Australia loses free speech


But not without a fight

The Right to Know Coalition has been busy.

More than 500 separate legal provisions in 335 different state and federal acts of Parliament are denying Australians access to a vast amount of information they should be able to see, a major new report says.

The Right to Know Coalition today released an audit on the state of free speech, which its authors say provides a damning picture of "how free speech and media freedom are being whittled away".

The report says acts of Parliament - including the NSW Gaming Machines Act, the Port Statistics Act, the Grain Marketing Act and the Food Act - all contained secrecy provisions preventing the release of information that should be in the public domain.

The coalition, made up of all the major media groups including Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald, produced the report as a first step in lobbying government to change laws that deny the media and the public access to information often available overseas.

More power to them. Government without accountability, that is chilling.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - November 6, 2007 at 02:36 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library



Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved