Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Australia's Lack Of Speech Protections Means We Should Be MORE Hostile To Speech Regulation Caitlin Johnstone Jan 25   READ IN APP   Reading by Tim Foley: Upgrade to paid A normal, healthy person would look at Australia’s lack of free speech protections and say “Hmm, Australian leaders should be extremely resistant to new laws and policies which restrict speech then, because it would be very easy for those restrictions to become abusive.” Australian leaders look at our lack of free speech protections and say “See? This means we get to take away your right to protest genocide!” Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than the repeated statements from New South Wales premier Chris Minns saying it’s fine to silence Australians because we don’t have free speech rights. Over and over again Minns has defended his promotion of authoritarian speech crackdowns in his state by claiming it’s okay to stomp out dissident speech of Australians because Australians don’t have the same speech protections as Americans, saying “we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that” and similar statements in recent weeks. Australians vs. The Agenda @ausvstheagenda NSW Premier Chris Minns says that you will get the freedom of speech opportunities that the government affords you, not what you think you’re entitled too. 9:23 PM · Jan 21, 2026 · 117K Views 925 Replies · 588 Reposts · 1.95K Likes To be clear, Minns is being repulsively tyrannical when he says this, but factually speaking he isn’t wrong. As Joe Lauria wrote for Consortium News following the passage of Australia’s frightening new “hate speech” bill: “Unlike the United States, Australia has no Bill of Rights in its Constitution protecting freedom of speech, assembly and other rights. Much as Israel would want it, a law such as this adopted in Australia would still be difficult to pass in the U.S. on paper, despite the Israel Lobby’s hold over the U.S. Congress.” If Australians had the same speech protections that they have in the United States, we could appeal tyrannical new laws on First Amendment grounds. Because we have no such protections, it is much harder to oppose authoritarian speech restrictions once they are in place. As I often remind readers, Australia is the only so-called democracy in the world which has no national charter or bill of rights of any kind. A tremendous amount of faith has been placed in state and federal legislators to simply do the right thing, which has proved foolish and ineffective. Professor George Williams wrote for the Melbourne University Law Review in 2006: “Australia is now the only democratic nation in the world without a national bill of rights. Some comprehensive form of legal protection for basic rights is otherwise seen as an essential check and balance in democratic governance around the world. Indeed, I can find no example of a democratic nation that has gained a new Constitution or legal system in recent decades that has not included some form of a bill of rights, nor am I aware of any such nation that has done away with a bill of rights once it has been put in place.” Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz A mentally disabled Australian woman is being prosecuted for antisemitic hate crimes after accidentally pocket-dialing a Jewish nutritionist, resulting in a blank voicemail the nutritionist found frightening. We're being told we need MORE of this. There's "hate speech" 11:43 PM · Jan 16, 2026 · 108K Views 164 Replies · 1.25K Reposts · 3.34K Likes It has been clearly and conclusively established that this system does not work. State and federal governments are working frenetically to shred the right of Australians to oppose the actions of the state of Israel, with their assault on our civil rights disguised as an effort to fight “antisemitism” in our country and help Jewish Australians feel more safe. The fact that this happens to advance the information interests of the western power alliance, we are told, is purely coincidental. The evidence is in and the case is closed. The Australian system does not work. We need a national bill of rights, and we need free speech to be enshrined in our constitution. In the meantime, we need to be aggressively opposed to laws and policies which assault our freedom of speech. We need to be more aggressive in our opposition than Americans would be, because we have fewer safeguards against tyrannical abuses. It’s so disgusting how these freaks are telling us right to our faces “Yeah well you guys don’t have any rights, so I’m going to silence you and oppress you and I make no apologies about that.” That kind of arrogant, abusive authoritarianism deserves nothing but ferocious defiance. _______________ Caitlin’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley. Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 Feature image via Phil Desveaux (CC BY-SA 2.0) You're currently a free subscriber to Caitlin’s Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. Upgrade to paid