Labor’s Bob Brown-inspired push to “regulate” the media continues apace, with the release of the Finkelstein Review.
Under its recommendations, even blogs such this would be “regulated” by the government:
BLOGGERS and online student publications, such as one run by the University of Technology, Sydney, would be caught in the net of the proposed media regulator.
Souraya Ramadan, editor of student-run UTS website Reportage Online, said recommendations in the Finkelstein review calling for the regulation of news sites with more than 15,000 hits a year would place an unfair burden on small online publishers.
“We are a not-for-profit news site, which helps young journalists build their portfolios. We barely have any resources,” she said. “If implemented, this is going to penalise smaller news providers who don’t have the resources to be able to deal with the regulator.”
The Australian Labor Party has certainly “lost its way”.
They seem to have forgotten that one of their very own, Dr H.V. “Doc” Evatt, as Australia’s delegate to the United Nations, played a key role in drafting the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
They seem to have forgotten that, as President of the United Nations General Assembly, Doc Evatt oversaw the adoption of the UDHR by the UN’s member countries – including Australia – in 1948.
Above all, modern Australian Labor (and Bob Brown) seem to have forgotten Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (emphasis added):
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Leading founder of the United Nations, co-drafter of the UDHR, High Court judge, lifelong ALP member, Attorney-General, Minister for External Affairs (Foreign Minister), and Labor opposition leader 1951-60 H.V. “Doc” Evatt will be turning in his grave.
The battlelines are drawn.
The fight for freedom of speech Down Under has begun.
Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech.
– Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the National Secular Society
By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech.
– Harry A. Blackmun, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, author of Roe vs Wade
Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
– William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.
– Salman Rushdie, winner of the Booker Prize, author of The Satanic Verses
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.
– Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
– Frederick Douglass, social reformer, leader of the abolitionist movement
Without free speech no search for truth is possible… no discovery of truth is useful.
– Charles Bradlaugh, founder of the National Secular Society
Know your enemy. And, I hope now that everybody understands that the Labour Party – as it always has done – stands for free speech and individual Members of the Labour Party are entitled to exercise that free speech.
– Ron Davies, Member of the Labour Party (UK), first minister to resign from Tony Blair’s government in 1998
UPDATE:
Some food for thought concerning Ray Finkelstein, the man chosen by Labor to oversee their “media inquiry” and produce their report –
Raymond Finkelstein QC, better known as The Fink will go down in history as one of the greatest fools to ever be appointed a judge, an absolute legend. This is a man who tried to hear his own case which was before the court. It does not get much worse than that.
Justice Finkelstein was eventually forced to stop hearing the case because not only did he have a financial interest in the case but he was in fact one of the parties to the class action against a company called Centro Properties via his own private super fund.
…
Raymond Finkelstein needs to stand down from hearing the media inquiry. At best, given the above, he is an idiot who does not know the law. At worst, a corrupt former judge who has been brought in to hand down pre-determined findings.
Barnaby Is Right 
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