High Education Support (Freedom of Speech) Bill - Senate Speech

I rise in support of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020. I must say the word 'freedom' gets thrown around a lot. I sometimes think it's thrown around without any thought for the true meaning of the significance of the word and its impact because of how hard it has been for us to get the freedoms that we have today and the sacrifices that have been made to obtain those freedoms.

When I hear the word 'freedom', I often go back to that movie of recent times, Braveheart, about William Wallace, who was so elegantly played by Mel Gibson. There's a great scene at the end where William Wallace is being executed, and he yells out, 'Freedom!' There is a lot of criticism about whether the film is all correct or not, but what is true is that William Wallace was, indeed, executed in the name of what he thought was freedom. I'm going to read out to you the exact details of his death because I think it is worth remembering how hard fought for our freedoms have been and how hard we need to fight to make sure we keep them.

Read the full speech at: https://wp.me/pbfyTP-jQ