In praise of Alan Jones

Political speech for most people can be expensive rather than free. Australia's defamation laws make it so. And it's not even a matter of losing a court case at the end. Even for winners the costs of lawyers along the way are crippling. The system is stacked against any person trying to expose what they consider to be impropriety.
So thank goodness for public figures like broadcaster Alan Jones. Call him a shock-jock if you will but he is one of the few media commentators well paid enough to say what he thinks despite the attempts by politicians to silence him with legal actions.
Some times Jones pays a high price for his outspokenness. Damages payments can be expensive. But that does not stop him from keeping on speaking out. As he did during the last Queensland state election when he relentlessly kept pursuing Liberal National Premier Campbell Newman and state Treasurer Jeff Seeney by suggesting they “prostituted” themselves in support of an LNP donor’s controversial coal mine.
Jones ignored the legal stop writs and kept on campaigning. After receiving the legal notices he commented that it was “nice to hear from you, Mr Newman”.
“You remain a bit of a political novice if you think that’s the way to win an election or to silence people, you need to actually think again, but thanks for writing,”

So how good to read today that calling the bluff of Messrs Newman and Seeney worked. The pair of defeated politicians today withdrew their lawsuit. I can only hope that they will have to pay a sizeable amout to cover the broadcaster's legal costs

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is Scott Morrison getting ahead of Malcolm Turnbull in the GST debate?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison under pressure as the question about knowledge of a rape gets embarrassing

Remembering that Labor only lost last time because of Bill Shorten