Time To Voice Concerns

All Australians are equal.  Our legal status should not be determined by race, ethnicity, gender, or skin colour.  Any proposal to divide Australians by race is illiberal, undemocratic, and inegalitarian.

In his maiden speech to the Parliament on Wednesday evening, newly minted Liberal Senator for NSW Andrew Bragg renewed calls for an indigenous-only "voice" to parliament.  Such a voice is to be entrenched in Australia's constitution, and would be solely comprised of and solely represent indigenous Australians.

Senator Bragg argued that "the campaign that 'race has no place' in the Constitution may sound good, but it is a campaign that should have been run in the 1890s as we crossed that Rubicon in 1901."  It is correct that race has been a part of the constitution since it was first drafted.  But that just means that we must fight even harder to purge the constitution of race by removing the two existing references to race.  Only then will all Australians be truly equal before the law.

This objection notwithstanding, Senator Bragg is absolutely correct when he stated "we want all Australians to be proud of our great nation."  But the proposal for an indigenous-only voice will not achieve this.

The concept of a voice for a group of Australians based on race offends every principle of the rule of law, equality before the law, and liberal democracy.  There are 26 million Australians, each one of whom deserves an equal and loud voice which our liberal democratic system of government facilitates.  No group of Australians should be placed above any other.

The "voice" also assumes that indigenous Australians are one homogenous group with the same view on all issues.  This is a mistake.  There are substantial differences in opinion amongst indigenous groups across the nation, and within those groups themselves.  Indigenous Australians should be viewed as autonomous and free-thinking individuals endowed with free will to form their own thoughts, views, and beliefs.

Even at the 2017 Constitutional convention in Uluru which recommended the voice, consensus for the idea was only reached after several delegates walked out after ironically complaining their voices weren't being heard.

Subsuming an individual to a broader identity group based on their race is de-humanising and undignified.  In this way, the voice is an unsavoury application of identity politics for it holds that the interests of indigenous Australians can only be forwarded by other indigenous Australians.  This shatters the very model of representative democracy that has seen Australian become one of the freest and most prosperous nations.

The practical problem of an indigenous specific body is that it would in effect become a highly unrepresentative third chamber of Parliament.  The voice would inevitably practice a veto power of policies passed by the Australian parliament through shaming politicians into agreeing with it's advice.  The voice could also never be confined to issues solely affecting indigenous Australians because all major policy issues, from heath, to education, to infrastructure, affect all Australians regardless of the skin colour.

None of these criticisms are to deny the real and significant challenges facing many indigenous Australians and communities.  High rates of suicide, incarceration, joblessness, violence, and family and community breakdown have ruined too many lives.  We are all Australians and we all share a responsibility to care for one another and create a better future.

But proposals for constitutional identity politics will not address these challenges.  Instead, there are a number of principled and practical initiatives that could be pursued.

Firstly, fair dinkum land rights should be embraced which would allow indigenous Australians to enjoy the same bounty of private land rights that the rest of Australia enjoys.  This means the ability to buy and sell land, borrow against it, and decide what types of economic development will be allowed.

Secondly, governments should promote a policy of localism.  This means devolving power away from Canberra and the major cities to local communities in the regions who are at the coal-face.  The Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt acknowledged the importance of local control when he stated in his address to the national press club earlier this month that "even the most well intentioned modern policies and programs have still tended to take a top-down command-and-control approach".

Finally, Australian governments should promote development in regional areas to expand economic opportunity and job creation.  In practice this means removing obstacles to growth, such as red tape, environmental regulations, and special legal privileges which allows activists to engage in frivolous and vexatious litigation to thwart development.

In the debate over an indigenous voice it is important to remember that there is no "them";  only "us".  Australians are an inseparable people with a common purpose, set of interests, and shared destiny.  Race has no place in the Australian Parliament.  Race has no place in Australia's constitution.

Uluru Statement Overturns Equality Of Rights

It's understandable that some of Australia's biggest companies including BHP, Rio Tinto, Lendlease, Qantas and Woolworths would support the Uluru Statement.  Business leaders have a stake in the success of all Australians, just like everyone else does too.

The opinion of Rio Tinto's CEO, who lives in Sydney, on how to overcome Indigenous disadvantage is important, but it's no more or less important than that of a motor mechanic in Leonora or a primary school teacher in Burnie.

