Page 3170 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 18 August 2009
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I object to every single limitation on free speech. I do accept that free speech is not an absolute right. However, we do need to take caution when we limit it and I do not think that the government’s bill takes sufficient caution when it wants to limit free speech.
One aspect of the bill I would like to note is the wording of the defacing offence proposed by new section 120 under which a person can be liable for making a mark “with chalk, paint or any other material” on public or private property without permission.
This definition makes temporary, even innocuous, marking illegal. It is so broad that kids playing hopscotch in the street could in fact be prosecuted under it. Street artists, such as we have in the warm weather in Civic making beautiful portraits, could be prosecuted under this, even though they are using chalk which, when it rains, will wash off. Temporary markings like this are often a part of community life. It is a tradition in cycle events such the Tour de France, and it is also a tradition when people gather to remember tragic losses such as Hiroshima. We often draw chalk outlines of people in remembrance.
I recommend that the definition be changed to cover only people who make marks with paint or other material that is not easy to remove. As I have said, and I have heard members of the government say the same thing, laws impacting on freedom of speech should made in the least restrictive means possible.
Another of my concerns is the lack of adequate legal bill posting space in Canberra. There just simply is not enough. There have been only five bill posting silos in Canberra for the last five years. That is five silos in a city of over 300,000 people and five town centres. That is simply not an adequate number for political, social and community notices.
The government said that it would look into providing more space at the time the original bill posting offences were passed over a year ago, but they have not as yet provided any additional space. I also suggest that the government look at using existing structures such as walls in shopping centres as bill posting areas. This already occurs in a number of local shopping centres in Canberra, I think particularly of ones I know of at Lyneham and Garran. This is quite successful. It is a low cost and very resource-efficient way of providing a legal bill posting area.
The situation is now that if the government were to remove any of the few existing legal spaces or even if it fails to increase the number of spaces, the ban on bill posting in Canberra would effectively become an absolute ban. I have therefore recommended that the government provide a legislative guarantee in the bill that adequate legal bill posting spaces be provided around Canberra and that the existing spaces be notified by the regulations.
My report also details problems with making bill posting a strict liability offence. As a strict liability offence, the proposed section 120 would not allow a bill poster to use a defence of reasonableness. It is unreasonable to enact a broad, strict law and then rely on the authorities using their discretion on how to apply the law. That is simply poor law making. To enact a law and use as a defence the notion “we do not think people
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