It has taken less than two weeks for the Coalition government to launch another free-speech culture war, this time over the freedom of sacked rugby star Israel Folau to say on social media that gay people will go to hell. Galvanised by the surge of support from people of faith in the recent election, conservatives such as Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells trumpeted a “new dawn” on religious freedom, and the dumped Nationals backbencher Barnaby Joyce floated the idea of a “Folau’s law” to prevent employers from crafting contracts that could penalise people for their religious beliefs. Senator Eric Abetz told ABC Radio this morning that he saw religious freedom “as a subset of the personal freedom of freedom of speech”. Attorney-General Christian Porter, who is drafting a bill on religious freedom to be introduced in July, pushed back on “Folau’s law” yesterday, but you can bet that won’t be the end of it. 

Meanwhile, a genuine free-speech emergency is unfolding in the UK, where Australian Julian Assange is languishing in Belmarsh prison and facing imminent extradition to the United States, where he has been indicted on 18 charges with a combined jail term of 175 years. The MEAA union and esteemed media outlets, including The Washington Post, have warned that the indictment will have the effect of criminalising journalism. On this, the federal government has been almost completely silent.

During the election campaign, Scott Morrison said that Assange was at the mercy of the British justice system and “won’t be getting special treatment”. Overnight, the ABC reported that Assange was too unwell to attend a scheduled extradition hearing by video link from prison, where he is serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail when he took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in 2012. Last week former foreign minister Bob Carr told Guardian Australia that 175 years in jail was comparable with a death sentence, and that Foreign Minister Marise Payne needed to “protect herself from the charge that she’s failed in her duty to protect the life of an Australian citizen”. Payne put out a statement when Assange was arrested in April, promising that he would receive the usual consular support, but also saying that there would be no further comment as legal proceedings were underway. Her office did not respond to emailed questions from me.

Felicity Ruby, a former Greens staffer who is a friend and supporter of Assange, says the WikiLeaks founder was in maximum-security prison alongside violent criminals, and that he was “obviously very ill if Belmarsh have moved him to the hospital wing of the prison”. She says Payne should intercede on behalf of Assange, the way her predecessor, Julie Bishop, did to bring journalist Peter Greste back from Egypt, and Bob Carr did to rescue lawyer Melinda Taylor from Libya. Ruby says that Payne needs to override the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, former senator George Brandis, who is on the record denouncing Assange in parliament. Ruby hopes that the Australian government can influence UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who is deciding whether Assange will be extradited to the US. “Extradition is political,” she says, rather than judicial, and so far the government is “basically washing their hands of the situation”.

The Coalition’s position on free speech has been absolutely hypocritical. When it comes to real free-speech issues, such as criminalising journalism or defamation law reform, or protest rights, or protection of whistleblowers like Witness K, they are nowhere to be seen. When it comes to hate speech, they suddenly come over all libertarian. There are wrinkles in the Folau case, as was clear from this excellent discussion on Radio National’s Religion and Ethics Report. “Folau’s law” has the hallmarks of the fruitless debate about section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, during which then attorney-general George Brandis insisted that “people have the right to be bigots”. If the Morrison government wants a mandate for bigotry, they’re going to face a fight.

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