An Australian woman has won a legal battle against Australia’s controversial online censorship chief over an X post drawing attention to a “queer club” at a Melbourne primary school.
Celine Baumgarten, supported by the Free Speech Union of Australia, went to the Administrative Review Tribunal to appeal a notice to take down the post from eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, and on Wednesday Justice Emilios Kyrou ruled in her favour.
The eSafety office tried to claim that they only issued an “informal notice” to take down the post and that therefore it could not be legally challenged, but Justice Kyrou said that approach raised serious concerns about the Commissioner’s practices.
🚨WOW🚨
It was brought to my attention that there was a certain kind of club being run in a Melbourne Primary School, so I looked into it.A “Queer Club” was started in May 2023 at Montmorency South Primary School for students in Years 3-6.
For those overseas, that means… pic.twitter.com/Ws0PjPPDU6— Celine against The Machine 🇭🇲 (@celinevmachine_) May 29, 2024
Ms Baumgarten, whose post revealed that Montmorency South Primary School was running a club for students in Years 3 to 6 who “identify as LGBTQIA+”, told Noticer News she hoped the decision would allow greater scrutiny of radical gender ideology being pushed in Australian schools.
“This is a wonderful victory for free speech in these uncertain times, as it proves even the eSafety Commissioner herself isn’t above the law,” she said.
“I’m also hoping this can help reignite the conversation around how gender ideology being pushed in our schools.”
Her post, from May 29 last year, also revealed that the school used “gender inclusive” language models, resulting in students not being referred to as boys or girls.
She said in the post that “children should not be learning about sexualities at such a young, impressionable age” and in her video she mentioned that the club was facilitated by a teacher named Trish “Patsy” Marmo, who openly pushes far-left gender ideology on her social media accounts.
“I did not intend to abuse or offend anyone. The purpose of the video was to draw attention to a rapidly growing concern in this country – queer clubs in primary schools,” Ms Baumgarten, who describes herself as an Australian patriot, told Noticer News at the time.
Dr Reuben Kirkham, Co-Director of the Free Speech Union of Australia, said the decision made it clear there were serious concerns about the existing practices of the eSafety office, and that Ms Inman Grant should consider resigning.
“The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has exposed the eSafety Commissioner’s scheme of sending ‘informal takedown orders’ that can’t be reviewed. The Tribunal has made it clear that these decisions can be reviewed, despite the Commissioner instructing a Kings Counsel to try and argue otherwise,” he said.
“The decision is about what we contend is a scheme that the eSafety Commissioner uses to evade scrutiny. eSafety claim they only issued an ‘informal notice’ and that it can’t be legally challenged. This is a tactic they have been using in 99% of their cases to try and avoid accountability for their censorious behaviour. In other words, the eSafety Commissioner is trying to avoid all accountability. This decision shows they are not above the law.”
“This was the first hearing of the new Guidance and Appeals Panel, which was established to prevent systematic misuse of power by the state like Robodebt. Given what it has ruled, surely the eSafety Commissioner’s practice of sending informal notices cannot continue. We hope the Commissioner will now do the right thing and withdraw her unlawful censorship scheme. She may also wish to consider resigning.”
As a result of the ruling the FSU has made available an online tool allowing Australian X users to see if the eSafety Commissioner has censored any of their posts. The tool makes a free legal request under the Freedom of Information Act, and the Commissioner is obliged to respond within 28 days.
Ms Baumgarten’s case is the latest in a series of legal losses for Ms Inman Grant, who recently attended a secretive AI summit without informing the public.
Ms Inman Grant, an unelected American-born bureaucrat with a taxpayer-funded salary of more then $445,000 a year, in October abandoned her final attempt to force X to stop Australians from seeing videos of the alleged Islamic terrorist stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.
That development came three months after she aborted attempts to force X to delete the videos after losing a bid to keep an injunction on the platform over the posts the previous month. The case sparked a war of words with X owner Elon Musk, and backlash from the Australian public.
In July Ms Inman Grant was caught spreading misinformation about “violent extremism” and racist abuse, and later that month critics called her her sacking after she made a biased speech about Donald Trump.
And a month before that she admitted there was a conflict of interest when her office acted on the request of a “transgender” extremist to demand X remove a post about her made by Canadian activist Billboard Chris.
Billboard Chris’s case will be held from March 31 in Melbourne.
A statutory review of the Online Safety Act, released on Tuesday by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland – the architect of the government’s failed misinformation bill – made 67 recommendations to strengthen Australia’s “online safety” laws and expand the powers of the eSafety Commissioner.
The recommendations include making informal takedown requests legal and legitimate, civil penalties for users who post “cyber abuse”, increased civil penalties for social media platforms and non-compliance with removal notices, and requirements for social media services to collect user phone numbers and provide them to eSafety.
The report also recommends the the regulator move to a Commission model of governance and be known as the “Online Safety Commission”.
Header image: Left, Celine Baumgarten. Right, Julie Inman Grant.
