Efforts to combat far-right extremism must not curtail civil liberties, Victorian inquiry hears

Michael Stanton, president of Liberty Victoria, told the upper house’s legal and social issues committee that any reform needed to ensure free speech was balanced with people’s right to live without discrimination and violence.

“We need to make sure that in responding to those confronting scenes in the Grampians … or the erection of gallows outside parliament, that we do not have a legislative response that throws the baby out with the bathwater,” Stanton said.

“Sometimes that involves tolerating things that we find offensive or humiliating.