The ANU Law and Philosophy Forum is delighted to announce its fourth meeting in 2023: Professor Sarah Sorial and Dr Shireen Morris (Macquarie University) will present their paper on “Farm Transparency and the Faltering Implied Freedom of Political Communication”.

All are welcome to attend.

In the 2022 Farm Transparency case, the High Court considered whether legislative provisions prohibiting the communication of recordings obtained via trespass impermissibly infringed the implied freedom of political communication. In a 4:3 judgment, the High Court upheld the provisions as proportionate to their legitimate purpose: the protection of personal privacy and property rights. This article critiques the judicial reasoning for failing to properly examine legislative purpose, which led to imprecise proportionality analysis under the third limb of the implied freedom test. We argue that, where multiple legislative purposes are evident, ascertaining primary purpose is crucial for assessing validity under the implied freedom, because primary purpose impacts how Parliament’s legislative choices are evaluated. After investigating other problems in the reasoning, including an apparent undercutting of the constitutional status of the implied freedom as against the common law and a hypothetical federal Bill of Rights, we suggest that some of the judgments belie an intellectual resiling from the implied freedom, rendering its free speech protection largely illusory.

Sarah Sorial is Professor of Law at Macquarie University. Her research lies at the intersection of philosophy and law, and she has written extensively on speech and speech regulation, including sedition, hate speech, and the implied freedom of political communication. Professor Sorial’s other research interests include the importance of democratic deliberation and the place of rights in liberal democracies.

Shireen Morris a constitutional lawyer and Director of the Radical Centre Reform Lab at Macquarie University Law School. Dr Morris specialises in Indigenous constitutional recognition through a Voice, constitutional reform, and the implied freedom of political communication. She has published widely and often commentates in the media. Shireen’s 2022 John Button Oration explored radical centre economic reform.

We look forward to hosting Professor Sorial and Dr Morris at the Forum, and hope you will be able to attend. 

This session will be held entirely online, as the speakers are outside Canberra. 

About the ANU Law and Philosophy Forum

The ANU Law and Philosophy Forum is an interdisciplinary group focused on issues spanning law and philosophy.

Its core purpose is to promote research, discussion, and exchanges on various topics in law and philosophy, covering aspects of both private law and public law, and issues within both legal and political philosophy.

The Forum hosts guest speakers, holds workshops, and discusses recent scholarship of note in the field. Meetings are open to faculty members and research students from the College of Law and the School of Philosophy, and friends and colleagues of both.