Few Australians would challenge the claim that something is desperately wrong when for example Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians make up 2 per cent of the population but are 28 per cent of the adult prisoners in jail.

The hopes first of the 1967 Referendum half a century ago, then of the introduction of equal pay, then of land rights, and then of the Apology remain unfulfilled.  Indigenous "recognition" though the symbolism of a statement in the Australian Constitution was up until very recently assumed to be another stage in this process.

Now there is the Uluru Statement that seeks to enshrine in the Constitution a "First Nations Voice" for Indigenous Australians to the Commonwealth Parliament, to create a government commission to supervise "agreement-making between governments and First Nations" and encourage "truth-telling" about Australia's history.

The Uluru Statement is misconceived on the basis of principle and practice and is incompatible with Australia as a liberal democracy.

Race has no place in the Constitution.  Martin Luther King Jr. didn't stand on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in August 1963 and say he wanted his children to be treated differently from white children.  What he called for was "freedom and equality".

It is unsustainable for business leaders to argue, as some have, that they're simply supporting the aims of the Uluru Statement, and its practicalities can be determined at a later date.  This is to ignore the fact that how something will be achieved is as important what is achieved.  Even something as seemingly simple as who is an Indigenous Australian and who might be able to vote to choose "the Voice" is highly problematic, to say the least.

In relation to Indigenous policy in this country, a number of business leaders are suffering from what Milton Friedman talked about in 1975 in a well-known interview.

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.  We all know a famous road that is paved with good intentions.  The people who go around talking about their soft heart ... I admire them for the softness of their heart, but unfortunately it very often extends to their head as well.  [For example] the fact is that the programs that are labelled as being for the poor, for the needy, almost always have effects exactly the opposite of those which their well-intentioned sponsors intend them to have ..."

It is soft hearts and hard heads that business leaders should bring to Indigenous policy.  Business leaders should talk about the things they know something about.

So to begin with they should acknowledge that the creation of real property rights for Indigenous Australians that allow individuals to buy and sell land they own, and to borrow against it, will in many circumstances be more likely to create economic opportunity than does native title.

Then business leaders could go on and say that solutions to Indigenous disadvantage are more likely to be found through the drive and initiative of the private sector and the free market than from government.

Helen Hughes, who was one of Australia's foremost thinkers about Indigenous policy and who worked for many years with the Centre for Independent Studies, once calculated that the federal government's Remote Indigenous Housing Program was building houses at an average cost of $600,000, when the private sector was building the same-quality house for $300,000.

The legitimate desire of business leaders to do something and to be seen to do something about one of this country's most fundamental challenges should not defeat the bedrock principle of Australia's democracy, which is that every citizen is entitled to equal legal and political rights regardless of their race, ethnicity, or indigeneity.  This is a principle that the Uluru Statement overturns.

Regulatory Dark Matter: How Unaccountable Regulators Subvert Democracy by Imposing Red Tape without Transparency

Unelected regulators are imposing red tape on businesses and the community with little democratic oversight, resulting in significant and irreparable economic damage.

My new report measures 'regulatory dark matter' defined as regulatory actions taken by departments and agencies that are subject to little scrutiny or democratic accountability. Regulatory dark matter consists of legislative instruments and quasi-regulations including; guidance documents, codes, letters, and publications made by agencies.

Five agencies in the finance and banking sectors have piled on 75,976 pages of regulatory dark matter, negatively affecting businesses and consumers in these sectors. This page count is more than 52 times larger than Tolstoy’s War and Peace and 8 times larger than the legislation passed by Parliament granting power to these agencies.

Regulatory dark matter is inherently undemocratic. The level of delegation by the parliament leaves agencies unaccountable and free to expand their power at the expense of burdening the economy with further red tape.

The proliferation of guidance material that provides the regulator’s interpretation of existing regulation in effect adds a softer form of regulation to which businesses are forced to comply.

Regulators amplify the regulatory effect of legislation. For every page of enabling legislation passed by Parliament we can expect 8 more pages in regulatory material.

Regulatory dark matter undermines the ability of smaller businesses to compete with larger established firms by forcing them to devote increasing resources to understanding and complying with regulation.

If the Morrison government wants congestion busting in the public service, and wants to create 250,000 new small and family businesses, it must cut red tape and reign in the regulators.

