Morrison borrows vicious censorship from Republicans

[barney]

Australia's Liberal Governments have a reputation for callous cruelty and contempt for the disadvantaged. They must be punished for being poor; it can only be because they are feckless and didn't send their children to expensive private schools or put money into their pri vate trust fund for a rainy day. But the Morrison has gone to a new level with a proposed bill to ban any criticism of it by charities and their staff, even when not at work. According to this bill, if a worker goes to a demonstration on his own time but wears a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of the charity, the entire charity can be de-registered.

I'm not sure whether Scott Morrison has taken the Republicans for his model or Communist China.


What sort of totalitarians would legislate this sort of draconian censorship? My friend Tim Costello, author of the piece below, is pretty measured, but I regard it as vicious thuggery by utterly contemptible people. Culture warriors like Belle are no doubt delighted, because she sees advocates for the poor as left-wing and therefore to be slapped down, but one day the left will be in power again, and then she should worry as tit for tat becomes the order of the day. Belle claims to oppose cancel culture, but you could hardly find a more extreme example of cancel culture than this.

Here is an article about the legislation in The Age yesterday.

NationalCharity
OPINION
Tim Costello
Former CEO of World Vision Australia.
June 22, 2021 — 6.30am
Consider this hypothetical: you’re the head of a respected, long-established charity with more than 600 employees and thousands of supporters, such as World Vision, a charity that I ran for 13 years.

A staff member wearing a T-shirt branded with a World Vision logo attends a peaceful public vigil drawing attention to the federal government’s record on foreign aid, calling on it to step up as an international citizen and increase its commitments after a major humanitarian disaster.

At the event, someone places a sticker on a street sign – one of thousands of minor, or “summary”, offences on the statute books.

Under proposed new regulations, World Vision would be held responsible for supporting unlawful activity. As chief executive, you will have failed to take steps to stop World Vision’s resources supporting an action where a summary offence has occurred. World Vision is in breach of the charities regulations, and is now exposed to enforcement action and de-registration as a charity by the Charities Commissioner.

A tinpot dictatorship? An authoritarian state? Russia under Putin? No, this is Australia in 2021, a First-World representative democracy in which the federal government is planning to introduce draconian new amendments to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) regulations, likely to be introduced into the Senate soon. The proposed changes target every charity in Australia, subjecting them to the threat of de-registration if they or their staff in any way support public demonstration or other actions where a summary offence may occur.

It is difficult to see this as anything other than a concerted effort by the government to stifle legitimate and lawful policy advocacy by charities.

Charities are already the most highly regulated sector, and can lose their charitable registration if they engage in or support unlawful activity.

The proposed amendments are a breathtakingly egregious case of overreach. They give the charities commissioner extraordinary powers without parallel in any other regulated sector of society. Under the changes, charities may be shut down for the most minor of offences – for example, if a staff member blocks a footpath at a public demonstration, even if the offence is unintentional.

It is the equivalent of the Electoral Commissioner having discretion to de-register a political party because a member of the party jaywalked.

The changes will oblige charities to ensure their resources are not used to promote or support acts that may be dealt with as a minor offence, even if no offence occurs. For example, if a charity sets up a communications channel to bring a community group together to discuss a campaign against a weapons manufacturer, and the group proposes to gather inside the headquarters of the weapons company, the charity’s registration could be revoked.

Likewise, under the new regulations, if a staff member of a charity speaks or tweets in support of a public demonstration on Indigenous deaths in custody, or a Palm Sunday vigil for refugees, and someone at the event fails to move on when asked to do so by police, the charity may face enforcement action.

Alarmingly, under the new laws, the Charities Commissioner may also arbitrarily de-register a charity if he has the subjective belief that a minor offence has occurred, even if no charge has been made. And he may shut down a charity if he believes it’s likely that a minor offence may occur in the future.

Charities have always spoken up for their communities, and have done so freely, openly and honestly. They have an important role in civil society, holding government to account for policies on issues of significance affecting the lives of Australians, often the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. Social progress and equity is won through a robust contest of ideas, of which public campaigning by charities is a key part. At the most fundamental level, freedom of expression is a cornerstone of our democracy, and it is Constitutionally protected.

