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Freedom of expression must include the licence to offend

Protestors with a sign stating 'Free speech = cheap insults'.

31 March 2009

Most people believe in freedom of expression – up to a point.

Few would support the yob who maliciously yells ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre.

But what of the artist who offends our ideas of innocence? Or the politician who stokes the flames of racial hatred? Or the cleric who preaches that all other faiths are false?

Under what circumstances, if any, might we silence those who offend – one, some, many?

Discuss this topic

Speakers

For:

  • Janet Albrechtsen is a lawyer, newspaper columnist and ABC board member.
  • David Marr has spent the last 35 years reporting for Fairfax, broadcasting for the ABC and writing books. He came to journalism after first training as a lawyer.
  • Most Rev Peter Jensen is Archbishop of the Anglican Church, Sydney Diocese.

Against:

  • Donald McDonald AC, is Director of the Australian Classification Board, and former Chairman of the ABC, former chief executive of The Australian Opera, and General Manager of the Sydney Theatre Company.
  • Dr Fleur Johns is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney, specialising in international law, international human rights, and legal theory. She is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and Harvard Law School.
  • David Knoll is a Sydney barrister, and Visiting Fellow in Law at the University of NSW. He is immediate past president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, and served as junior counsel on the Federal Court legal action against holocaust denier Frederick Tobin, and has written extensively on racial vilification, and human rights, faith and conflict within a multi cultural society.

Chair:

Dr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre. Simon spent five years studying and working as a member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Having won scholarships to study at Cambridge, he read for the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy. He was inaugural President of The Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics and is a Director of a number of companies. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Foreign Policy Association, based in New York. Simon has been Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre since shortly after it was founded.