Public servants must be able to have
Job uncertainty stops many from using their right to free speech, says Richard Griggs
FOR
two years now the Tasmanian public service has been drafting guidelines to outline to its staff what is and isn’t regarded as acceptable behaviour online.
Yet within 24 hours of the draft guidelines being made public, Premier Will Hodgman had ordered that work start over again.
He asked for the guidelines to be rewritten and said he would not be signing off on any guideline until it “ensures fairness, meets community standards and allows people within the public sector to communicate freely”.
Put another way, he thought the guidelines were unfair, did not meet community standards and did not allow public servants to communicate freely.
That’s quite a damning assessment with which Civil Liberties Australia agrees.
We support the action taken by the Premier in ordering the rewrite.
At the state election this year the Premier pledged his party’s support for “the most basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy — the freedom of thought, worship, speech and association”. True to his word he has now stood up for freedom of speech.
The draft guidelines dramatically overreached into free speech by warning all public servants, regardless of seniority or role, against criticising the government or opposition.
This warning extended to what public servants said online in their own time outside of work hours.
Failure to comply with the guidelines could result in termination of employment.
Just imagine if a teacher were sacked for expressing their opinion against current government policies to address homelessness.
Or a nurse sacked for venturing their thoughts on traffic congestion and the current government plans to tackle it?
These would be outrageous attacks on free speech, however they are actions that would have been supported by the proposed guidelines.
A fair policy would have as its starting point a statement that public servants have the same rights to engage in the political process as other members of the community. It would clarify, however, that public servants also have a special responsibility to not prejudice their ability to do the job they are paid to do. It would then give clear guidance and practical examples.
The policy might say that a good teacher who critiques, on their own time, government action on homelessness remains a good teacher who we want teaching our kids.
It could say that a welltrained nurse who has contrary views to the government on the best way to combat traffic congestion still remains well trained and someone we want looking after patients in our hospital.
The message that public servants have the same rights to engage in the political process is a very important one. It is important because we hear stories from public servants who choose not to engage in debate due to uncertainty about what they can and can’t say. Ultimately we all lose out, democracy included, if not all views are able to be expressed for fear of getting the sack.
If, as reported, the guidelines are the result of two years of work, there remains two important questions.
Firstly, how were the guidelines allowed to progress so far without taking account of free speech?
Secondly, looking to the future, how can this mistake and the wasted time and effort be avoided next time around?
The reason the guidelines were not assessed against the right to free speech is that Tasmania does not have a Human Rights Act which lists basic rights of citizens.
Currently there is no minimum human rights benchmark or yardstick against which to measure proposed new policies or laws.
Therefore, to avoid similar mistakes in the future, we need a new law which lists all the basic human rights which government need to factor into all decisions.
A Tasmanian Human Rights Act would lead to better and more robust decision-making. This is good for the community. It would also avoid embarrassing mistakes like we have seen in this episode.