Lionel Murphy: prescient

The growing threat to Australia's civil liberties

Neville Wran presents the 20th Lionel Murphy Memorial Lecture.

A few weeks ago, addicted as I am to the ABC, I was watching Lateline when the program's presenter, Tony Jones, announced that the Melbourne University wanted the federal government to reconsider a ban on research books.

The Vice Chancellor, Glynn Davis, had been in touch with the federal Attorney General asking him to review the ban, saying it restricted academic learning.

The two books which were removed were written by the Islamist, Abdullah Azam, who has been described as the Godfather of Jihad. Academic staff believes that the volumes are important for researchers who want to understand radical Jihad.

Apparently a university historian and lecturer bought the two books in question to help his students better understand Jihad or the Holy War waged by some Muslims. A year later the books have had to be taken off the library shelves.

Needless to say my ears pricked up when Glynn Davis, the university's Vice Chancellor, came on the screen and revealed in an interview that the university had no choice but to remove the books, because the law requires it and the breach of that law carried fines of up to $27,000 and imprisonment of up to two years. The Vice Chancellor quite properly felt the university could not ask its library staff to risk that.

The two books have been refused a classification, which means they cannot be sold, displayed, loaned or hired out.

I might add that the first edition of these books was published in 1984 and, amongst other things, was a call of arms against the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR - an invasion which ironically was condemned at the time by much of the Western world, including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The book was re-printed in English in 1996 and again in 2002. It was not until the year 2006 that the ban was imposed, and the ban ran to a university in which knowledge and understanding are normally prized commodities.

This extraordinary ban has put the whole issue of human rights fairly and squarely on the university's international calendar for, as the Vice Chancellor said in the program, and I quote: "This is, for us, a very rare occurrence, so rare in fact, that we've had media inquiries from around the world about it because most people don't think of Australia as the sort of country that bans books."

Mr Ruddock, our nation's Attorney General, responded to this request to reconsider the ban on research books in terms that he would be prepared to discuss with his own officials and state government officials whether or not, on a limited basis and a structural basis, material necessary for research can be made available for that particular purpose.

Mr Ruddock expressed concern that the book in question might encourage people to carry out terrorist acts. As I mentioned earlier, the books removed were written by the Islamist, Abdullah Azam, who has been described as the father of Jihad. The books removed from the Melbourne University library were there for research purposes - research, in an academic environment.

There are plenty of copies of Azam's book circulating in the world and the full text of the book is available for download to anyone with internet access. It is quite frankly ridiculous, and taking the intention of the law to its extreme and beyond, to ban a book intended to be used for analysis of Jihad, in an academic environment, for the acquisition of knowledge for the purpose of understanding, however perverse, its cause and effect and so on.

Of course we are all aware of the need for strong security measures after September 11, Bali, London and a host of other atrocities at the hands of radical Muslim organisations. Not many people would argue that some modicum of freedom should not be traded for some assurance of greater security.

However, in fighting terrorism we must be careful not to stifle the very democratic values that we are trying to preserve. In the vernacular, we must take care not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and so on we have always taken for granted in this country. Indeed, one of the things we have always prided ourselves upon is the sort of egalitarianism, a sort of equality which in life's endeavour gives everyone a "fair go".

It may be true that Australia is the only OECD country without a Bill of Rights, but then, we have always taken for granted our freedoms. Julian Burnside put it succinctly when delivering the 16th Lionel Murphy Memorial Lecture, and I quote: "... most ordinary people in Australia have thought that human rights are not an issue, because they are not under threat."

Well, it's time to re-think that statement. There is a growing threat to our civil liberties - perhaps not blatantly intended, but rather, on a generous view, the result of overkill, in response to the threat to the nation's security which unquestionably exists.

Indeed, the man whose life and career we are honouring today - Lionel Murphy - with extraordinary prescience on 17 August 1983 delivered an address to the National Press Club. During the course of the question session, our late colleague said: "It is very difficult to predict the future but if present trends in Australian society continue, the most powerful public official in the year 2000 may not be the Prime Minister or any other Minister but the official in charge of police and security."

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