Select a year:

16th November 2003
Casting a crazy spell on freedom
By ANDREW BOLT
16nov03
Herald Sun
http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7876913%255E25717,00.html

THE Bracks Government's laws against free speech are so farcical that now a witch is using them to silence a Christian mayor.

God save us -- if I may still use that phrase without upsetting some witch or warlock. Has opening our mouth ever been so scary?

Witch Olivia Watts is just the latest zealot to use the Government's new racial and religious vilification laws to shut up someone whose opinions she dislikes.
This trans-gender naturopath from Junction Village -- in Kath and Kim country around Fountain Gate -- is sooling these laws on to the Mayor of Casey, Brian Oates, and his fellow councillor and Christian Rob Wilson.

So, too, is the Pagan Awareness Network, led by another witch, bank customer service officer David Garland, who was once the Australian representative for the Witches League for Public Awareness.

Even sitting here and typing this, I cannot believe all this is truly going on here in Victoria.

But it's true all right, and it started in May, when Wilson, a Christian college teacher, told the voters of Casey to watch out for Watts, who had stood for the council elections and announced she was a witch.

Wilson saw the devil's work in this, and urged the Casey Pastors Network of about 50 churches to hold a day of prayer to fight the "forces of evil" and ward off witchcraft.

Mayor Oates tossed his own twigs on the pyre, suggesting there was a coven in Casey that could be linked to a satanic cult in Dandenong.

Yes, I know. It's all glowing eyes at 10 paces, and far too intense. Far too paranoid.

Poor Watts hardly seems devil's spawn to me, and is more threatened than threatening -- particularly after cowards smashed her windows. And who out there in our Bible belt took the happy out of happy-clappy?

But these are just my opinions, and Wilson has his. I'll trust the public to make up its own mind in any debate about which opinion is best.

After all, that's what's so valuable about free speech -- eventually truth will out, no matter how some folk scream.

But that's not how Watts or the Pagan Awareness Network's Garland seem to see it. Or the Bracks Government either, to its shame.

Garland wrote to the Government accusing the councillors of religious vilification of witches, and Attorney-General Rob Hulls, instead of telling him to have a hex and a good lie down, wrote back to urge him on.

"We govern for all Victorians -- and that includes witches, magicians and sorcerers," Hulls told Garland, who actually lives in New South Wales.

And he suggested he complain to our Equal Opportunity Commission under the new vilification laws.

Both Garland and Watts have done just that, which means the two Christian councillors face intimidating legal bills -- not least because Casey Council won't pay for lawyers to defend their right to free speech.

But neither is giving in, which means the case will go to trial at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal early next year.

Wilson says this is all about defending his right to speak freely -- and on issues he thinks are important.

You may not agree with his views, of course. Then again, he may not agree with yours.

But who has the right to shut him up? And how can you be sure someone won't try next to shut you up?

Unlikely, you scoff? Just look at the unlikely cases already inspired by these laws, under which you and I could be fined or jailed for saying something that offends someone, even accidentally.

We've had a Macedonian group use them to complain about our assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs, of all people, after the ethnic Greek John Pandazopoulos called them "Skopians" on radio. (No, I don't get it either.)

I myself have had a One Nation candidate complain that I'd "demeened" (sic) Anglo Saxons as "boofheads" by praising Chinese and Jewish immigrants.

And two Christian pastors have so far spent $100,000 trying to defend themselves at a VCAT hearing after offending Muslims who heard them discuss jihad in their church.

Next up: a case involving a top-rating media personality.

Yes, no one yet has been successfully prosecuted under these laws. But each complaint -- no matter how absurd or attention-seeking -- means some fretting defendant must spend time and cash on lawyers and paperwork. That's speech-stifling enough.

These laws -- so dangerous to our freedoms -- must be scrapped. They are evil. They are a witches' brew.

Oh, no. Did I say something illegal again?
bolta@heraldsun.com.au