EXCLUSIVE
A right-wing British author claims Australia is surrendering its joke-making to the “woke mind virus” and that freedom of speech in the country is under threat.
Toby Young, 60, made the comments after completing a nationwide tour of Australia last week.
Young wrote How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which was made into a Hollywood film in 2008 starring Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox.
Young, the founder of the Daily Sceptic, which publishes pieces challenging government positions on climate change and Covid, also founded the Free Speech Union.
He says the union, which has branches in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, protects the right to express views – across the political spectrum – against attempts to restrict them by the “radical progressive left”.
Young told Daily Mail Australia that the country was losing its famed free spirit and anti-authority bravado, and had become much more close-minded than it was decades ago.
“Nowadays it’s like Crocodile Dundee is languishing in a prison cell awaiting trial,” he said. “He’s somewhere in Victoria awaiting trial for hate speech.
‘The rise of wokeism has led to a puritanical intolerance within the left, diminishing the value of freedom of speech.’
British anti-censorship lawyer Toby Young said Australia was losing its right to free speech
Young argued that freedom of speech is in “serious trouble in the Western world” because America has “exported the woke mind virus.”
“We are seeing the gradual spread of the woke religion, the great awakening, through the media, universities, governments, civil servants, the museums and the heritage sector, the arts and it is all very depressing,” he said.
“And here it looks like you have no protection at all.”
Young said Australia’s Online Safety Act “has given your eSafety Commissioner the power to effectively run amok”.
Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commissioner, recently made an unsuccessful attempt to force X to remove the footage of the Wakeley Church stabbing from its platform globally.
“That was an extraordinary overreach by the eSafety Commissioner to require that not just a video in Australia, but globally of X be removed,” Young said.
‘That’s indicative of how limitless the judgmental ambitions of people like Julie Inman Grant are.
“They want to purge social media of any dissenting or heretical content that challenges their radical progressive views, under the guise of protecting people.”
“What does she think gives her the authority to make such a demand?”
Young also criticized the Albanian government’s proposed laws to combat misinformation and online disinformation.
He argued that “we all know” what misinformation and disinformation “really means.”
“It’s about any opinion that members of the radical progressive left disagree with,” he said.
“The fact that the losing party in the Voice referendum blamed misinformation and disinformation shows how terrifying the anti-misinformation bill would be for freedom of expression in Australia.”
Young argued that freedom of speech is in ‘serious trouble in the western world’ because America has exported ‘the woke mind virus’ (pictured: Sydneysiders in Bondi)
Young said that today an example of Australian pranksterism like the film character Crocodile Dundee “would be locked up in Victoria for hate speech”
Young said he was a victim of cancel culture in 2018, when then British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him as non-executive director of the Office for Students regulator.
Young’s teaching qualifications were established when he founded the West London Free School, the first school of its kind independent of the education authority, but receiving government funding.
Young said the directorship was a “useful job,” that he was unpaid and that he met with the other directors only four times a year.
“That was an invitation to criminal archaeologists to review everything I’ve said or written since 1987,” Young said.
‘Being a professional journalist all my life, it didn’t take long for me to find Tutankhamun’s tomb full of offensive content.
“After eight days of leading the news during the ‘fire watch,’ I resigned and apologized for some of the childish things I said late at night on X.
‘I thought that would put a line under it, but it had the opposite effect. It was like throwing raw beef at a school of piranhas, there was blood in the water.
“They came in for me in four other jobs, so I ended up having to resign from five other positions. So I was definitely canceled.”
It was these events that inspired him to found his Free Speech Union, which takes up the cause of other people who have been cancelled, fired or banned for expressing their opinions.
“When I recovered, I thought, what I really needed when this happened to me was a professional organization that could give me good advice. Should I apologize or is it just going to get worse?” Young said.
‘Should I go out and defend myself, or will that just make the story longer?
‘Is there anyone else who has experienced this? Can you put me in touch with someone who can support me?’
‘But there was no organization like that. That’s why I decided to set up the Free Speech Union.’