Regulatory dark matter contributes to the red tape burden on the Australian economy which already costs $176 billion each year in lost economic output.

Red Tape drives up the cost of living for all Australians and damages our international competitiveness, reducing investment and undermining productivity and wage growth.

Regulators need to be held accountable for their role in increasing the red tape burden.

Why Is NSW Fining Farmers Under Laws That No Longer Exist?

The New South Wales government must grant an amnesty to all farmers who are being prosecuted under laws which no longer exist.

They are facing huge fines of up to half a million dollars for clearing vegetation on their own land and the threat of additional fines of up to $13,000 a day are also reportedly being directed toward farmers who refuse to answer questions from the Office of Environment and Heritage.

According to Webb & Boland solicitor Brendan Moylan, farmers are being targeted by the OEH for actions taken under now repealed legislation.  Moylan has worked with many farmers who "had they waited for the law to change, their actions would have been legal under the new legislation."

Moylan has told Ben Fordham's listeners of the chilling realities faced by farmers who have gone years without an income due to the drought and now face bankrupting fines:  "When you're sitting in your clients shed putting the rifle away ... trying to help him go inside away from the firearms cabinet, there's something inherently wrong with the way that we're approaching this issue."

Native vegetation laws are a thorn in the side of farmers trying to run their business and make ends meet.  Farmers must obtain a permit to clear trees and scrub on their own private land, and are required to set aside large amounts of their land to be locked away from future clearing.  This red tape has decimated farm stock because many farmers cannot properly manage invasive native vegetation.  The result is an undermining of productivity, made worse by drought conditions, resulting in higher food prices, lower land value, and a loss of income to farmers, their families and local communities.

Adding insult to injury are the associated costs of maintaining land to government specifications.  Landowners bear the full cost of removing weeds and controlling feral animals, for example.  Every minute spent on complying with red tape is a minute less to spend on the farm doing productive work.

Dictating what farmers can and cannot do with their own land is a clear violation of property rights.  Farmers should be free to clear land for crops and grazing without having to jump through bureaucratic hurdles and give up sovereignty over their own property.  Agriculture regulation has grown to such a large extent that it is questionable whether farmers truly still have private property.  It is government ownership and control by stealth.

At a minimum, farmers should be compensated for the income forgone due to compliance with native vegetation laws.  This would force the government to take the cost of their regulation more seriously instead of burdening those who can least afford it.

Recent outcry about the rate of land clearing from inner city activists completely overlooks the realities faced by people in the bush.  The idea that activists living in their concrete inner suburbs care more about the land than multi-generational farmers who have poured their lives into the land is insulting.  Farmers know best how to allocate the use of their property and are more than aware of the benefits of environmentally sustainable practices.

The reason for volatility to land clearing rates is farmers are acting under uncertain regulatory conditions.  When the laws are relaxed, as they have recently been in NSW, farmers have an opportunity clean up their land that went by the weigh side under a stricter regime.  On the other hand, if farmers are fearful of increased restriction, they will naturally want to exercise their property rights while they can.

The NSW government recognised that previous vegetation laws were unfair to farmers and too restrictive on land rights when they repealed the law.  This was a very welcomed move.  However, it is unjust for the government to be prosecuting farmers for violation of laws that have now been repealed and were recognised as unfair.

As farmers struggle to make ends meet in a time of drought and low product prices, the government needs to cut red tape across the board in the agriculture sector.  This would allow farmers to continue to work the land producing the country's food, clothes, and grain, all of which the Sydney-based bureaucrats who are prosecuting farmers rely on.

Voice To Parliament Carries The Same Risks It Did Two Years Ago

The principle that all Australians should not be divided on the basis of their race or skin colour is a cornerstone of our freedoms and the rule of law.  This clear principle — that race has no place in the Australian Constitution — is being ­undermined by a bipartisan campaign to divide Australians in our nation's founding document by ­establishing a special body to represent indigenous Australia to be a "voice" to parliament on issues relevant to indigenous Australians.

Yesterday, Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt revealed in an address to the National Press Club that the federal government intended to "bring forward a consensus option" for an indigenous "voice" to be presented at a referendum during the present term of parliament.

This appears to be a different position than the Coalition offered voters before May's federal election.  The Prime Minister did not tell the so-called quiet Australians who elected the Coalition that he supported political and legal rights being accorded to Australians on the basis of their race.

