Talking Point: Review into Australian universities is badly needed

The launching of an independent review into how Australian universities are performing on free speech is a fantastic development for the future of tertiary education, writes Senator Claire Chandler.

• Unis — tread with care over China
• Foreign influence laws could affect Tasmania-China relationship
• Plans to turn $24M Tassie courthouse into a hotel

The launching of an independent review into how Australian universities are performing on free speech is a fantastic development for the future of tertiary education.

In my first speech to the Senate in July last year, one of the concerns I spoke about was the limiting of free speech and academic freedom on university campuses. If academics and students aren’t free to express views that go against the grain of majority thinking, how will our next generation of graduates learn how to think critically and develop original ideas?

Sadly, in a little over 12 months since I made that speech, freedom of speech on campus has dramatically deteriorated. The University of Queensland has spent millions of dollars on lawyers trying to enforce a suspension of a student with pro-Hong Kong views. James Cook University has sacked a professor of physics for commenting on what he believes is questionable science.

Liberal Senator Claire Chandler makes her maiden speech in the Senate Chamber at Parliament House in Canberra. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

The University of New South Wales removed tweets and an article about Hong Kong because it offended pro-Chinese Communist Party students.

That’s why it’s very welcome news that Education Minister Dan Tehan has commissioned lawyer and former University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sally Walker AM to investigate how universities have implemented the French Model Code on university free speech.

The Model Code was developed as a result of former Chief Justice Robert French AC doing an Independent Review of Freedom of Speech in Australian universities. French found that many university codes of conduct had a “potentially chilling” effect on free speech and recommended all universities adopt a model code protecting freedom of expression.

Unfortunately, it’s apparent that while many universities claimed to be happy to adopt the French Model Code, over the past eight months free speech on campus has been eroded even further. This is part of a disturbing worldwide trend of universities rejecting free speech in favour of so-called safe spaces and trigger warnings. Universities around the world have in recent years become ground zero for what has become known as cancel culture, with academics with alternative views on hot button issues facing calls for their sacking from students and colleagues.

UTAS student accommodation at Inveresk, Launceston. University of Tasmania. Picture: PATRICK GEE

Australia’s tertiary education sector can’t afford to go (further) down this path. Who would bother with a university degree in science or the humanities if all it involves is rote learning an approved textbook and furiously agreeing with it? What value is there in that kind of education when the whole point of those disciplines is to challenge thinking in order to discover new evidence and arguments?

Some may argue that universities have the right to censor academics on students when they say things that are wrong or harmful. But who gets to decide what is wrong and what is harmful? In the recent free-speech controversies at the University of Queensland and UNSW, the supposed harm they acted upon was to the reputation of the Chinese Communist Government when Australians spoke in defence of Hong Kong’s freedoms.

If this example doesn’t reveal the perils of allowing university bureaucrats (or any other kind of bureaucrats) to decide what is good speech and what is bad speech, nothing will. And that’s why it’s so important universities accept free speech as a core principle and act accordingly.

Minister Tehan is to be congratulated for initiating an independent review to hold universities accountable for demonstrating that they value and will uphold free speech.

Claire Chandler is a Liberal senator for Tasmania.