The government’s planned university funding cuts and fee hikes will now come with an added dose of culture war, after the Coalition cut a deal with One Nation to add an academic freedom definition into the proposed bill.
But universities say the definition, taken from former High Court judge Robert French’s review into campus free speech, will make it harder to punish rogue academics, and allow racist and sexist views to escape scrutiny.
What was the French report?
Dan Tehan became education minister in 2018, when loud conservatives were voicing concerns about a “free speech crisis” on university campuses.
They pointed to incidents like protests at the University of Sydney against a planned address by men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt, and the University of Western Australia cancelling a talk by American pundit Quentin van Meter, who has said being transgender is a “delusion”.
Tehan shelved plans for a university sexual assault taskforce to instead prioritise a probe into free speech on campus, dragging French out of retirement.
From the outset, university leaders argued the whole free speech crisis was a beat up. French agreed, with his final report concluding that “claims of a freedom of expression crisis on Australian campuses are not substantiated”.
French’s review also proposed a model code to protect academic freedom — and despite vice-chancellors raising concerns about the necessity for more regulation, all universities have agreed to implement it by the end of the year.
Why add a new definition?
One Nation’s amendment would legislate another of French’s recommendations by adding a new, long definition of academic freedom into the Higher Education Support Act, something the government previously looked into but then dropped.
That definition was attacked by Innovative Research Universities (IRU) as unnecessary, since “academic freedom” is widely understood. IRU also worried it could create employment disputes, and give cover to employees airing racist or sexist views.
Why does One Nation care?
One Nation has long bought into the conspiratorial far-right trope that universities are bastions of sinister cultural Marxism where conservative voices are silenced. As Hanson has said:
“My interest is in putting a stop to this Marxist, left-leaning approach to teaching in our universities and instead, protect educators who teach using methods based on science and facts rather than ideology.”
One Nation’s NSW platform calls for an end to safe spaces and other signs of “left-wing identity politics and post-modernism”.
Hanson and Senator Malcolm Roberts are also deeply obsessed with the case of Peter Ridd, a former James Cook University physicist and climate change denier who was sacked for criticising colleagues’ views on the state of the Great Barrier Reef. Ridd’s unfair dismissal case, a cause celebre for One Nation, Sky News and the Institute of Public Affairs, could end up before the High Court.
Climate denialists might be denied sympathy in the Supreme Court if there already was precedent for charging someone whose denial would contribute to the deaths of people in the future. Sixteen European nations currently make denial of the Jewish Holocaust illegal, presumably on the basis that it would contribute to the deaths of people in the future. Mock trials would help sketch out how to frame such charges and how to pursue prosecutions.
Ya gotta love the ginger whinger talking about science and facts. She should stick to fish and chips.
Indeed, surely, she’s taking the piss.
This is a good example of how Hanson gains publicity, is not independent and is being gamed or wheeled out to aid the LNP government on a core (US) radical right policy of nobbling (higher) education.
Worse, does anyone in media or journalism really belive that one Hanson read the French Report and tow was able to formulate a response that also feeds into LNP electoral narratives or strategies (which can be apportioned back to Hanson)?
The real interest would whom is the link between Hanson’s policy ideas and LNP policies, for mutual advantage?
Sorry fat thumbs on spelling…
So, our Pauline, the champion of “Men’s rights during divorce” until there were a few too many high profile “wife and children” murder suicides.Slide sideways and fade into the colour of Castle Hill.
So yes, our Pauline gets terribly upset when another of her “Captain Picks” turns out to like a little Asian hanky panky, when he is paying.
That one, she was forced to cry on the TV, to distance herself from.
Does anyone remember when our Pauline was so wrongfully imprisoned for not having her last party registered properly and she was released in only 3 months? Does anyone remember her friend that she made in prison “Fay” who was also suffering dreadfully?
Bingo, our Pauline had befriended Valmai Fay Beck, the female half of a rapist/ murder duo convicted of luring a girl, so that he partner could rape a virgin? The police sat by her bedside hoping she would confess to other similar crimes. She didn’t.
What is this all about? Other than cutting those nose in the air, educated people’s jobs or destroying the chance for the kid from a poor family the opportunity of an education, eh!
