‘The Use and Abuse of Sedition’

The article examines fragments of the history of sedition and like prosecutions in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America in the twentieth century. It argues that, as long as the various sedition offences remain, governments will inevitably be tempted to use them improperly, especially when highly unpopular opinions are expressed, that the law of sedition is anachronistic and an unjustified interference with freedom of expression, and that abolition of sedition offences at both Commonwealth and State level is therefore to be preferred to any attempt to “modernise” the crime of sedition.