Chris Minns, Premier of New South Wales, Australia, has done something that politicians rarely do — he’s said the quiet part out loud. In a rare moment of honesty, he’s admitted that the government sees free speech as a liability.
“I recognize and I fully said from the beginning, we don’t have the same freedom of speech laws that they have in the United States, and the reason for that is that we want to hold together a multicultural community and have people live in peace.”
Meaning: Your rights are negotiable, and the price is social harmony — as defined by the state.
The absurdity of this argument is hard to overstate. Historically, the country thrived on its rough-and-tumble political culture, where disagreements were hashed out in public rather than smothered under layers of legalese. The idea that Australians must now muzzle themselves to accommodate imported conflicts is an outright admission of failure by the political class.
Minns and his allies argue that restricting speech is necessary because multiculturalism has made Australia too volatile to handle open debate. But let’s take a step back. Why is Australia suddenly on edge? Is it because everyday Australians have become more hateful and intolerant, or is it because the government has spent decades encouraging division through identity politics?
The immediate context for Minns’ comments is the recent passage of hate speech laws, pushed through Parliament in a frenzy of moral panic. The justification? A crisis that turned out to be a hoax, reportedly concocted by criminals looking for lighter sentences — something the government allegedly knew early on.
MLC John Ruddick didn’t mince words when he addressed this in Parliament:
“Parliament was misinformed by the Minns government about the urgency of the bills referred to in one A, B, and C… this House calls on the Minns government to repeal the bills… and apologize for both misleading this Parliament, preventing a Parliamentary Inquiry, and further curbing free speech principles by these reactionary bills.”
Minns’ response? Doubling down:
“There have been some that have been agitating in the Parliament to nullify the laws to remove them off the statute books. Think about what kind of toxic message that would send to the NSW community.
“And I think the advocates for those changes need to explain what do they want people to have the right to say?
“What kind of racist abuse do they want to see or to be able to lawfully see on the streets of Sydney?”
This is an old trick — framing any challenge to speech restrictions as a demand for open racism. It’s dishonest, it’s lazy, and it conveniently ignores the fact that these laws will never be enforced evenly.
These laws will be used against dissenters. Against people who question government policies. Against critics of the ruling ideology.
If democracy means anything, it means the right to speak freely — even when that speech is unpopular. Even when it makes politicians uncomfortable. Because when free speech is sacrificed on the altar of “social harmony,” what you’re left with isn’t peace — it’s silence. And that silence is exactly what governments crave.
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