The new sedition laws don’t
actually have to be enforced to be effective – the mere threat that they will be is enough for
those in the media and the arts to self-censor, a seminar in Sydney has
been told.

Strong interest in last night’s seminar – Defamation
and Sedition Laws: “A new way of talking?” – saw it switched at the
last minute to a larger theatrette at the UTS Faculty of Law, to handle
a turnout of nearly 280. The line-up included NSW Attorney General Bob
Debus, former NSW Supreme Court judge David Levine, Sydney Morning Herald scribe David Marr, Peter Garrett and Melbourne QC, Julian Burnside.

Garrett
said a characteristic of the Howard Government was to threaten funding
of NGOs as a means of eliminating dissent in the community. He said
there was a fear sedition laws would be used in the same way. But, said
Garrett, sedition laws were nowhere near as concerning as the package
of anti-terrorism provisions supported by Labor before he became an MP.
“I hope very much that we can have a much more energetic discussion and
review”, he said.

Julian Burnside, meanwhile, said sedition laws
were of less concern than the character of the politician
empowered to execute them, before launching a scathing attack on
Ruddock’s fitness for such a responsibility. “The first targets will be
the weak and unpopular”, Burnside predicted of the sedition laws.

Former Media Watch
host Marr entertained the room with his take on how new defamation
rules would affect journalists, making a sly comment about how
journalists can now describe Alan Jones.

Marr went on to suggest
the removal of the need to prove the material was published in the
public interest would assist cartoonists in depicting Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman because as the law had previously stood “a realistic depiction of him would be defamatory”.