Anti-discrimination commissions have tyranny built into their design

God deliver us from the hands of zealots.

They exist in different guises in every age, lay claim to being the era’s moral guardians and demand no more than complete obedience to their ordained order. They only burn heretics in sorrow, for their own good and that of society.

Zealots know those who defy them are sinners. So, any means is justified in the restless hunt for evil.

Arthur Miller explained it in The Crucible: “… the necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church or church state.”

Now the bureaucratic state dictates morality and the devil is discrimination, in all his endlessly evolving forms. The crime is giving any perceived offence. The weapon is the law.

There is now a witch hunt afoot in Tasmania.

The witch is Liberal Senator Claire Chandler. On July 17 she wrongspoke in the pages of The Mercury: “You don’t have to be a bigot to recognise the differences between the male and female sexes and understand why women’s sports, single-sex change rooms and toilets are important.”

This elicited a response from an unnamed Hobart man who emailed the senator confronting her crimethink. The senator doubled down: “I do understand the difference between sex and gender. That’s why I’ve made the point in my article that women’s toilets and women’s change rooms are designed for people of the female sex (women) and should remain that way.”

The article and email were referred by the constituent as a complaint to Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Sarah Bolt. Ms Bolt then wrote to Senator Chandler, noting that the complainant was not a member of the trans-community and dismissing the argument that the article had offended the law.

But Ms Bolt determined the complaint about the email had merit. She found, “a reasonable person is likely to anticipate that a person who is a member of the LGBTIQ+ and gender diverse community would be humiliated, intimidated, offended and insulted”.

Having identified the possibility of an anticipated offence Senator Chandler has been called to a hearing before the commission on October 1.

The senator made a fuss in the media. This drew a second missive from the commission. It noted that it was also an offence to “hinder” or “use insulting language” against the commissioner.

A few issues arise.

First, Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commission, and all such commissions, have tyranny built into their design. It is meant to be a mediation service – and often is – but can also be advocate, prosecutor, judge and jury in one. This invites quasi-judicial bodies to become star chambers. They now deny a keystone democratic right of a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. The right to freely complain about this injustice has also been removed by law.

Second, the senator is expressing what was, until recently, a pretty conventional worldview. What has changed is a new protected group has evolved, the trans community, whose advocates demand that those who self-nominate a gender must be accepted as male or female.

Laws are being made about this so debate is demanded, starting with when should someone be considered to have transitioned? Is it after reassignment surgery or just on the strength of nominating the change? This is no small difference and both are claimed.

In a free society, an individual’s right to make personal choices about the course of their lives should be respected and defended. But why should someone else’s subjective truth become an objective reality for the whole of society and the law used to enforce it?

This highly contestable, and evolving, space runs far deeper than a fight over public toilets. It involves questions of truth and identity, which concern us all. There has been little community debate, yet bureaucracies everywhere are conforming with demands in fear of being branded transphobic, the latest in a long list of identity crimes.

But here there is also a clash of ideologies, on what it means to be a woman. Some old-school feminists fear their homeland is being colonised by strident activists. The author J.K. Rowling is one. For defending her truth she has been vilified and “progressive” bookshops have banned Harry Potter from their shelves. And how are these book burners morally superior to the many who marched before them through history?

There is much to debate but that is being silenced in the name of defending human rights, and who dares mount an argument against such a righteous cause?

Because, above all, it is forbidden to question a victim, as Miller wrote, “Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”

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Australia: “One Nation” party gets academic freedom change in return for vote

Conservative academics will be able to speak out without fear of being fired

Peter Ridd, an academic at James Cook university was fired for questioning what his fellow academics said about the decay of the Great Barrier Reef. He has been in litigation with the university ever since. The news legislation should protect other whistleblowers like him

He was actually right in what he said, as subsequent admissions from the Greenie scientists have admitted. Paul Hardisty, boss of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said that only 3 per cent of the reef, the “inshore reefs”, is affected by farm pesticides and sediment. He also stated that pesticides, are a “low to negligible risk”, even for that 3 per cent.

A legal definition of academic freedom that some universities say will make it harder for them to discipline racist or sexist academics will be included in the Morrison government’s proposed university funding laws in exchange for One Nation’s support for the bill.

