember you put it, Alison

Alison Bevege: That’s what I said

(uproar, ‘Yes she did’)

Alison Bevege: that freedom of speech is one of the most important civil rights that we have and that we … we’ll do our best to support it… I can’t remember the rest but that was how it started.

President: So I take it now that it’s NSW Council for Civil Liberties acknowledge that freedom of speech is under attack and it’s one of the most important …. Important civil rights… civil liberties we have … the NSW Council for Civil Liberty to do its best to defend freedom of speech. Someone in favour – Phil? You want to speak to that?

Phil Schultz: In relation to what Martin was talking about in relation to the commercial use of freedom and that responsibility to speak the truth, um people talk nowadays about misinformation and disinformation, I’ve yet, I’ve yet (inaudible) to for anybody to give me a correct definition of what it actually means. It’s either true or it’s not. It’s nothing to do with misinformation disinformation means nothing. It’s something that somebody invents. I can think that what you’re saying is misinformation and disinformation. I can think that but am I right? Nobody is right. I speak to John Stuart Mills. What did he say about it. He said one person may say one thing and the rest of the world says everything else but that one person is the correct one and the rest of the world is incorrect. So misinformation disinformation means nothing. It’s the freedom and the ability to be able to speak what is on our minds. What is on our minds is what counts. If it’s incorrect it will get howled down by everybody, believe me. It will get howled down by everyone. If it’s correct then, that’s where it stands.

President: alright procedure (inaudible) if anyone’s against that?

Shannen Potter: My name is Shannen Potter for the minutes I’d just like to speak there’s obviously some subtext here I’m not privy to, but I’d like to speak to the motion itself both for and against it I am very troubled by the suggestion that we would rank human rights and say that one human right is more important than another. I believe that, you know, all human rights are inalienable, all human rights should be available to everyone and I think it’s to some extent perverse to suggest that one is more important than the other, I think what about the right to vote? What about a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body and access termination services, obviously I’m a huge supporter of free speech but you know if we couldn’t vote, if we couldn’t protest, if we couldn’t make medical decisions about our own bodies, I don’t know how valuable free speech might be to us when we look at (inaudible) realities of how the other human rights (inaudible) so I absolutely agree with the aspect saying this group should support free speech so I’m very much in favour of that but I have to oppose any motion that suggests any one human right is more important than any other and I think if we look at the challenges in NSW today to human rights it's the right to protest, that’s the most urgent challenge, that’s the one that this group spent a lot of time on and I would suggest that that’s (inaudible). Thank you.

(attendees applaud)

President: At the back – name for the record?

Billy Field: My name is Billy Field, I can’t think of anything more important than free speech.  The only way we have to protect ourselves from despots and tyrants. Every dictatorship in history begins with outlawing freedom of speech (inaudible) and then threatening people. It’s absolutely obvious to everyone. Every great man in history has extolled that it’s utterly vital and it ought be the primary charge of this organisation. It’s the very purpose of its existence to stand up for these human rights, universal human rights: free speech, freedom of travel and all these things, and I totally support the motion I think it’s very important that all of us take it very, very seriously. Losing free speech, at the end of the day, if not armed, is the only way you can protect yourself.

(attendees applaud)

President: all right, thank you Billy (loud claps from the audience)  Would anyone else like to speak in favour?  In favour, Jim?

Jim Sternhell: Jim Sternhell

President: Sorry sorry-  actually I meant against. Martin have you already spoken in this?

Martin Bibby: No I haven’t. What I wanted to do is to move an amendment which constitutes officially speaking against it, so can you read the original motion again please?

President: the initial motion as I have it is “The NSW Council for Civil Liberties acknowledge freedom of speech is under attack, that it’s one of the most important civil liberties we have and that the NSW Council for Civil Liberties do its best to defend the freedom of speech”.

Martin Bibby: I move an amendment that the bit about the most important liberties we have be omitted.

President: alright

Martin Bibby: There are other rights which are actually vital like the right to life for instance

President: OK Martin’s moved that, that, uh I guess what we’ll call the middle sentence, that is the one relating to it being the most important, um, civil liberty we have, be deleted. Is that – is there anyone here who will second that? Yes?

Shannen Potter:  Shannen Potter

President: Thank you Shannen that’s seconded, I’ll put that amendment to the meeting – all those in favour.

Unknown: could you read the motion as amended (inaudible)?

President: NSW Council for Civil Liberty acknowledge that freedom of speech is under attack, NSW Council for Civil Liberties do its best to defend freedom of speech.

Stephen Blanks interjects: I think you should reject the amendment because it’s inconsistent with the motion. The key aspect of the motion is as Shannen identified earlier to place freedom of speech pre-eminently above other human rights, that’s the purpose of the motion.

(uproar, crowd mutters, unknown: ‘it doesn’t say that, it says one of the most, one of the most’)

President: sorry Stephen, thank you, OK sorry – (tries to get order) we’ll move through me thank you when we’re making announcements from the room. OK, so I’m putting Martin’s amendment as seconded by Shannen to the meeting, I’ve read out now what that motion would read like, all those in favour of that amendment, I’ve got – and anyone online wants to tell me they’re in favour? I’ve got 1-2-3-4, (In background: anyone online in favour?) I’ve got 5 in the room. All those against? OK it’s defeated.

