The Press Council is out of control. Free speech is costing too much Freaked by the Gillard Government's threats to muzzled the free press and punish unfriendly papers in particular, newspaper bosses strengthened the Press Council, now under the control of a man of the Left. That turns out to be a mistake. I've noted the Press Council's offensive restriction on journalists calling the boat people "illegal immigrants." I've mentioned my experiences when discussing the pause in global warming. Dennis Shanahan describes his own troubles - a perfect example of how the process is the punishment: ... the press council ... received three complaints - some of which were based purely on remarks on Twitter, and also included some complaints about the ABC and SBS, two of which were subsequently dropped on the morning of a formal hearing - and deemed them worthy of investigation... For months journalists and lawyers were tied up in written responses, legal advice and trips to Sydney to confer and attend a round-table headed by Disney. The hearing against me was mixed up with complaints about The Daily Telegraph and the judgment dragged on through Christmas into February. The result from the APC after a nine-month investigation, enormous expenditure, legal advice and cross-examination over the remaining complaint was that there was no transgression in my reporting and that the only journalistic sin committed was to use double quotation marks on the website instead of single quotes or no quotes at all. The Australian is now wide awake to the dangerous rod it created for its own back: Yet the APC now seems to have been emboldened by this history and is in danger of misconceiving its role. It should be an arch-defender of press freedom and robust contests of ideas. But instead of addressing errors of fact or inadequate provision for redress or clarification, it is seeking to arbitrate matters of public taste, political correctness and personal offence. Current chairman Julian Disney has a background in academia and social services policy - he headed ACOSS as a public advocate. While he is well placed to judge matters of fact and fairness, he is no better placed than any other individual to describe or define the boundaries of taste or offence. Newspapers already have effective and efficient arbiters of such intangibles - their readers. Yet Professor Disney and his council might have it otherwise. In December they adjudicated against an opinion piece by James Delingpole ("Wind farm scam a huge cover-up") published in The Australian on May 3, 2012. The article appeared on our opinion pages, clearly relaying the writer's strongly held views, yet the APC found it had erred in likening green-energy subsidies to a "kind of government-endorsed Ponzi scheme" and caused offence with a ribald quote from an anonymous farmer. "It was fully justifiable in the public interest to convey the intensity of feeling by some opponents of wind farms," ruled the council, "but that goal did not require quoting the reference to paedophilia." If any authority decrees what metaphors are allowed in order to convey personal opinions, or rules out any quotes it deigns offensive to one group or another, then free speech can only be in mortal peril. What is acceptable around Professor Disney's dining table might not pass muster elsewhere, or vice versa. How can anyone judge? Who is to judge? Readers, as always, we prefer to defer to your collective judgment.