From: eepmatt@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Matthew Friedman)
Subject: Political Free Speech Protected in Oz
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 06:38:19 GMT

From _The_Australian_
Thursday 1 October 1992
Page 1

HISTORIC RULING BACKS FREE SPEECH
High Court's poll ad ban decision heralds revolution in media law
By Peter Wilson

     A landmark decision by the High Court has ruled for the first time 
that Australians have a right to free political speech.
     The ruling was handed down yesterday as the explanation for the 
High court's decision last month to strike out the Federal Government's 
proposed ban on electronic political advertising.
     It was described by some constitutional lawyers as a revolution in 
media law, moving more towards the United States system of protecting 
free speech.
     Experts said that it may also make it harder for ministers, public 
bodies and politicians to take legal action over criticisms relating to their 
political activities.
     In the High Court's most important ruling on the issue of free 
speech, six of its seven judges found that Australia's system of 
representative government did imply a right to speak freely on political 
and public issues.
     Chief Justice Sir Anthony Mason said the advertising ban infringed 
on that implicit guarantee.
[text deleted]
     The ruling on the advertising ban was supported by another High 
Court judgment released yesterday which struck out parts of the 
Industrial Relations Act which made it an offense to "bring into 
disrepute" members of the Industrial Relations Commission.
[text deleted]
     Six of the judges acknowledged in their judgments that there was 
an implied right of free speech.
     The Australian Constitution did not explicitly guarantee rights 
such as free speech which were protected in the US by the First 
Amendment, but it was based on a representative government.
     Such a system could not function without free discussion of 
political issues and communication between voters and their 
representatives.
[text deleted]
     Legislation imposing the advertising ban had provided free air 
time for political parties [based on existing parliamentary representation] 
and banned broadcast during election campaigns of election material 
other than news, current affairs, and talkback programs.
[text deleted]
     Sir Anthony accepted the Government's arguments on the merits of 
an advertising ban.
     "I am prepared to accept that the need to raise funds in order to 
conduct a campaign... does generate a risk of corruption and undue 
influence, that in such a campaign the rich have an advantage over the 
poor and that brief political advertisements may trivialise political 
debate," he said.
     But he said that those arguments did not overcome the central 
problem that the ban impaired free speech.
[text deleted]
     The formula allocating free time on the basis of existing 
parliamentary representation "does not introduce a level playing field" 
because it "manifestly favours the status quo."
     Giving air time to MPs discriminates against new candidates and 
parties, as well as employer groups, unions, industry, community and 
farm groups.
[text deleted]

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|Matthew Friedman         Phone: Don't got one!     _--_|\      What the |
|eepmatt@casbah.acns.nwu.edu                       /      * <-- hell am  |
|eepmatt@cslab1.orau.gov; MAIL_FRIED@cc.uq.oz.au   \_.--._/     I doing  |
|University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.          v      here?!!? |
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Newsgroups: alt.censorship