Unknown: do we need to check the standing orders?

President:  I think we’re fine. OK, is there any other amendments to the meeting? To the-

Jim Sternhall: Can I put a point in favour of the amendment which no-one has brought up?

President: I think at this point you could procedurally.

Jim Sternhall: In the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, front and centre right - at the beginning - it acknowledges that freedom of speech is one of the fundamental rights and then of course Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is freedom of expression in all its forms, so the argument that oh freedom of speech is somehow being elevated, it has in fact been elevated to a very high position in the preamble of the Declaration of Human Rights which seems to be a foundation document for the CCL, anyhow. It is even acknowledged that it’s one of the critical things and yet that point Billy made, that previous speaker, is always suddenly it’s attacked by despots. One of my favourite quotes from Sidney Hook: to silence criticism is to silence freedom, and a lot of the problems with the misinformation and disinformation, whatever it actually means, is that it does outlaw criticism of the regime, it will tend to lead that way and yes, silence freedom. Freedom of speech is fundamental – to argue against that, is absurd. To any argument against freedom of expression is we do have libel acts so if what someone says causes damage to the reputation or to their business then yes, you can take them to court. We already have those provisions.

President: Thank you, Jim. Alright procedurally we are up to if anyone against the motion.

David Pink: Can I just move that we go directly to a vote on this (inaudible) motion?

Alison Bevege: But I want to talk in reply

President: Mr Pink has moved that the motion be put essentially, I’ll put that motion seconded by Josh and Lydia, all those in favour? Aye? All those against? Once? Alright the motion has been put

Unknown: But she has the right of reply

President: No, oh…

Unknown: Yes.

President: (unknown) she gets to reply

Alison Bevege: Procedurally I’d like my right of reply. Firstly I’d like to reply to Stephen Blanks who was talking about someone screaming fire in the crowded theatre. Well, as people –

Unknown: can you stand up, turn around

Alison Bevege: OK, so firstly I’d like to reply to Stephen Blanks who was talking about people shouting fire in the crowded room, crowded theatre – as fans of Christopher Hitchens will know, that case was the greatly overpraised Oliver Wendell Holmes who was judging the case of a group of Yiddish-speaking socialists who were handing out pamphlets warning America not to get involved in World War One, which as Hitchens said, was a very great conflagration indeed.

So who are we to judge who is right and who is wrong. We cannot. We cannot judge who is misinformation and disinformation. But irrespective we are not debating the merits of that act. My actual original proposition – I remember the order in which I said it, was simply that “We acknowledge that freedom of speech is one of the most important human rights we have, that it’s under attack and for us to do our best to defend it” that was what I said in the order of which I said it.

Secondly I’d like to say, also in reply to Stephen Blanks’s point about the riots in the UK:  well, the riots and violent crimes and violent acts are the responsibility of the person who commits the violence and policing it is the responsibility of the police. And as you’ve all heard tonight we have great powers of surveillance. The police are out there spying on everyone making sure that they catch anybody who’s about to do violence. So it’s not the right to say – it’s not OK to say take away your freedom of speech because there was some violence, because the speech is not the cause of the violence.

The choice of the person who did the violence is the cause of the violence and the importance of policing it falls to police. They should do their job and stop trying to take away our freedom of speech to make their jobs easier.

(applause from the room)

And then thirdly I’d like to speak in response to Josh Pallas – ahhm when he said…. Ahhm it was…Oh I can’t remember what he said. I made some notes but I can’t read them now.

I’d like to speak in reply to the lass that said it’s elevating one right above the other, no it isn’t elevating one right above the other I just said it’s one of the most important rights and we should defend it – and then she went on to contradict herself anyway by saying that she thinks the right of protest is the most important. Well I say to you: how are you ever going to have a protest if you can’t have free speech and discuss ideas, you won’t have any freedom of thought to be able to disagree with anyone so you’ll never even have a protest if they take away your freedom of speech.

(more applause)

So that’s all I have to say thank you everybody, I hope you will support the motion.

President: that lass’s name is Shannen Potter. I ahh, being no other amendments (inaudible) that the motion be put, I’ll put that motion to the meeting without any amendment. All those in favour?

(Online could you please raise your hand)

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

(what’s the motion?)

President: I’ll put the motion again, if I could just have some focus in the room. All those in favour? 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 with the (inaudible).

All those against? 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18

The motion is defeated. Thank you, folks is there any other business?

— ENDS TRANSCRIPT—

NSW CCL now wants NEWS censored, too

For those interested – the NSW CCL has put in a submission to the 2024 version of the government’s censorship legislation, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2024 [Provisions].

It consists of a three-page letter by incoming president Timothy Roberts attached to the previous submission made to the 2023 version of the same bill. You can view it in full on the NSW CCL archive here, or download submission 5 here

The new submission again supports the government’s jargon-laden, bogus claim that new laws are needed to stop people being wrong and lying on the internet.

