Woke Bureaucrats Policing Political Speech
A panel of bureaucrats has decided that I breached the Local Government Code of Conduct when I used the phrase ‘mind virus’ – a term popularised by Elon Musk to describe the social and political ideology of wokeism – in a social media post about Hobart City Council’s plan to fly the Palestinian Flag outside Hobart’s Town Hall, only days after the atrocities of 7 October.
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VIEW THE PANEL'S DECISION HERE.
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I'm appealing a decision the decision through the Federal Court on the basis that the Tasmanian Local Government Code of Conduct Panel wrongly failed to interpret the Code consistent with the constitutional implied freedom of political communication, when they decided to uphold a complaint against her for social media activity related to the Gaza-Israel war but I need your help...... I need to raise $120,000.
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This is a critical fight for free speech.
I've been reprimanded and ordered to do a training course for using the words 'sickening' and referring to the woke 'mind virus'. This is ridiculous.
Here's what I said.....
I’ve been sanctioned for saying that I was ‘sickened’ by concept of flying the Palestinian Flag outside Hobart’s Town Hall only six weeks after the 7 October massacre in Israel. I have Jewish heritage, Hobart has a Jewish community, and our synagogue was Australia’s first.
​How welcoming and inclusive is it to fly a flag of a region that is governed by a recognised terrorist organisation only weeks after they raped, beheaded and massacred around 1200 innocent people?
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The most concerning part is that freedom of political communication has been disregarded when assessing a politician’s communication. This is so fundamental to our democracy, electoral choice and our system of representative government that it must be challenged.​
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If I don’t stand up to this, the censorship of our speech will just continue, but I can’t do it alone. I’m up against the government, and without donations I won’t be able to take up this fight and push back on this absurdity.
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The Panel’s decision is bewildering. They have chosen to take my use of the idiom ‘mind virus’ literally, as if I had stated that an unidentified person was biologically infected. Any grounded person that’s even slightly tuned into contemporary media or politics would understand that this is mild political slang.
Taking ‘mind virus’ literally is an absurd stretch, just like it would be to say that if someone is starting a ‘culture war’ that they’re literally gathering soldiers and ammunition, or that ‘dog-whistling’ is literally rounding up the neighbourhood hounds, or if someone is committing ‘political suicide’ that they’re literally taking their own life.
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The threats against our ability to speak are constant and we’re being pushed too far. Crazy decisions like this cut both ways; if people elected to political office can be sanctioned by such ridiculously low thresholds being applied to what’s ‘offensive’, then what hope is there for everyone else?
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"From the River to the Sea" is a call for the elimination of Israel and Jews - a message welcome in Hobart's Town Hall.
