Peter Dutton, Amal Clooney and Christian Porter. Bridget McKenzie. Salvatore Vasta.

“Cry Freedom” echoes through the wide, brown land as reptiles and hacks try to throw off the shackles of oppression. Some of them have been, or still are, Moloch employees whose newspapers cheered on the slate of overwrought post-September 11 national security laws that bit by bit tightened the noose around the reporting of politically sensitive matters that had received the green elephant stamp of “top secret”.

Flummoxed readers choked on their kippers and kedgeree when reading in The Catholic Boys Daily that Benito Dutton was now the paper’s No.1 public enemy. It was even reporting human rights celebrity Amal Clooney in a warm and glowing light.

The paper wants “modernised” press freedom, with limits on what the wallopers can search and seize. Do you think it would be so incandescent if it were only the ABC that was raided and not the home of a Sunday Telegraph reporter?

This is the same paper that cheers every time the ABC or the Nine newspapers suffer a loss in the defamation courts and was a standard-bearer in the war against a charter of rights.

Schmo Morrison would love to have laws that give News Corp everything it wants. The trouble is overarching media protections would also benefit those enemies of the people, the ABC and the old Fairfax mastheads. The net result is nothing will happen.

Dutton has spoken. Trying to keep as straight a face as is possible for a starchy, tuber-like subterranean vegetable, he said, “Nobody is above the law.” This pulled into line his party room supporter, AttorneyGeneral The Christian Porter, who at one stage was wandering off script saying that there is “absolutely no suggestion” journalists were being targeted by the police.

The Christian misspoke, apparently because of the “limited information” he had at the time.

Chris-mas in July

Thank goodness Chuckles Henderson hosted a session last week at The Sydney Institute to sort out what is at stake, starring two of Lord Moloch’s most celebrated thinkers: Chris (Fritz) Mitchell and L’il Kris Kenny.

The topic was “The Media and Freedom of Speech – Two Views”, whereupon Chris and Kris spent a good deal of time agreeing with each other, with Kenny reliving the glory days as a bag carrier for Bunter Downer and warning against “recklessness dressed up as journalism”.

It was not easy to work out the line from the old German who edited The Catholic Boys Daily for so long. He thought it was important to reform 18C, do something about the “persecution” of Bill Leak and give Israel Folau the religious freedom he craves.

Both agreed that the current fuss was overblown – Plod was merely after more information about the sources and no journalist would end up in the slammer.

With that sorted, let’s move on.

Phone on the range

The Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill is currently before federal parliament with remarkably scant inspection by the hacks, despite its alarming authoritarian overreach.

The legislation establishes criminal offences, punishable with up to five years’ porridge, for anyone who incites trespass, theft or damage on agricultural land, which is broadly defined to include farms, abattoirs, feedlots, wineries, orchards, fishmongers, apiaries, plantation forests and woodchip export facilities.

This is all covered by state law, but to get in on the act the Commonwealth is relying on the telecommunications power in the constitution.

Under the bill, offenders do not even need an “intention” to interfere with agricultural activities. All they need is a mobile phone. Those who post words or photos on social media in support of animal activism also are in the frame.

Since most of the TV footage of animal cruelty has been supplied by activist groups, any exemption for

A Current Affair or those “working in a professional capacity as a journalist” is basically meaningless.

It’s Cockies Corner’s attempt to trump One Nation. Already this week we had the minister for agriculture, Bridget McKenzie, warning of dire consequences for farmers if citizens eat vegan chicken or beef burgers made with soy and peas.

If The Christian gets this bill through, there’s little to stop the Commonwealth creating new federal offences for things already covered by the states – only with much stiffer penalties.

Who would have believed the framers of the constitution contemplated that federal parliament would protect beekeepers from militant vegans who sent telegrams?

CPI rises

There was a top-table line-up at the New South Wales Parliament House