While remaining committed to some form of constitutional recognition, the view of the Coalition was that which was expressed by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who rejected the proposal for a voice in October 2017, saying "the government does not believe such an addition to our ­national representative institutions is either desirable or capable of winning in a referendum".

The flaws of the proposals are the same as they were then.  In practice, the voice could never be confined to issues solely affecting indigenous Australians.  This is ­because all major policy issues, such as health, education and ­infrastructure, apply to all Australians regardless of their race.  The voice also presents an unprecedented threat to our representative institutions.  It is inevitable that a representative body for indigenous Australians would effectively practise a veto power over any policy passed by any Australian parliament.  Rather than a formal veto power, the power of the body would be to shame parliaments into agreeing with its advice.  The alternative is to oppose the indigenous voice.  Conversely, an official, constitutionally enshrined voice that repre­sents one view might crowd out other views in the indigenous community.

The minister is seeking inspiration from the 1967 referendum, which he notes "was the result of tireless advocacy and an extraordinary momentum for change".  It is important to consider what the ­nature of that change was.

In 1967 almost 92 per cent of Australians agreed to "alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population".  In other words, Australians then overwhelmingly voted to remove references to race in the Constitution.  Now both parties are asking Australians to put race back into the Constitution.  This is not progress in indigenous affairs, it is a significant backwards step.

Wyatt criticised paternalist policies developed in Canberra.  He said "even the most well-­intentioned modern policies and programs have still tended to take a top-down command-and-control approach".  But the solution to the problem he has correctly identified is fundamentally flawed.

Localism should be embraced, which would see communities — indigenous and non-indigenous — given the power to make their own decisions that are appropriate for them.  This is a fundamental part of addressing the challenges in indigenous communities, but decentralisation does not require the abolition of the universality of the Australian Constitution.

Unfortunately, a significant problem in indigenous affairs today is the assumption that the types of policies that promote success and human flourishing are culturally contingent.  The fundamental building blocks of a successful life — the dignity of work, safe neighbourhoods, stable families and economic opportunity — are the same regardless of one's ­racial background.  Constitutional change is not required to promote these building blocks.  Instead, Australian governments should focus on practical outcomes for ­indigenous Australians, such as ensuring more children attend school and more economic opportunity reaches remote areas.

Any proposal to establish a ­special voice for some people and not others is illiberal and a violation of all principles of racial equality.  The parliament, which is open to participation from all ­Australians, ­remains the best body to address these needs.

Even just challenging these ideas and asking Australians to divide themselves by race might divide Australia along those lines forever.  If the referendum for an indigenous voice wins, Australia's system of representative government will be up-ended.  If the referendum fails, it will be a win for an industry that thrives on stoking resentment between segments of the Australian population.

In an age of identity politics, it is a test of the federal government to promote a vision of unity, not further division.  If it were to consider ­establishing a voice to parliament, the Morrison government might fail this important test.

Red Tape Reduction A Way To Prosperity

Australia is starting to see bi-partisan economic leadership, with both the federal Coalition government and the WA state Labor government cutting red tape and taxes to unleash prosperity, as President Trump has done in the United States.

One week ago, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced at an event with the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Perth that the Coalition government would cut red tape, lower taxes, and reform industrial relations as a part of his government's ambitious economic reform agenda.  The red tape reduction effort will be led by the highly capable Ben Morton, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and federal Member for Tangney.

At the state level, the McGowan government announced the Streamline WA web portal on 25 June, which will allow Western Australians to "share ideas on how the government can improve and simplify the regulatory process".  This is an exciting development.

The bi-partisan embrace of cutting red tape is sensible.  Cutting red tape does not mean eliminating all regulation.  It means eliminating regulation which is unnecessary and goes beyond what would minimally be required to achieve a public policy goal, such safer workplaces.  Governments should aim to achieve regulation which is "minimally effective":  the fewest rules needed to achieved a given objective.  But the current regulatory regime is far from minimally effective.

My research estimated that red tape costs Australian businesses, workers, and families $176 billion each year, which is the equivalent to 10 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.  This cost represents all of the businesses never started, the jobs never created, and the dreams and aspirations which go unfulfilled due to bureaucratic interference.

