Freedom of speech under threat...Professor Jenny Hocking

Sedition laws may impact on educational practice

By Kerri Carr

Critical features of educational practice are under threat courtesy of the new sedition laws, Monash University Professor Jenny Hocking told Federation Council on May 6.

She said they would "inevitably diminish the institutions of public debate, open scholarship and inquiry".

"What is significant about this particular counter-terrorism legislation [containing sedition provisions] is that for the first time the security measures shifted away from even contemplated action and moved firmly into the realm into the control of ideas, of debate, of inquiry and of dissent," Professor Hocking said.

She said "disagreements with official positions about the war on terror, uncomfortable academic analysis of the causes of terrorism that seek to isolate structural, political and economic basis for terrorist violence" were "open to be deemed directly praising the doing of a terrorism act and hence subject to being outlawed".

"This provision constrains public debate in general and academic freedom in particular to discuss and debate a range of, and including unpopular, political positions," Professor Hocking said.

"Despite Government protestations that such laws will not be used to narrow the terrain of public's fear around acceptable, effectively endorsed, policy debates, the Government has proved itself quite unwilling to amend the laws in order for these concerns to be put beyond doubt."

"The crime [of sedition] is all about words and it's a particular concern to those in the education sector that this may well cover instances of mere public support for the enemy or for those engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian defence forces, and this of course is particularly relevant in the current context of widespread opposition to Australian's involvement in the war in Iraq and even questions over the legality of that war," Professor Hocking said.

She said there were "real issues about whether this constrains our capacity to actually engage in debate in the classroom, outside the classroom, or to put positions that may not be popular about that particular war [Iraq]".

Professor Hocking said a lot of concerns were expressed at the Senate committee hearings on the Anti-Terrorism Act about the impact of the sedition provisions on artistic, academic and media freedom.

"The Government has inserted a good faith defence to cover instances where a person publishes in good faith a report or commentary about a matter of public interest, however, although it might be expected that this defence would cover academics, teachers, researchers and public commentary, nevertheless, Australia's Vice-Chancellors Committee... put a submission forward to the Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry into sedition and described the defence available as quite inadequate." "The effect is an impingement on the freedom of academic thought and inquiry," she said.

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