Alan Jones: Yet another freedom of speech review at universities
Beijing has found out that in our universities, money talks a better game than the academics and ministers who are supposed to be protecting our precious freedoms, writes Alan Jones.
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I wrote last week that the preoccupation with coronavirus and the failure of parliaments to sit and meet, with the corresponding denial of essential public debate, has enabled governments to ignore or sidestep critical issues in relation to our future.
In an era where people are intimidated, if not terrorised, from saying what they think or believe, is our future even worthwhile if leaders are not prepared to stand their ground on the important issue of freedom of speech?
In the light of the recent proof of the astonishing denial of such freedom, we have the usual response from government.
Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan has called another review to investigate whether universities are practising the free speech code devised by the former High Court Chief Justice, Robert French. But, as they would say in the pub, “you must be kidding … Another bloody review.”
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The public are sick and tired of reviews. Do something.
We have already had an inquiry in November 2018, into free speech on University campuses, chaired by Justice Robert French.
In announcing the inquiry, nearly two years ago, Tehan claimed, “there have been concerns raised by chancellors of universities and other members of the community about freedom of speech on university campuses … there is a thing called platforming where those who oppose the views of others go and literally try and shut those views down, cause security costs for those people so that it is prohibitive for them to put on events. And we have to make sure that this type of behaviour, that we can ensure that those who want to express an alternative view can do that. And we need to be able to do that on our university campuses.”
It is mangled grammar and syntax from an education minister, but, nonetheless, why do we need another review?
Put simply, Mr Justice French created a free speech code for universities.
Government did not have the guts to make it mandatory. And now, we can see clearly that the notion of intellectual freedom in our tertiary institutions is a mirage.
I am not going to canvas here the disgraceful treatment of Professor Peter Ridd from James Cook University, other than to say the appalling attacks on him have been funded by you, the taxpayer. And remember, you are also funding the university, which has hired the best lawyers in the country to rub out and silence Peter Ridd, whose crime is the legitimate expression of an important scientific and non-alarmist view about the Great Barrier Reef.
We should stop now the hogwash that universities are places of learning which provide an environment for robust and differing opinions.
Much has been made of Elaine Pearson from the University of NSW. Her intellectual crime was to call for a UN special envoy to be appointed to monitor human rights in Hong Kong.
UNSW tweeted the comment on its main Twitter account.
China entered the fray via its state media mouthpiece, Global Times. This prompted orchestrated social media condemnatory posts of Ms Pearson, in her own backyard. So, UNSW went weak at the knees. Its dedication to free speech went out the window and the tweet was deleted.
Yet, last year, UNSW vice chancellor Ian Jacobs, offered the rhetorical flourish: “Campus is a place for people to express all sorts of different views. Some of them will offend quite a lot of people; some of them will be patently ridiculous; I don’t mind. I want people to be able to give those views and other people to be able to object.”
Is that so?
Well, in the light of public outcry, the university having deleted the tweet, put it back up again but offered an apology in Mandarin, such that the Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, congratulated the students at UNSW for securing an apology from the university.
The university was speaking out of both sides of its mouth. The same vice chancellor had written to the university staff saying it was “wrong” to delete the post and was committed to “freedom of expression and academic freedom”.
But the message in Mandarin, from the university, said it was “deeply disturbed by the trouble the incident had caused”. Well, everyone knows the real story. The university is dependent on Chinese students for revenue — $708 million worth. It wants them to return when the borders open.
And then there is the University of Queensland — 53,000 students, 20,000 are international, half from China, $679 million in direct tuition fees.
A gutsy 21-year-old, Drew Pavlou has been peacefully vocal in his criticism of Chinese influence at UQ.
He organised an anti-China protest on campus last year criticising, peacefully, China’s behaviour in relation to Hong Kong. Two hundred pro-Chinese Communist Party students showed up. There are videos showing these people screaming, tearing down posters, playing the Chinese national anthem and assaulting the pro-Hong Kong students, with thuggish behaviour.
The Chinese consul-general in Brisbane is on the university’s academic staff, with professorial status.
He praised the pro-CCP students for their “patriotic behaviour.” The university did nothing about the thuggery by their own students, China sympathisers. It did not name them. Its only answer was to deliver a 186-page dossier against young Pavlou, funded by you, because UQ hired the best lawyers in the business, Clayton Utz and Minter Ellison, to go after this young bloke.
Since the July 24 incident, where pro-Beijing thugs invaded a peaceful protest by Drew and a small band of students, Pavlou is the only one who is being punished.
And the best Mr Tehan can do is to call for another review into the exercise of free speech at our universities.
Does he not know that Australian Universities are required by law to commit to, and have a policy that upholds, “free intellectual inquiry in relation to learning, teaching and research,” as a condition of operating; and there are governance documents and enterprise agreements which allegedly protect academic freedom.
Of course, so called distinguished academics deny there is a problem.
Money talks.
It might be time to hear from university students whether such freedoms are an illusion.
They will tell you that in order to pass exams they will write, not what their scholarship has encouraged them to believe, but rather, what their left-wing lecturer wants to hear.
Never has government in this country been so big and so bloated but, when it matters, so invertebrate.