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Speaker 1: Changes coming to a campus near you. This could be

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Speaker 1: good news. After implementing a free speech and academic freedom

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Speaker 1: policy earlier this year at a Tiger university, more looking

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Speaker 1: to follow suit. Apparently. Free Speech Union has been engaged

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Speaker 1: with the major universities and majority of the universities around

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Speaker 1: the country. The chief executive, Jonathan aliens with us on

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Speaker 1: this Jonathan, very good morning to you, Good morning to now.

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Speaker 1: This is a result of the new government, right, so

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Speaker 1: they're wanting people to put a free speech So you're

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Speaker 1: going around, what's the vibe you're getting off campus?

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Speaker 2: That's not exactly right. Actually, like a lot of universities,

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Speaker 2: most of the universe actually were already working on free

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Speaker 2: speech policies of some kind. They has got their am

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Speaker 2: to do really around the Coalition agreement statement, and what

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Speaker 2: they're doing now is trying to get out ahead of

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Speaker 2: any government agreement requirements. And so as we've been going

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Speaker 2: around for the most part, actually a lot of universities

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Speaker 2: feel a bit annoyed really as a government would have

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Speaker 2: the audacity to try and require them to defend free

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Speaker 2: speech on the campuses. They insist there's no problem at

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Speaker 2: all and there's no requirement for this. If that were

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Speaker 2: the case, I would suggest there would be no problem

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Speaker 2: with requiring it. And the Freefeudge Union has worked on

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Speaker 2: this issue for over three years now and we're really

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Speaker 2: concerned about the same of free speech and academic freem

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Speaker 2: across the university sector or eight universities. But there are

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Speaker 2: some universities in particular that seem to be really dragging

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Speaker 2: the chain. And of course a Victoria University earlier this

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Speaker 2: year gave a pretty poor showing for the defense of

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Speaker 2: free speech, and Massive University is another that kind of

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Speaker 2: consistently seems to let the team down, Which is.

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Speaker 1: Why I was going to ask you, is everyone on

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Speaker 1: the same page on free speech or it's your interpretation

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Speaker 1: of what free speech might be.

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Speaker 2: Well, no one ever says they don't like free speech.

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Speaker 2: But of course there's that famous nome Chompsky quote Stalin

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Speaker 2: all in favor of free speech, you know, so was Gebels,

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Speaker 2: as long as the speech they agreed with, And unfortunately

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Speaker 2: our vice chancellor around the country they seem to have

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Speaker 2: a similar interpretation, and so they say, of course free

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Speaker 2: speech matters, but not people who are sharing disinformation and

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Speaker 2: cert whatever death knew one of that and they're not

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Speaker 2: those that are. You know, even VIC has in its

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Speaker 2: draft principles those who reduce the manna of someone. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's vague stuff like that. What does that even mean?

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Speaker 1: Are we going to get there?

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Speaker 2: Well, if the Free Speech Union has anything to say

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Speaker 2: about it, we will look international examples in Germany and

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Speaker 2: in Quebec and up until recently in the UK gave

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Speaker 2: us a bit of a pass forward. It's a bumpy

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Speaker 2: one and so we're going to continue to work with

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Speaker 2: government and with the vice chancellors. Our ideal solution would

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Speaker 2: be that universities would identify the fact that without free

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Speaker 2: speech they actually have no purpose in existing. Free speech

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Speaker 2: is intrinsic in the idea of education and research and

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Speaker 2: the development of knowledge. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that they

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Speaker 2: are actually going to reform themselves, and we will meet

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Speaker 2: external influence, and by that I mean the government coming

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Speaker 2: in and putting in some requirements in order to remain

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Speaker 2: eligible for their funding.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff. Jonathan, go well with it, Jonathan Ling, who's

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Speaker 1: the pre Speech Union chief executive, and having just threaten

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Speaker 1: the ban chlube from the program, of course, I could

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Speaker 1: probably learn less about free speech to Whom Couldn't I.

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