George Brandis (“Kirk’s death exposes dual hypocrisies”, September 22) has made it clear that the fallout from Charlie Kirk’s killing has really exposed the double standards on free speech.The left kicked things off with cancel culture and no-platforming, and now Donald Trump’s crowd are firing back with their own bans and pressure on critics. The analogy to Animal Farm is apt – both sides looking different, but acting the same. Most Aussies wouldn’t have known much about Kirk before his assassination, but it’s forced us to take another look at the mess in US politics. Not so long ago here, you could have friends, no matter if they voted Labor or Liberal. But now, like in the US, people with opposing political views struggle to get on. The divide is getting worse everywhere. Brandis is correct about Australia needing to hold on to classical liberal values. Remarkably, New York, the bastion of capitalism, may soon elect a socialist mayor promising rent control, free public transport and higher taxes on the wealthy. At a practical level, with polarisation deepening, the US is probably not a great place to visit right now. John Kempler, Rose Bay
George “people have a right to be bigots” Brandis seems to draw a moral equivalency between the “radical right” who want their bigotry to be enshrined in law and the “radical left” who want bigotry to be socially rejected and equality, diversity and inclusion to be promoted. In the US, bigotry was protected by white privilege, and now that privilege is being withdrawn, the right is turning Charlie Kirk into a white counterpoint to Martin Luther King Jr to restore its privilege. Bigotry is not just an “opinion” or “free speech” but is morally repulsive and should be recognised as such. Neil Ormerod, Kingsgrove
It is fitting that George Brandis cites George Orwell claiming that American liberals have made freedom of speech a dirty word. Tellingly, Brandis neglects to mention that humorists, political opinion makers and everyday Americans are being put out of work, abused and censored as Trump’s administration actively stifles their First Amendment right to express themselves. All while Fox News hosts call for homeless people to be killed, and elected Republican officials call for transgender people to be institutionalised. Orwellian indeed, Mr Brandis. Nick Andrews, Bellevue Hill
We are watching the world’s largest democracy being brought to its knees by the orange buffoon, but George Brandis knows where the real fault lies. While Trump suggests it’s illegal to criticise him, and his attorney-general says she’ll go after anyone who speaks ill of Charlie Kirk (a man who spoke ill of everyone, especially if you were black or female), Brandis fantasises that it’s the conservatives who are the champions of free speech. Memo to Mr Brandis: Since the days of book burnings, cancel culture has been a creation of the conservative right. The collapse of civilisation we are witnessing in America is the work of the conservative right. Those Nazis on the streets of Australia – the conservative right. Never mind references to Animal Farm, it’s the other George’s other book, 1984, that Brandis seems to take a page from. Phil Bradshaw, Naremburn
Like so many of his fellow Liberal Party elders, George Brandis credits Robert Menzies with the creation of what he calls the “classical liberalism” of our political discourse. This was the same Menzies who, as attorney-general in 1934, sought to deny entry to Australia by Czech journalist Egon Kisch, who had travelled here to warn against the rise of Hitler and fascism in Europe. Sixteen years later, the same Menzies, as prime minister, legislated to outlaw the Communist Party, an assault on free speech and “classical liberalism” that was soon ruled invalid by the High Court. Undeterred, Menzies then sought to amend the Constitution to legalise his ban, a proposal voters rejected at a referendum in 1951. What Brandis now deplores as “cancel culture” has its primary sources in conservatism, not on the left. David Salter, Hunters Hill
George Brandis is right that neither left nor right has allowed free speech when applied to their political or ideological opponents, highlighting the horseshoe theory that they might resemble each other. However, the cancel culture imposed by the “left” is a grassroots activity that free citizens impose based on their ideological and value-based perspectives of events. This should not be equated with what is happening in the US, where this cancellation is not an action by a few citizens but instead it is being imposed by the state (through the president), using its massive machinery and resources to threaten people’s livelihoods by doxxing whoever is critical of deifying Kirk or Trump, taking comedians off-air and threatening journalists of allied countries and Australia with “punitive measures in response” for recognising Palestine. This is a false equivalence and must be identified. Manbir Singh Kohli, Pemulwuy