It is no wonder that charities are up in arms and vocally opposing the changes. If brought in, these amendments will silence the voices of the millions of Australians for whom charities speak, and undermine our democracy and our national values of free speech and fairness.

Importantly, the amended regulations will place a huge administrative burden on Australia’s 59,000 charities and all 1.38 million charity employees. Time and resources, including public donations, will be diverted from charities’ core missions, such as helping those in need, and instead spent on record keeping, monitoring compliance and obtaining legal advice.

The Law Council of Australia says the proposed amendments “inhibit legitimate public dialogue by registered charities or persons associated with registered charities to the detriment of Australian representative democracy”. The top-tier law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler submits that they will “increase administrative burden” and are, amongst other things, “unconstitutional”, “unjustified” and “fundamentally inconsistent with our democratic system of government”.

Earlier, I invoked Putin’s Russia advisedly. In 2013 at the civil society groups’ summit that ran alongside the G20 in St Petersburg, I met with him to discuss the vital role of charities in free and open policy debate in a democracy. He was already planning a crackdown, and my efforts were to no avail: targeting charities is a tried and true political tactic deployed by autocratic and authoritarian regimes to quash dissent and gag critics. He shut down the charities anyway.

Healthy democracies support their charities, welcome their advocacy, and strengthen and protect people’s rights and freedoms.

Surely, in Australia in 2021, we are better than these proposed new regulations would suggest.

[Rach3]

Australia's Liberal Governments have a reputation for callous cruelty and contempt for the disadvantaged. They must be punished for being poor; it can only be because they are feckless and didn't send their children to expensive private schools or put money into their pri vate trust fund for a rainy day. But the Morrison has gone to a new level with a proposed bill to ban any criticism of it by charities and their staff, even when not at work. According to this bill, if a worker goes to a demonstration on his own time but wears a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of the charity, the entire charity can be de-registered.

My word, MorrisonReich ?

[maestrob]

Horrifying!

And definitely unconstitutional.

These guys are the same everywhere in the world, aren't they?

[barney]

Australia's Liberal Governments have a reputation for callous cruelty and contempt for the disadvantaged. They must be punished for being poor; it can only be because they are feckless and didn't send their children to expensive private schools or put money into their pri vate trust fund for a rainy day. But the Morrison has gone to a new level with a proposed bill to ban any criticism of it by charities and their staff, even when not at work. According to this bill, if a worker goes to a demonstration on his own time but wears a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of the charity, the entire charity can be de-registered.

My word, MorrisonReich ?

I am not automatically against Morrison. He did well with the JobKeeper program last year - ironically, by dropping the Liberals' traditional tight fiscal policy and following Labor's spend, spend to keep the economy going. But he deserves credit for that flexibility.
But under his bogan suburban dad demeanour there beats a particularly ruthless heart, one that has no objection to stamping over treasured democratic freedoms, as this bill shows.

[barney]

Horrifying!

And definitely unconstitutional.

These guys are the same everywhere in the world, aren't they?

They are, Brian. The sad thing for Australia is that our Constitution plays nothing like the role yours does, and fails to guarantee free speech. We have long needed a Bill of Rights, but governments of all stripes are remarkably hesitant because it would pit interest groups against each other. For example, can Christian schools insist on Christian teachers to preserve the "ethos" or is that discriminatory against atheists or people in same-sex relationships? Both sides have legitimate claims.

[maestrob]

Horrifying!

And definitely unconstitutional.

These guys are the same everywhere in the world, aren't they?

They are, Brian. The sad thing for Australia is that our Constitution plays nothing like the role yours does, and fails to guarantee free speech. We have long needed a Bill of Rights, but governments of all stripes are remarkably hesitant because it would pit interest groups against each other. For example, can Christian schools insist on Christian teachers to preserve the "ethos" or is that discriminatory against atheists or people in same-sex relationships? Both sides have legitimate claims.

Well, I'm not convinced that a guarantee of free speech or religious freedom at the same time are not in conflict. Here in America, our Supreme Court has upheld the right of religious individuals to not prescribe or dispense abortion medications to young women in trouble, owners of a bakery to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, and for a Catholic adoption service in Philadelphia to refuse to allow gay couples to adopt a child from them (See link below), all decided along conservative lines by the current majority.