Our Pauline has the ability of to pick the snake in the grass in every paddock which is a skill in need of a cattle property.
Our Pauline’s latest friend has probably indirectly contributed more to the destruction of the reef and the climate in FNQ than that swivel eyed idiot Lord Nutter and Climate Change Denialist from Scotland, Gina Reinhardt, Clive Palmer and Adani combined.
.But, what the hell! Free speech and the US Constitution and the gun lobby are all up for promotion by our Pauline and James Ashby and co.
Why shouldn’t a physicist be able to express his badly conceived opinions outside of his field of expertise and pretend that they have a scientific basis?
Other than the ex-coal mine manager, Senator Roberts, he is just another part of the denialist chorus.
The biggest problem Townsville and FNQ has is unemployment.
The trouble Townsville has is that if they shift too far to the right in support of our Pauline, then those bloody educated people from down south may find less in their hearts and their wallets, come the next Yasi sized cyclone that hits a populated center like Townsville or Cairns.
This will be too catastrophic to contemplate, for someone born and bred up there.
> That definition was attacked by Innovative Research
> Universities (IRU) as unnecessary …. etc.
A typical ‘Crikey’ response to unwelcome information. The assertion, one might suppose, was unanimous but the identity brigade is alive and kicking. Greer, who was the definition of feminism, cannot get to a campus without police protection nowadays; assuming that the event remains scheduled; almost all of her events are cancelled; thought police anyone?
Then we have the dismissal of Richard Stallman from MIT after half a century of service. Stallman is hardly political (except in the case of open-source software) or in anyway extreme but he found himself, inadvertently, on the wrong side of the trans scene. So much for free speech.
Indeed, the “free speech” (qua Hyde Park) areas have been removed from UCLA (anywhere) and post-modernism is deemed supreme; ask Jordan Peterson and others. THAT is the problem Napier-Raman; the balance has disappeared from intellectual discussion. This on-line mag, some days, is a case in point.
> “My interest is in putting a stop to this Marxist … etc
Just click-bait [quoting Hanson] and YOU know it; damned unprofessional also. I would be astonished to learn that a book on 20th Century Political Ideologies was within reach of Ms Hanson when the battered fish and chips were cooking.
As for “teaching science” that objective was crushed out of existence in the 90s with the adoption of post-modernism and the implicit claim that ALL perspectives are equally valid; patiently stupid but it is “believed” nevertheless; just attempt a discussion with a post-structuralist sociologist.
Your assessment of Ridd is irresponsible to say the least. He is NOT a denier (a fair bit of space is required to argue that point) but, I agree, he hasn’t got an ideal bedside manner. That he annoyed the hell out of some major players that could cry “wolf” and be listened to was his undoing. In fact the case typifies what passes NOT for academic achievement (originality or whatever) but what is necessary to get along with f.fools in the work place nowadays.
May I suggest that you write fiction as Rundle might when he is being humorous because it is clear that you have no capacity for reporting on analytic or scientific (e.g. modelling) matters – I am very sorry to have to say. Voltaire was the guide to such matters.
If Hanson (not having a clue as to the work of Voltaire) returns the ethos to something approaching the principles of The Enlightenment
then well and good one might say.
Greer requiring police protection? Really? Where?
I think you may have bought the farm, mistaking small and mostly unsuccessful anti-free speech rhetoric and thinking it a major issue on and off campus. Mostly it has little to no effect in either sphere. Mostly these people are brought to universities not to enlighten us but to stir up such controversy. They very rarely enlighten, but they do add heat. Their invitations are just real life trolling.
Surprised that you would get sucked into buying all this ‘identity politics is killing us all’ culture wars stuff. It’s real ‘Princess and the pea’ stuff.
Ridd’s case was a bit more than having a bedside manner. Thus far, the courts have agreed that is the case. I would be very surprised that this could get to the High Court. You’d need an electron microscope to find a point of law to argue.
Sorry, I overlooked your post.
Cardiff University. The lecture with the title “Transgender women are not women” did proceed but Cardiff is not an isolated case.
As to your assessment of “these people” free speech as to its existance in a community is binary.
As to Ridd, take a look as Richard Stallman (MIT) recently.