NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns has said something appalling.

Whether or not it is true, remains to be seen.

Essentially, Minns has alleged that free speech must be sacrificed to keep the peace in multicultural Australia.

It is implied that we cannot ‘get along’ unless our words are constrained by the government.

‘I recognise and I fully said from the beginning, we don’t have the same freedom of speech laws that they have in the United States, and the reason for that is that we want to hold together a multicultural community and have people live in peace.’

Even without context (which I will give in a moment), it is a terrible thing to admit.

Australia has been multi-ethnic since the beginning, and it has never required restrictive speech laws to stop racism or to quell violence.

It was only a few decades ago that ‘having a dig’ at each other was considered part of the tough-love Aussie culture that the rest of the world admired. Politically incorrect speech is what helped people bond.

If you migrated to Australia, you got paid out. That’s how it worked, and it worked very well.

Our singular (not multi) culture of ‘Australia’ – built on mateship and the shared experience of living in this harsh country – was always enough.

This peaceful ecosystem was disrupted by the political class who chose, without consent, to import millions of people from conflicting cultures in a short space of time. Often, they brought in people from opposing sides of an active war. These migrants sometimes carried with them foreign conflicts, ancient religious hatred, unacceptable customs (particularly in relation to women), and radicalised beliefs incompatible with the law.

Instead of being told to quickly assimilate into the wider Australian culture, activists and politicians did everything possible to encourage cultural enclaves.

These hatreds which the NSW Premier cites as an excuse to silence speech are not Australian-grown and Australians should not put up with being blamed or punished for the consequences of migration policies.

If Australians had been told that a multicultural Australia would require the sacrifice of free speech, they would have rejected it.

This matters, because citizens are entitled to their fundamental, God-given human rights and if those rights are threatened by policy then that policy is at fault.

Taking the Premier at his word, that multiculturalism cannot survive without the strong-arm of government oppressing speech, it is fair to argue instead that those individuals who cannot live peacefully do not deserve to seek shelter in Australia.

What was it that former Prime Minister John Howard said? ‘We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come.’

The context which brought about this shocking admission from the Labor Premier is in relation to the hate speech laws which were rushed through Parliament. The crisis used to justify the already controversial measures has been revealed as a hoax allegedly perpetrated by criminals to negotiate reduced sentences. This was, apparently, known from early on.

Various politicians in NSW are agitating for these laws to be rescinded.

MLC John Ruddick said of these repeals, ‘Parliament was misinformed by the Minns government about the urgency of the bills referred to in one A, B, and C … this House calls on the Minns government to repeal the bills … and apologise for both misleading this Parliament, preventing a Parliamentary Inquiry, and further curbing free speech principles by these reactionary bills.’

Here is the beginning of Minns’ comment:

‘There have been some that have been agitating in the Parliament to nullify the laws to remove them off the statute books, think about what kind of toxic message that would send to the NSW community.

‘And I think the advocates for those changes need to explain what do they want people to have the right to say?

‘What kind of racist abuse do they want to see, or to be able to lawfully see, on the streets of Sydney?’

The basic point, which must stand, is that laws based on a fabricated circumstance cannot continue to exist. Nothing else that Minns says is relevant.

Even if we ignore this, Minns asks us what we want allowed on the streets of Sydney.

Well, I would prefer not to see the streets taken over by thugs shouting about foreign wars and religious conflicts that have nothing to do with Australia. Their selfishness harms business and disrupts the peace Australia is meant to bring to those fleeing conflict.

The speech laws Minns wants to keep will not stop Australian cities being the canvas of hateful activism.

These laws won’t stop students destroying statues of Captain Cook or shouting racist slogans like ‘pay the rent’, ‘stolen land’, ‘death to Australia’, or ‘watch out whites’.

There is no chance that Minns has the courage to reprimand Indigenous activists for threats against other citizens even though they often walk arm-in-arm with antisemitic slogans at rallies where the Aboriginal flag touches the Palestinian flag and the slogan of a terror-led government merges with a separatist slogan steeped in racism. ‘From the river to the sea, always was always will be…’ What is this other than a declaration of erasing Australians from their land based on race? Does this meet the Premier’s definition of ‘hate’?

Hate speech is politicised.

These laws are political.

If Australia cannot champion free speech because other cultures either will not tolerate criticism or themselves perpetrate acts of violence against other groups, then that is a matter for the police.

Free speech, and the ability for a society to tolerate it, is the mark of civilisation.

Peace through censorship is the language of a dictatorship.

Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.