State government policy is a key driver of this red tape burden.  My preliminary research found 79 per cent of the total number of regulations required to gain government approval of a resources project in WA are imposed by the state government.  And approximately 40 per cent of all regulatory obligations arise form reporting duties alone.

The Roy Hill iron ore mine demonstrates the point.  It required some 4,967 licenses, permits, and approvals for the pre-construction phase alone.  More were required for the operational and export phases.

On top of the red tape burden are state taxes, foremost amongst them is the payroll tax which is a tax on jobs and wages.  When a business's total wage bill increases as a result of recruiting more staff or paying higher wages, so too does their payroll tax bill.

In WA, businesses must pay the payroll tax when their total annual taxable wages exceed $850,000.  However, the threshold in other states ranges from $1 million in NSW (from 2021), to $1.5 million in South Australia.  Victoria, hardly a state with a burgeoning resources sector, is the only state with a lower threshold at $650,000.

The cumulative impact of red tape and high taxes is weighing on the WA economy, where new private business investment has declined by over 50 per cent in the past five years, and is at its lowest level in over a decade.  At the national level, new private sector business investment is now lower as a percentage of GDP that it was during the Whitlam era.

To avert this decline, the McGowan government should:  reform the environmental approvals process to reduce duplication with the federal government, reduce the number of permits businesses require as a part of the planning approvals process, and introduce a one-in-two-out approach as in the United States where two regulations are repealed for each new one introduced.

On payroll taxes, at a minimum the tax-free threshold should be lifted.  But a more ambitious agenda would see it scrapped altogether and replaced with the less distortionary broad-based land tax, coupled with reductions to government spending.

Western Australia has always been an entrepreneurial, go-ahead state.  It has led the nation for years with a thriving resources sector and can once again be a leader through an ambitious agenda to cut red tape and taxes.

Folau Has Set A Minefield For Bosses

Israel Folau versus Rugby Australia is the court case everyone, except our politicians, wants to talk about.  The suggestion that it's merely a contractual dispute that has nothing to do with broader questions about the right to freedom of speech or freedom of religion is misconceived.

The precise nature of Folau's contract and what it allows Rugby Australia to do or not do is for the court to decide.  But as so often happens in such situations, the matters at stake go beyond the narrow issues of the courtroom arguments.

Tim Soutphommasane, a former commissioner at the Human Rights Commission, has dismissed the issues the case raises with the claim, "Here we go again with our tedious culture war."  Nothing could be further from the truth than to believe what's happening is merely "tedious".  The fact that Soutphommasane could say something like that is yet another argument for abolishing the organisation he once worked for.

CENTRAL ISSUES

One of the central issues the case raises is the question whether an individual entering into an employment contract can give up their right to practise their faith, or in Folau's situation quote the Bible on social media.  Or, to put it another way, can an individual agree to a contract, the terms of which discriminates against them?

If the answer is "yes" then there's a number of consequences.

The first is that under current Australian law such contracts are unenforceable.  Employees and employers can't agree to a contract that avoids federal legislation.  In this case Section 351 of the Fair Work Act prevents an employer from discriminating against an employee or prospective employee on the basis of "the person's race, colour, sex, sexual preference, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family or carer's responsibility, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin".  Admittedly, it gets more complicated because the Fair Work Act does allow employers to discriminate in some circumstances such as when discrimination is "taken because of the inherent requirements of the particular position concerned".

A second conclusion is that if employees and employers do have "freedom of contract" to agree between themselves on what's in an employment contract, then presumably if the two parties can agree on matters such as the employees not quoting the Bible, they should also be able to agree to things like the rate of pay, which they can't do at the moment.

Another conclusion, which has been appreciated by some of the more thoughtful commentators on the left, is that if a court finds that under the terms of his contract Folau can be sacked for his social media posts about his religion because either Rugby Australia or one of its sponsors found those posts offensive, there's not much, assuming the contract is appropriately drafted, from stopping another employer from sacking an employee for expressing their opinions about politics.

GOOD ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES

If the answer to that is "no" — and if you believe that this is a case that goes beyond what's in Folau's contract and that employees should be free to express religious viewpoints, even if they are hurtful and offensive, you'll be coming down in favour of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  But you'll be making it difficult for employers to manage their brand and their staff.  Eventually employers will end up only employing employees who've never had an opinion on anything.

