At a recent public meeting in regional Australia, I asked what politicians could do to capitalise on the current mood to ensure the wokerati come to an inglorious end at the next election. One politician replied, ‘We need to give Australian citizens permission to speak up.’ I couldn’t agree more.

The truth is that many of us are being cancelled or censored and our voices are not being heard in the public sphere. It is time for that to change.

In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill suggested that a free press was an accepted part of ensuring that governments could not simply give citizens their opinions:

‘The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the “liberty of the press” as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear.’

But when it comes to what we should assume are the pillars of Australian democracy, the taxpayer-funded ABC and our taxpayer-funded universities, censorship by omission and prescribing opinions has become the new normal.

This must end.

In Canberra this week, the Reckless Renewables Rally heard from speakers including David Littleproud, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, and Barnaby Joyce. People from regional Australia turned up in their hundreds to send a message to the Albanese government that the push for renewables is hasty and misguided. Wind farms and solar factories are eating up prime agricultural land and offshore wind turbines will soon dominate our coastlines at a time when the rest of the world is turning to nuclear.

If you don’t believe me then go for a drive from Yass to Moree. The scale of environmental and agricultural vandalism is apocalyptic.

The ABC did not mention anything about the rally that was held outside Parliament House. Further, and despite hundreds turning up to protest offshore wind at Port Hastings, the ABC decided weeks later to run a story on a much smaller group that protested in support of offshore wind.

Jacinta Price at the Reckless Renewables Rally: "Prime Minister Albanese you need to listen to these people. Minister Bowen you need to listen to these people and stop taking us down the path of destruction."

For more coverage from the rally watch the full episode of Nick… pic.twitter.com/PYbhvUhpq3

— Newsmax Australia (@newsmaxaus) February 9, 2024

Like almost every other aspect of politics, the taxpayer-funded ABC has become a mouthpiece for government policy rather than representing the people who pay for its existence. The ABC is out of touch.

Our universities are not much better. Censorship of opinion in the space where traditionally one could raise a policy issue simply to encourage it to be debated has become a space for radical orthodoxy. I was called ‘controversial’ recently for defending Australia Day – a criticism that goes against every part of my upbringing and the four generations of my family who served in the Australian Army.

I am not controversial – the gatekeepers are.

So where does this leave ordinary Australians? It leaves them without a voice unless politicians show leadership and permit citizens to be heard.

There are some changes at the margins. In the Upper Lachlan Shire recently, the community fought against ridiculous rate rises from a local government that had run out of our money but had enough to fund drag queen readings for children at our local libraries. My council even asked the veteran community to do similar readings for free to justify the ‘diversity’ of their approach. They lost but there was no coverage from the local media who controversially sided with the local council.

In a similar vein, the ABC recently thought drag queen readings for 3-5-year-olds was a good idea. However, the controversial drag queen readings were cancelled after a so-called ‘hateful response’. Much like my own council that thought it was appropriate to have four police officers attend a meeting of law-abiding citizens because the councillors claimed to have received ‘death threats’, where are the details of these so-called ‘hateful responses’?

Who were these people? Why weren’t they charged? Where are the results of the investigations into these horrid ‘hateful responses’? Or have claims of illegal behaviour become throwaway lines to stifle discontent where we end up arresting the Jewish bloke instead of the perpetrators? For his own safety? Who are they kidding? Whose country is this after all?

If criminal behaviour occurs, then arrest the criminals. But let’s not have a situation where anyone who doesn’t like the public’s response can claim criminal behaviour when the real reason was making a stupid policy decision.

Classical liberalism aimed to ensure that even stupid opinions could be heard so that the concerns of citizens could be aired and addressed. As long as individuals do not hurt themselves or others, then they are free to be as eccentric as they wish. Indeed, Mill stated that:

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

Despite the lessons of history, we are in such a time once more. The trouble is that common sense is now not only uncommon but prohibited from being expressed.

Australian citizens have a right to call out nonsensical behaviour from the executive arms of government. Whether the executive likes it or not is immaterial.

Instead, we are reduced to the likes of the ABC’s ‘conservative-free zone’ QandA or Sky News Australia’s recent program, The Jury, which is effectively a parody of the ABC’s failing wokefest that loves ‘blowing itself up’.

Yet this is where policy debate in Australia has ended up.

Some of my closest colleagues have said they read my articles in The Spectator Australia. I love The Spectator Australia because it has been a voice for reason for generations. While my colleagues often don’t agree with me, they nonetheless respect my opinion and I respect theirs. That is how policy debate in a liberal democracy is meant to function.

But I don’t write for my colleagues. I write for the ordinary Australians whose voices are seldom heard. And believe me, I hear your voices.

Most contemporary journalists and academics are parroting the rhetoric of the government of the day with little to no critical thought while espousing holier-than-thou attitudes. That may cut it in Canberra where the brainwashing runs deep, but in what I like to call the Greater Federation, ordinary Australians are fed-up.

Which brings me to the role of conservative politicians in this era of Woke craziness. Go out of your way to permit ordinary Australians to speak out against the government of the day.

Ordinary Australians need representative democracy more than ever. Deliberative democracy has provided a cover for leftist ideas that allow the elite few to direct policy. Ultimately, it is un-Australian.

This too must end.

Permit ordinary Australians to speak, to be heard, and to be represented in the media. Call out the ABC and academia for representing their own ideologies and not the taxpayers who fund their very existence. And do it sooner rather than later.

Politicians must permit ordinary Australians to speak up and defend them if their livelihoods are on the line. It is the right thing to do.