Bingo
What laws specifically make it illegal to have opinions in Australia?
I donât think itâs accurate to say Australia has no free speech. We do have freedom of speech and political expression, but it isnât absolute or protected in the same way as the US First Amendment. It sits alongside limits around hate speech, incitement, defamation, national security, prohibited organisations and Nazi symbols. So the existence of hate-speech laws doesnât mean there is no free speech it means free speech has legal boundaries.
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Like it or not, heâs currently popular (and has been for some time) - whether that continues with his venture towards the right or not is a bit of an unknown.
I donât buy that discussing him and the podcast can be construed as being supportive of either - the trajectory heâs shown so far is incredibly concerning, whether he reins it in or not is only a matter of time, but I also donât believe that ignoring it is the answer.
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I doubt youâll see much support for the podcast, criticism more likely, and thanks to those who watch it and post a rundown so I donât have to 
More people listen to/ watch Karlâs podcast than Today.
Quite diabolical for Nine. They have a very steep uphill battle to at least get back to where they were.
I wonder though if social media views are actually real, with one nations tactics and sky news in mind as well who have an incredible amount of views and comments immediately after posting most obviously being bots.
Comparing those numbers is a pointless exercise in so many ways.
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It is and it isnât. Karl has opened himself up to a much wider audience. These days there are a lot of people who have ditched Free to Air Television and may have remembered him from back in the day, remember heâs been on 21 odd years, may now be reconnecting with him as he evolves and their views evolve, even if as a novelty exercise.
So while there is some truth to not comparing the numbers literally, what it does show, if taken as a broad observation, is an overall trend to people reconnecting with Karl in a different and move evolved way.
News reporting will always be sensationalist and there is really no merit in many MSM sources these days as everything is readership/views/ratings for the TikTok generation, but if you take it as a more observational standpoint, They do have a point from a broad perspective.
A better (though still imperfect) âratingsâ comparison would be the reach number for Today + Today Early + Today 5.30am across 5 days where Today just by itself on one day would reach up to 900,000.
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Omg if you want to be super pedantic and technical the government cannot arrest you for having an opinion in your head. Hate speech exists as a category of speech that is illegal and is not âfreeâ, and âfree speechâ is an Americanism that is not specifically legislated here.
We are raised to believe that âfree speechâ is some kind of sacred concept, but the thing that turned me against it? Climate change. Climate denial should have been outlawed at some point in the 90s. The insistence on seeing it as a debate with both sides has wasted so much time and perpetuated so much harm that I honestly think it may turn out to have contributed significantly to our downfall as a species. There is a book that came out a few years ago - an American book about an American concept - called The Case Against Free Speech.
Your reply doesnât actually answer the question. You move from describing what Australian law currently is to arguing what you think it should be. Saying climate denial should have been outlawed isnât evidence that Australia makes opinions illegal.
So Karl should not be able to interview certain people and people who donât believe in climate change Should be persecuted? What other free thinking would you like the government to control?
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âFree speechâ, or more accurately freedom of expression, has never been absolute, whether in Australia or elsewhere. There have always been limits, such as defamation, incitement, threats, and certain forms of hate speech. Itâs also never meant freedom from social or legal consequences.
The fact that Australia doesnât have a single, explicit âfree speechâ law doesnât mean the principle doesnât exist. In many respects, our freedom comes from the absence of laws prohibiting expression, alongside legal protections that exist in specific contexts.
What youâre suggesting, though, goes much further. Outlawing climate denial would have meant giving governments the power to criminalise the expression of views they determine to be false or harmful. Even if you believe that would have been justified in this case, itâs a power that could easily be expanded or abused by future governments for very different purposes. Thatâs why many people are cautious about giving the state that kind of authority, even when the underlying view being expressed is demonstrably wrong.
Bringing this back to the original topic, I donât think Karl interviewing people with views you or I disagree with is inherently a bad thing or something that should be prevented. Hearing and scrutinising opposing viewpoints can be valuable, depending on how itâs done.
That said, context and presentation matter. Interviewing someone like Tommy Robinson in a way that appears friendly, sympathetic, or uncritical risks normalising or legitimising those views. Thereâs an important distinction between challenging someoneâs ideas in an interview and providing them with a platform that effectively endorses them.
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Itâs always âyou may disagree withâ sort of language when itâs tiptoeing around only one side of politics though. If it was someone from Islamic State we would not be having this conversation. If he had a chat to a guy with a beard who looks Arab and was advocating for Islamic State and Karl was saying âI commend you on your courageâ there would be no conversation at all, the AFP would already have arrested him. Itâs really just as bad. I donât see a difference.
For me, the interview with Tommy Robinson crossed the line. Heâs not someone we should be giving a friendly or sympathetic platform to.
That said, comparing him to the Islamic State doesnât really help the argument. Islamic State is a proscribed terrorist organisation, whereas Robinson, despite his controversial history and inflammatory rhetoric, is not. That doesnât mean that it gives Karl a free pass.
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Yes, and why is that? Itâs because white supremacist organisations get away with much more, and being much more publicly active, because they are not considered a threat to the state and the status quo of life in a white supremacist colony in the same way. Morally I do not see a difference.
There is no evidence that Tommy Robinson has explicitly identified himself as a white supremacist or advocated the core beliefs of white supremacy
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@anon5771272 i note you deleted your reply.
But you shared a genuinely frightening worldview.
Youâre arguing for a society where the government decides which opinions are acceptable, who can be interviewed, and which ideas people are allowed to hear. Thatâs not democracy itâs authoritarianism dressed up as virtue.
The moment you give the state the power to ban ideas because theyâre considered âwrong,â youâve created a system where the government becomes the arbiter of truth. Every authoritarian regime in history has believed it was censoring for the greater good.
The answer to bad ideas isnât banning discussion. itâs exposing and defeating them in the open. If your beliefs are so fragile they canât survive an interview or a debate, maybe censorship isnât the solution.
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You mean the society we are already living in, in which many of these laws already exist?
I mean your worldview you shared in your post thatâs now deleted