The Coalition needs to perform a handbrake U-turn, and fast. For the Liberals under Peter Dutton to be on the same side of the free speech debate (ie opposed to it) as the likes of Anthony Albanese, the Greens, Jacqui Lambie and the Teals is nothing short of disastrous.

Whatever foolish notion (or advisers) encouraged Peter Dutton to position himself against freedom of expression, X and Elon Musk and in favour of government censorship and nanny-state authoritarianism is probably irrelevant, but the damage is done and the only way forward is to amputate the limb and cauterise the wound.

How on earth the Liberals were so easily wrong-footed beggars belief. In one fell swoop the Coalition has thrown away the moral high ground won so successfully during the Voice debate and torched the likelihood of their winning the next election. The leader of the opposition must urgently recommit his party to freedom of expression and find a way to disentangle himself from Labor’s pernicious trap.

For the ludicrous eSafety Commissioner, the American import and World Economic Forum aficionado Julie Inman Grant, to ban the footage of the attempted assassination by a young terrorist of a prominent church bishop is as disgraceful as it is idiotic. What next? Ban the Zapruder footage of JFK’s murder? Ban the photos of the attempt on the lives of Ronald Reagan or Pope John Paul?

What is crystal clear is that this attempted killing of a prominent figure is being cynically used by the left to impose completely unacceptable government censorship on this nation. It must be resisted at all costs, and it is imperative that the Coalition immediately change course, or watch themselves sink into oblivion.

As Neil Brown correctly points out in this week’s cover story, ‘This ban is not only wrong but monumental and unprecedented in its scope. The video has been blocked from Australia by X itself, but the Australian eCommissar wants it banned throughout the entire world, an extraordinary reach for any country to try to impose on others. It is outrageous.’

And as David Adler, of the Australian Jewish Association, writes powerfully in this week’s issue, ‘No successful society has ever been built by hiding the truth. Yes, the (video of the stabbing of the bishop) has some shock value but that’s exactly what is needed to motivate public pressure to hold our political leaders to account, to deal with some tough issues, not avoid them. By demanding truth be hidden, the eSafety Commissioner makes us less safe.’

To be sure, there is plenty of scope for the relevant independent authorities in any democracy to take measures to protect innocent or vulnerable young minds from unacceptably violent, degrading or pornographic imagery. Peter Dutton seems to have been duped into thinking the Inman Grant ban on the Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel footage somehow or other falls into this camp. It does not.

Kudos to Senator Ralph Babet and to One Nation for opposing this tyrannical abomination. If the Coalition fails to immediately reverse course on this issue and come out strongly in support of freedom of expression and freedom of choice online they will torpedo their chances at the next election.

Bazza’s last laugh

It’s twelve months since the sad passing of Barry Humphries, the man who shares his crowded grave with such luminaries as Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson, Sandy Stone, Barry McKenzie and many others. His final creative work was done for an event he was due to attend hosted by The Spectator Australia, and was published in this magazine. Since his passing, the issue for which he was disgracefully ‘cancelled’ by his own creation, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, has now come full circle. The Cass review in Britain has dealt a devastating blow to the flawed dogma of the transgender cult.

As Declan Mansfield writes this week, ‘Everything that transgender activists have stated, in their shape-shifting, violent, deceitful, passive-aggressive, faux-moral way, as fact, was based on poor, activist, anti-scientific research. It’s what critics of the ideology have been saying for years.’

Not for the first time, Barry Humphries gets the last laugh.