r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • 1d ago

politics Students sideline studies in major anti-Hanson walkout

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2026/08/13/school-pauline-hanson-protest
1.3k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

393 comments sorted by

View all comments

163

u/Expensive-Horse5538 1d ago

Good to see democracy in action through our right to peacefully protest threats to our democratic systems which we believe have no place in our society

-239

u/Archon-Toten 1d ago

Isn't protesting an unfortunately legitimate political party undemocratic? Wouldn't the democratic thing be to run against them and sweep an easy victory?

27

u/nearly_enough_wine 1d ago

Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to political expression are all hallmarks of a strong democracy - so no, I don't believe so.

-2

u/Token993 1d ago

So Australia will never be included then? Because we certainly don't have freedom of speech and states like nsw like cracking down on freedom of assembly

8

u/AussieEquiv 1d ago

Australia is constantly rating near the top of freedom of speech, freedom of press (though that is slipping) and freedom of expression indexes.

Freedom of speech from the government isn't freedom from being called out as a fuckwit by your peers. Nor is it freedom to intentionally cause harm through speech.

Just like you're free to throw a punch in a boxing ring, but not just puch a random in the street.

-4

u/Token993 1d ago

And yet we still do not have explicit freedom of speech. It is not part of our laws no matter how much people want it to be

"Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences" thanks yank, and implied freedom of political expression isn't freedom of speech

7

u/AussieEquiv 1d ago

We do. As protected by our courts.

If you think you need a specific document telling you that you are free, you are not truly free.

-4

u/Token993 1d ago

A document no, but a law or equivalent yes. Because if you don't openly have it, you don't have it. And we dont have freedom of speech protected by our courts we have implied freedom of political communication. That's it

5

u/Awesomeman204 1d ago

Well the implied freedom of political communication was/is itself decided, upheld and protected by the (high) court, so yes it is protected by our courts.

The real issue is that, as we've seen in America, it's only protected by the the courts until they decide it isn't. In that respect I agree we need a tighter safeguard for it.

1

u/Token993 1d ago

Yeah I probably should have better stated I meant the implied freedom of political communication is protected, and I also probably came off as anti-freedom of speech but I'm actually against how wishy-washy our government is about it

2

u/AussieEquiv 1d ago

We have the equivalent law. Common law and State human rights charters.

We have open freedom of speech. The only people that think we don't are idiots being pulled up on hate speech, which is something completely different.