In each case, various rights that the court has guaranteed under previous decisions have been trumped (pardon the expression!) by religious rights supported by conservative thinking. So where's the balance in that?

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/2 ... _g3bi.pdf

[barney]

Our courts and legislation have tended to go the opposite way. My point is that both sides think they have a right, and that these rights conflict. The problem with a "right" is that it is an absolute claim that supposedly trumps all other considerations. But all rights are not equal. So that leaves a lot of hard thinking to do.

[maestrob]

Our courts and legislation have tended to go the opposite way. My point is that both sides think they have a right, and that these rights conflict. The problem with a "right" is that it is an absolute claim that supposedly trumps all other considerations. But all rights are not equal. So that leaves a lot of hard thinking to do.

Which is why religion and government should always be kept at arms' length, a hard lesson it took humanity millennia to learn.

I fear our hard right is working feverishly to reverse this, with disastrous results already obvious.

[barney]

Indeed Brian. In fact it was Christians who understood the necessity to keep church and state separate, beginning with Augustine in the fourth century, then the medieval distinction of sacred and secular (secular makes no sense except in a religious context) and above all Calvin with his model in Geneva that was so influential in the US.
Many other religions, such as Islam, have no concept of this separation.

[Belle]

Typical of the hard green Left media like the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age to dig deep into grievance and victimhood and then project that onto everybody else. These media are moving further and further from the mainstream of Australia; those in the sensible centre. That's one reason why they went broke, but you'll never get the unionized workforce they employ/ed to understand any of it. Lack of economic progressivism and sociological imagination will do that to you every single time. Nobody there was alert enough to see a steam train heading in their direction!! Now they're coupled to shamelessly mediocre commercial television and radio networks. But, they're all legends in their own lunch boxes!!

"Vicious censorship" accusations coming from the Left are the ultimate irony and represent a complete lack of self-awareness. Completely risible actually. And passive aggressive, like so many on the Left.

On that topic, this is relevant: academic censorship (one just doesn't know where to start with this!!) Hint: if you want to start this game don't be infantile enough to imagine there will be NO resistance to it. But if you are part of the self-righteous (!!) then you have 'truth' on your side. Mmm; where have I heard that before (puts finger to temple)? You guessed it; in a religious movement!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJZycGt6HMY

[barney]

Typical of the hard green Left media like the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age to dig deep into grievance and victimhood and then project that onto everybody else. These media are moving further and further from the mainstream of Australia; those in the sensible centre. That's one reason why they went broke, but you'll never get the unionized workforce they employ/ed to understand any of it. Lack of economic progressivism and sociological imagination will do that to you every single time. Nobody there was alert enough to see a steam train heading in their direction!! Now they're coupled to shamelessly mediocre commercial television and radio networks. But, they're all legends in their own lunch boxes!!

"Vicious censorship" accusations coming from the Left are the ultimate irony and represent a complete lack of self-awareness. Completely risible actually. And passive aggressive, like so many on the Left.

On that topic, this is relevant: academic censorship (one just doesn't know where to start with this!!) Hint: if you want to start this game don't be infantile enough to imagine there will be NO resistance to it. But if you are part of the self-righteous (!!) then you have 'truth' on your side. Mmm; where have I heard that before (puts finger to temple)? You guessed it; in a religious movement!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJZycGt6HMY

Belle, you obviously don't realise how absurdly stupid you look when you call the former Fairfax media "hard green left". It leaves you nowhere to go with the real hard green left, which is less influential than you fear. The Fairfax press is pinkish-centrist. I don't think you read it, because your remarks are always so ignorant and prejudiced - I suspect you watch the far-right Sky After Dark, and pick up on their rants and republish them as your own thoughts. You really need to rise above a bigoted culture warrior mindset and try to open both eyes, as other posters here try to do.

Did you read the article? Have you no concerns about the totalitarian, even fascistic, censorship involved? Probably not, because it is your idol, beyond criticism, promoting it. Very sad.