Australia’s Bureaucrats Want You to Stop Accusing Public Servants of Corruption

A ustralia’s Secretaries Board wants the government to restrict a parliamentarian’s ability to edit and publicly share video clips of official hearings, in part because the content from the proceedings is sometimes “presented without context” and “exposes officials to ridicule, hostility or abuse.” The board’s proposal is not to implement an outright ban on publicly posting any material from parliamentary hearings. Rather, the board is nudging Parliament to develop guidelines for its members regarding the dissemination of footage involving committee evidence. The board asks for consideration of rules that would prevent sharing clips that are “potentially harmful” — a phrase that the bureaucrats seemingly understand as encompassing sophomoric ridicule and extremely mild pejoratives. The board further suggests that comments should be disabled on posts with parliamentary footage because user responses are sometimes “highly offensive,” which would prevent even the users outside of Australia from responding directly to a post online.

While the framing of the proposal might prompt a reader to assume that there are thousands of people sending serious death threats in the comment sections of parliamentary footage each day, the supposedly alarming replies from which public servants apparently need to be insulated include single-word insults regularly expressed on middle-school playgrounds: “Comments about the officials have attacked their physical appearance, particularly women, likened them to Nazis and paedophiles, and referred to the officials as (among other things): ‘despicable’, ‘filth’, ‘political puppet’, ‘bigot’, ‘pig’, ‘KKK member’, ‘sleazy’, ‘incompetent retard’, ‘parasite’, ‘stupid’, ‘shill’, ‘demonic’, ‘putrid mutt’, ‘criminal’, ‘fraud’, ‘clown’, ‘scumbag’, ‘lying corrupt grub’, etc,” states the proposal.

In addition to denouncing the speech and conduct of faceless people online, the proposal also highlights supposedly improper conduct that occurs during hearings and the “power imbalances” that result from compelling witnesses. “There have been instances . . . in which the conduct of committee hearings has not been appropriately respectful nor fair to Official Witnesses,” says the document. “For example, the Board is aware of examples where individual public servants have been accused of engaging in criminal conduct, of being racist, of gross violations of human rights and of engaging in acts deliberately intended to harm others. Officials have been accused of being ‘weak’ for implementing government policies. It is not uncommon for public servants to be accused of ‘hiding’ things, ‘covering up’ for the government, or ‘being a liar’.”

Another section explains that the effects of supposedly disrespectful treatment during hearings may be felt differently by particular minority groups, especially in relation to their sense of “inclusion, cultural safety and belonging.” The proposal states that “we are aware of one instance, for example, in which members of an Aboriginal Corporation were referred to as ‘corporatised blacks’ by a Committee member during a hearing.” (I had difficulty finding any information about that particular incident.) The problem with speech like this, the proposal explains, is that it may “negatively affect [an individual’s] perceptions of cultural safety” and therefore jeopardize the “attraction, retention and development of First Nations talent across the public sector.”

At least one public servant previously attempted to informally enforce guidelines like these by suggesting in an opening statement that the witnesses do not consent to having their public testimony shared further on social platforms. “I would note for the record that the defense witnesses appearing before the committee today are pleased to take your questions, but they do not consent to the reposting of our evidence to social media sites or the reproduction of our likenesses for purposes outside the framework of the parliament,” Australia’s Defense Deputy Secretary Celia Perkins, who earned a salary of $534,000 AUD in 2024–25, said during an opening statement. In other words, the people who are pleased to answer questions are not so keen to have their answers scrutinized by the public.

The good news is that the proposed rules almost certainly violate Australia’s constitution, so there’s little chance that these guidelines will be implemented. The hilarious part — which doesn’t qualify as revelatory news — is that bureaucrats are complaining about extremely mild language and general accusations of misconduct. It is also funny that some of the supposedly offensive language includes calling people things like “bigots” and “Nazis,” which is the exact terminology that leftist elites have used for years to describe anyone perceived as holding right-wing political views.

But even if the proposal goes nowhere, and even if it has supplied a fleeting moment of hearty laughter, the extremely bad news is that the proposal exists. The mere consideration of rules like these — let alone writing them down and submitting them in a proposal — is evidence that Australia is suffering from a culture that does not sufficiently value free speech and open debate. Policies that restrict supposedly “offensive” speech are always disastrous, in part because there’s no good framework for measuring and evaluating “offensiveness.” Still, it is particularly alarming that Australia’s bureaucrats want to restrict speech that relates to government activity; the suggestion to disable comments on parliamentary hearing footage is an unabashed attempt to insulate public officials (elected or not) from criticism. Any person who values the right to say things about government activity — or simply the right to say something about someone — should vehemently oppose guidelines of this type.