It welcomes the new inclusion of electoral and referendum material into the scope of the new censorship Bill, despite mountains of existing legislation that govern election time behaviour. Can you imagine “The Voice” with this law to abuse?

Then it asks to extend the censorship to “professional news” which is, at present, exempted. Thus closing any loophole for independent journalists or dissenting scientists to be heard, should they speak against the regime.

To support this, President Richards’ letter says:

“Professional news that’s misinformation is still misinformation. Professional news content that is verifiably false can cause immense harm, as we saw with misinformation on COVID vaccines from some news outlets in 2021. (11)

The best way for news outlets to make sure that digital platforms do not treat their content as misinformation is by creating good quality content with reliable sources - not by exempting them entirely from the Bill.”

The study footnoted at (11) was Pickles, K. et al, “COVID-19 Misinformation Trends in Australia: Prospective Longitudinal National Survey,” January 2021, in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

I read it. It doesn’t reference any news outlet as causing “immense harm” from “misinformation on covid vaccines”.

Yet another bogus study used to justify censorship

It’s a study based on an online survey published in January 2021, with responses from April, May and June of 2020.

Online surveys have low credibility.

The Pfizer and Moderna Phase 3 clinical trials didn’t even begin until July 27. This study couldn’t know what was true or not true about products that hadn’t been tested.

The study itself is yet another prime example of the fraud at the heart of this censorship push. It’s an intellectually impoverished piece of pseudo-science full of errors and incorrect assumptions that should be retracted, not referenced in a Parliamentary submission.

The study evaluates four measures “adapted from validated vaccine conspiracy beliefs scale” to put a bogus quantification on “misinformation” as if it were measurable in the way that physics is measurable.

Three of the four measures were not “conspiracy beliefs”, they were dissenting views that later turned out to be correct.

One of the measures was a “misinformation belief” that data on the effectiveness of vaccines is often made up.

Remember this headline? “Pfizer and BioNTech say final analysis shows coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective with no safety concerns.”

That was made-up data from Pfizer reported uncritically by CNN.

The product didn’t work. It didn’t stop infection or transmission. It didn’t create “herd immunity”. Many papers now argue it didn’t even reduce disease severity as claimed. There are huge safety concerns. As of Friday there have been more than 83,000 injury reports for Comirnaty reported to the Database of Adverse Event Notifications and 475 reported deaths.

So it wasn’t a “misinformation belief” when it came to the covid gene-vaccines.

The study applied a “validated scale” made for previous vaccines to a whole new class of products, gene-vaccines, never before used at scale in humans. The researchers made the false assumption that lack of trust in prior vaccines was a correct predictor that a lack of trust in future gene-vaccines would be wrong, and therefore an indicator of “misinformation”.

But they were wrong. Has this been acknowledged? Silence.

This level of blind and stupid bias shows an intellectual poverty that should have automatically disqualified this study from peer-reviewed publication.

All it shows is that the misapplication of this “validated scale” created some worthless pseudo-science.

Another measure used was “that the threat of covid is greatly exaggerated”.

It was. Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London overestimated the covid fatality rate by more than seven times in 2020, which was a pivot point early in the covid panic avalanche. Covid had a median infection fatality rate of only 0.03 percent, comparable to the flu, for people aged under 60 (almost the entire working-aged population) according to a team led by the world’s leading epidemiologist, Stanford University’s John Ioannidis.

Another measure was “government restrictions are stronger than is needed”

They were. There was no public health emergency for the entire working aged population. All we had to do was follow the advice of top doctors given in the Great Barrington Declaration - but the whole country shut down for more than a year with people forced to stay in their homes, based on shonky science from favoured academics with conflicts of interest.

Finally, that study shamefully references the myth that Iranians deliberately drank methanol because of covid conspiracy theories.

They didn’t. Alcohol is illegal in Iran, so bootleggers disguise and sell methanol to make money. It’s a problem that has happened before covid, as I detailed here.

It’s turtles all the way down, again.

This is just another poor-quality academic study that can’t get its own facts right and passes off dissenting opinion as “misinformation”. It applies tick-box counting to convert it into numbers, percentages and pie charts to make it look like an authoritative hard science.

It’s not factual and quantifiable like engineering or maths: it’s soft social-science propaganda that says whatever you want it to say.

This is academic fabrication of a problem. These fraudulent papers should be retracted as they are objectively incorrect (laughably so) and are polluting the peer-reviewed knowledge pool.

NSW CCL needs to interrogate its own assumptions, biases and political tribalism and get back to its core function or we are going to lose the most precious rights we have. The CCL is hard-working and full of legal expertise but it has lost it’s way. We need them to get back to defending freedom of speech and bodily autonomy.

Readers are reminded that there is a new Free Speech Union that will take action for free speech. I advocate joining both.

To see how the censorship bill will devastate medical science and those injured by the gene-vaccines read this brilliant submission by Coverse:

PDF below - also you can see all submissions made on the new Bill here

10

697KB ∙ PDF file

Download

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Updates/corrections: 25 October: added dropped caption. 26 October: changed “protégé” to “former protégé” as the internship was a few years ago. Deleted par restating the council voted against free speech for redundancy.