A Win for Free Speech and Humour

There were two big wins for free speech in Australia this week: one for a working-class mum from Ballarat, the other for a high-profile sports commentator. One was arrested for a Facebook post, the other cancelled for a joke.

Ballarat woman Zoe Buhler was arrested, pregnant and in her pyjamas, in her home by police, for posting about a planned anti-lockdown protest on Facebook. Broadcaster Erin Molan was vilified over a silly joke.

The fact that both had to go through up to two years of grinding and costly court proceedings to establish what should never have been questioned — the right to free speech, even to offend people — shows that the system has been set up so that the process itself is the punishment.

Erin Molan has had a massive win after a Federal Court found an online newspaper defamed her by alleging she was racist in an online article.

The journalist and commentator last year sued the Daily Mail for defamation, saying an article and two tweets by the news site falsely portrayed her as racist because of her pronunciation of Polynesian names.

What unforgivable racist horror did she perpetuate?

The Mail’s story was based on Molan saying “hooka looka mooka hooka fooka” on the show in May 2020.

…

…and that’s it?

Ok, it’s hardly champagne comedy, but remember that Billy “The 12th Man” Birmingham made a whole career out of similar stuff.

As some of the greatest comedians living, from John Cleese to Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle, have pointed out, wokeness is killing comedy. The Daily Mail apparently set out to prove that the woke have had a universal comedy bypass operation.

During the trial, the publisher argued the imputations carried were true – and Molan had demonstrated a “pattern” of racist comments in her time at 2GB’s Continuous Call Team program.

Acting on behalf of the Daily Mail, Bruce McClintock SC told the court in September 2021 that Molan’s attempts at accents were forms of “ugly racial stereotypes”.

However, Molan told the court it was a lighthearted jab at legendary commentator Ray Warren, who had been overheard sounding out players’ names with his son and fellow commentator Chris.

The learned judge told the offenderati to, in what may be translated from legalese, get a life and lighten up.

“The ordinary reasonable person, even with the propensity to loose thinking, would not, in my view, make the substantial leap of equating the use of the phrases ‘complicit in racism’ and ‘complicit to racism’ about what she was said to have done” […]

Daily Mail Australia must pay the Sky News host $150,000 plus interest in damages, including aggravated damages for the online article only.

Justice Bromwich said the sum was “substantial” for “closely interrelated and unwarranted online slurs, sufficient for any ordinary person to be well and truly satisfied that they were untrue and should never have been published”.

The Australian

Molan’s joke may have been lame, sure: but so what?

Given that racism is this era’s cardinal sin, as deadly to a person’s reputation today as accusations of adultery once were, you’d think people would be a bit more circumspect in making the accusation. Instead, they throw it around like confetti, routinely screeching it in lieu of an actual argument.

Finally, someone with the resources and tenacity has stood up to these pathetic cry-bullies.