The measure is one of several commitments One Nation say they have extracted from the government, which will need three crossbench votes to get its reforms through the Senate as early as next week.

Senator Pauline Hanson said One Nation’s two Senate votes were also contingent upon the government reinstating a 10 per cent discount for students who pay their fees upfront, and reinstating a seven-year limit for full-time students to receive HECS-HELP before they have to pay full fees.

One Nation has fostered a close relationship with academic Peter Ridd, who was sacked by James Cook University in 2018 following his public criticism of colleagues’ research on the impact of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef.

“[Education] Minister [Dan] Tehan has shown a strong willingness to listen to the recommendations of [Senator] Malcolm Roberts and myself, and he’s proving to have the courage to take a tough stand with the inclusion of our amendments,” Senator Hanson said.

One Nation wants the definition of academic freedom inserted into the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to be in line with the wording recommended by former High Court Chief Justice Robert French in his government-commissioned review of free speech at Australian universities.

There has been an ongoing debate about free speech at universities, and the review was ordered following concerns among coalition MPs about the influence of left wing activists on campus after protesters targeted author Bettina Arndt at Sydney University.

In his 2019 report, Mr French proposed inserting a lengthy definition into the Act that included “the freedom of academic staff to teach, discuss, and research and to disseminate and publish the results of their research” and to “make lawful public comment on any issue in their personal capacities”.

Mr Tehan declined to comment on the specifics of his negotiations with One Nation, but said he would continue to work with the crossbench to secure passage of the legislation.

“The Job-Ready Graduates legislation will provide more university places for Australian students, make it cheaper to study in areas of expected job growth and provide more funding and support to regional students and universities,” Mr Tehan said.

The government was already examining whether it should proceed with legislating the French definition of academic freedom, and called for public submissions in January, but ultimately did not include the measure as part of its current reforms.

In its submission to the government, the Innovative Research Universities, a grouping of seven institutions including La Trobe University, Western Sydney University and James Cook University, opposed the move. It said legislating the freedom for academics to provide public commentary in a personal capacity had the “potential to create highly undesirable employment disputes.”

“As the wording stands, for example, it would seem that a university academic would be within her or his rights to publicly declare they hold a racial, sexuality or gender prejudice against one or more of the students they are teaching,” the submission said.

“If challenged about holding such a view, they would seem to be able to defend themselves by claiming to have spoken in a personal capacity, not an academic one.”

Senator Hanson said her motivation was to address concerns among university lecturers who were worried about “pressures they faced over ‘how’ and ‘what’ they could teach.

“My interest is in putting a stop to this Marxist, left-leaning approach to teaching in our universities and instead, protect educators who teach using methods based on science and facts rather than ideology,” Senator Hanson said.

In his review, Mr French, chancellor of the University of Western Australia, concluded that “claims of a freedom of speech crisis on Australian campuses are not substantiated”, but outlined a model code for protecting free speech and academic freedom, which all universities agreed to adopt by the end of 2020.

In September, Dr Ridd accompanied Senator Roberts on week-long tour along the Queensland coast, holding press conferences to question the scientific consensus on the poor health of Great Barrier Reef’s and threat posed by farmers. Dr Ridd said he was meeting with National Senator Matt Canavan and local LNP candidate Ron Harding to discuss the same issues on Tuesday.

Dr Ridd is now seeking leave to appeal his wrongful dismissal claim in the High Court, after his initial victory was overturned by the Federal Court in July. The university has maintained that he was not dismissed for his views, but for “serious misconduct” and breaches of the university’s code in how he expressed them.

The government’s bill proposes a major restructuring of university funding by hiking fees for some courses, including by 113 per cent for humanities, in order to pay for cuts to STEM, nursing and teaching courses.

The government says the reforms will fund an extra 100,000 university places for domestic students by 2030, but universities have complained that total funding per student will decrease by six per cent on average.

In addition to securing One Nation’s two votes, the government will need to secure the support of either Tasmania Senator Jacqui Lambie or Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff, who are yet to public reveal how they intend to vote.

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