These are not easy questions, on which there are good arguments on both sides.  And they're important questions that go to the heart of how we live and work and play together.  It's no wonder Scott Morrison, when he was initially asked about Folau, refused to answer and said only "I think the issue has had enough oxygen".

The very worst way to overcome the challenges posed by this intersection between the rights of employers to enforce the terms of a contract and an employee to exercise their freedom of speech and religion is to automatically rush to a legal or legislative solution.  In the long term we're far more likely to be able to live together in a community, if whatever sanctions of Folau or Rugby Australia we deem appropriate are enforced not by the courts or the Parliament — but by public opinion.

Costly Clamps On Free Speech

Australian university leaders and their supporters have asserted repeatedly that there is no problem with free speech on campuses.  The evidence hardly supports this.

If there were no problem, James Cook University would not have unlawfully sacked Peter Ridd for criticising his colleagues' science about the Great Barrier Reef.

If there were no problem, students would not have attempted to shut down Bettina Arndt's speeches at La Trobe University and the University of Sydney.

If there were no problem, the National Tertiary Education Union would not be calling for legislated protection for academic freedom.

If there were no problem, more than 60 Australian academics would not have signed up for Heterodox Academy's pledge for greater viewpoint diversity on campus.

If there were no problem, former chief justice Robert French's review into university freedom of speech would not have concluded that many university policies "use broad language capable of impinging on freedom of expression".

University of NSW law dean George Williams argued on this page last week that the real threats to free speech are off-campus, in defamation and national security laws.  He is right to point out other issues — but on campus individuals are not only subject to these laws, they are also ruled by hundreds of other concerning policies created under the state and federal acts that establish universities.  University policies mean that free speech is more restricted on campus than in the public sphere, despite universities' fundamental role in facilitating debate.

I have been assessing the state of free speech on campus since early 2016.  The most recent audit late last year analyses more than 190 policies and actions at Australia's 42 universities.  It found four in five have policies, or had taken action, hostile to free speech.

I was the first to point out that university policies prevent "insulting" and "unwelcome" comments, "offensive" language and, in some cases "sarcasm".  Despite Williams's assertion, it is obvious the policies are poorly drafted, often prioritise ideological endpoints such as "social justice", and reflect many institutions not committed to free expression.

French analyses several policy types, including student and staff misconduct, social media and the use of grounds.  These policies contain undefined requirements against being "unduly offensive" and "inappropriate" or a "bully".  The vagueness of these policies is far beyond anything that exists in Australian law.  Is it inappropriate to support Scott Morrison or oppose same-sex marriage?  Does it count as bullying to criticise women being forced to wear the burka?

The answers depend on arbitrary judgment.  In other words, the state of free expression on campus is dependent on the benevolence of university bureaucrats, who tend to have their own biases.  Whatever your view on specific issues this is problematic.

French responded to these issues by proposing a free speech model code for universities that states free speech is a "paramount" right on campus — therefore hopefully overwriting other complicating policies.

Universities are waking up to the damage caused to their institutions by the lack of protection for free speech.

The University of Western Australia is the first to adopt French's model code.  It states that freedom to express ideas "is constrained neither by their perceived capacity to elicit discomfort, nor by presuppositions concerning their veracity".  This is because we do not know the validity of ideas before they've been debated.  Truth emerges from a contest, not from everyone thinking the same.  We must allow people to express all ideas, even bad ones, to ensure we can find the good ones.

University chancellors, who have a fiduciary-like responsibility to protect freedom of intellectual inquiry, also have come out in support of French's model.  The chancellors understand their institutions' reputations and viability are under threat if they do not support free speech.

The power of ideas is once again being demonstrated.  The University of Melbourne has released a new policy on free speech, albeit with weaker wording than UWA.  University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence, after long saying the aggressive protest against Arndt did not show anything, also has committed to reassessing his university's policies in the context of the French review.  The Australian National University, the University of Queensland and the University of Wollongong also are moving to adopt French's recommendations.

But it is only the beginning — the challenge is fostering a culture open to a diversity of ideas.  Written policy can influence culture but it does not necessarily define practice.

The challenge for universities is that almost everyone tends to think the same way, breeding groupthink and alternative ideas being shouted down or, even more often, never voiced in the first place.  French briefly acknowledges the importance of a culture of debate in the conclusion of his review.

The case for free speech fostering a diversity of ideas on campus is a work in progress.