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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Aussie defo laws are fucked and conservative pollies sue people all the time.
In this case the pollie admitted to pork barrelling (unfairly favouring electorates based on political expedience vs merit for projects) in Parliament. The defo case was about whether he pork barreled. Because he said it in Parliament where privilege applies his own words weren't admissible as evidence in favour of shanks' case.
Just normal stuff.
Ah. Parliamentary privilege I think it's called. They have that bullshit in the US and the UK afair, perhaps other places too.
Really helps public trust when parliamentary debate is exempt from the rules that us commoners must abide by!
It makes sense for stuff like whistle blowing. you don't exactly want fear of prosecution affecting someone presenting evidence of wrongdoing.
But like, if reporting on how someone else described themselves in Parliament can get you sued because they can say "prove I said that" then that's a bit chilling. Idk where the balance is, that's something we all need to have a serious chat about, but it's not here
Except whistle-blowers have specific protections already, so that doesn't really apply.
To say the least!
I do! Holding politicians accountable like everyone else. THAT'S the balance.
The bar for proving defamation is already high enough that there's no risk of accidentally chilling honest political speech.
If you honestly believe it's true, it can't be defamation. Politicians would only get in trouble for wilfully false defamatory statements, which I'm 100% in favor of happening much more.
Well in Australia whistle blowers don't haha. Authoritarian shithole lacking town squares to prevent assembly that we are.
But it's not just for pollies, like if I'm before Parliament presenting something or say making a submission in favour of legalising weed or whatever and I admit to a crime I'm also protected. In theory Parliament should always have the best information to make decisions and people there can't present info fearlessly if they can be arrested mid speech (or when they walk out the door).
It's a reaction to some of the horrible stuff authoritarians used in the past so I get why. It doesn't tend to be used that way, and that's a problem of implementation and culture (and that Westminster representative democracy isn't really very Democratic at all). So we do have the same treatment as pollies but not the same resources, it's a bridges and rich and poor thing and I think that reflects problems in our legal system.
Tweeking defamation for public figures is probably my preferred solution. Like I don't think rich powerful people with platforms should be able to sue random twitter users for getting too fired up in their expression of frustration. Or that stuff like the Jordies situation can happen at all is nonsense. If I show up in Parliament and say "I to sodomy, legalise it I'm normal" (btw hand jobs and vibrators are sodomy, we're all sodomites :p) and someone says "naeva admits to being sodomite" in the paper the next day, and can make a convincing case that publicising my words is in the public interest well then fair cop I say.
Well that fucking sucks! Someone should probably get on that!
Good point, hadn't thought about that. Should be immunity for "civilians" coming before Parliament, then, but still not for the politicians themselves. That would probably work..
Not in Australia, the bar for defo is stupidly low. The defendant basically has to prove their innocence. The law is fucked and the new "public interest" defence failed its first test in court. Defamation law is abused by the rich and powerful to suppress free speech and silence critics. Even if you can successfully prove substantial truth or genuinely held opinion you'll still be ruined by all the legal costs.
Yeah Aussie defo law is basically a "are you wealthy?" test.
We don't talk about class much here but it's a super classist society. My dad for example, from a line of Irish transported, could only get out of generations of poverty because Whitlam made uni free. He ended up planning some pretty important national infrastructure (so blame him haha) that I'd say the state got a pretty good deal on given the price of a degree. My mum is a Polish immigrant and her parents, who were an agricultural scientist who refused to join the party in occupied Poland and an office admin worker (USSR leading the world on women working) were treated like fucking dirt and imbeciles because they had a strong accent and strange grammar.
If you look at the last names of people in power it's heavily slanted English. Legacy from the colony days. We had this really brief moment of good fortune and higher class mobility due to fear of communism driving social reform and since then further backsliding. I mean look at all the jobs for the boys from private schools etc and what families get admission.
Shit's fucked, but we pretend like it's all good mate and that mythical occa Anzac spirit of going hard hand in hand is all around us. Meanwhile pollies are untouchable, landlords buy up everything, and access to help and opportunity crumbles for everyone who earns less than 300k a household.
That's not normally how it works. A politician can't get sued for something he says in parliament, but I've never heard of the record of what he said being inadmissible before.
I'm no lawyer, quite possibly I'm misunderstanding this https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/13/youtube-personality-friendlyjordies-suffers-setback-in-john-barilaro-defamation-case
Hopefully the guy appeals, the judge seems to using some tortured logic to take the governments side, claiming it's illegal for citizens to criticize politicians statements made in parliament, and that the politician would be oppressed by the citizens being able to defend himself with what the politician literally said. I'm Canadian, not Australian, and that would absolutely not fly here, parliamentary privilege is mostly to keep them from suing each other for defamation,
I believe they ended up settling so no chance of appeal.
Another pollie who is alledged to be a rape apologist sued some random twitter user for alleging that. This pollie, whom I affectionate title adolf kipfler, after his views and face respectively, is a very odius man. In his inaugural speech to parliament in 2001 stated that our society was sometimes "too compassionate".
Lovely bloke