Lettersto the editor

In danger of losing free speech

WE are on the brink of losing our free speech Australia.

Apart from the cancel culture (which is bad enough), the newest threat is legislation that the government is trying to push through to censure anything they deem to be ‘misinformation or lies’ on social media.

The panel who will oversee what we can or cannot say is at the ACMA website. Time to lodge a complaint before it is too late (info@acma.gov. au).

If this doesn’t raise hairs on the back of your neck, it should because without free speech we have a government similar to the CCP (China Communist Party).

We had a little taste of it during COVID. Lockdowns and censorship similar to what we are experiencing now if anyone differs in opinion about such things as climate change, gender, the Voice or other topics the government want to push or suppress.

Of course, the government will be exempt from such legislation so they can carry on with their own lies and disinformation without penalty. Wow. Talk about “Do as I say, not as I do”.

It is bizarre to think that the whole world has been taken in by these ideologies to the point where we are in danger of losing all the freedoms we fought for.

All the base principals of democracy that our soldiers fought for are going down the drain and soon we will be living in a totalitarian world of ‘group think’ where individuals are not allowed to disagree without extreme penalties. What next? Close off our bank accounts? Don’t think it can’t happen because it already is happening, i.e. the truckers in Canada had their bank accounts frozen for protesting. Now Nigel Farage in the UK (formally the Brexit leader), has had his bank accounts cancelled.

So, make no mistake, this could happen here in Australia if people don’t start to speak up when they see something that is not right and lodge complaints about unfair legislation.

Suppressing free speech has no place in a democratic country like Australia and if we want to keep it that way we must speak out.

Suzy Malkinson, Cairns

Voice referendum was promised

BRUCE Jones, Innisfail, (letters 1/7) is not being fair dinkum when he says the Voice referendum lacks definitions of words.

By current Australian law, all words are defined by their first meaning in the Macquarie dictionary, e,g. advice: ‘an opinion recommended’.

It is only three sentences to be added to our Constitution and the first two law officers of the Commonwealth, one of whom was appointed by the previous government, have cleared the wording.

At the last election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood promising us a referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by giving them a Voice.