Soon we will find out just how far freedom of speech goes in Australia.

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Popular understanding (if that is the right word) has it that people have a broad right to freedom of speech in Australia. Not so. Too many people have been influenced by watching too many American movies and listening to too many US popular outpourings.

There is no individual right to freedom of speech in Australia similar to that of the First Amendment to the US constitution. But Australia has some fairly narrow free-speech elements in its constitution.

Last week, the High Court granted special leave to Pauline Hanson to appeal against a decision that her "piss off back to Pakistan" post was unlawful under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

It started with a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022. Faruqi posted that she could not mourn the leader of a "racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples".

Pauline Hanson replied on X, expressing disgust at Faruqi's comments and writing: "It's clear you're not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan".

The Federal Court held that Hanson's tweet was a breach of the controversial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and ordered her to remove the post and pay Senator Faruqi's legal costs.

One would like to think that these days, Hanson's tweet would not pass the pub test. Even Nationals-defecting One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce, a great proponent of the pub test, campaigned against the deportation of Nades and Priya Murugappan, Tamils who fled Sri Lanka during the civil war and settled in the Central Queensland town of Biloela, and had their two daughters there.

Would Joyce's leader's "piss off back to Pakistan" comment, pass the pub test? One would hope not. It probably would not even pass the Voltaire test: "I disagree with your statement, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

This is not a right-wing/conservative versus left/progressive issue. Other freedom-of-speech challenges are on the way: over NSW legislation that makes it a criminal offence to use the phrase "from the river to the sea" in public protests, or to make Nazi........

© Canberra Times