Here is where the controversy over Tim Wilson’s appointment to the HRC overlaps with the controversy in the United States over Duck Dynasty:

Our current social understanding of free speech is this: You can speak your mind freely if you have a large enough army of supporters to pressure a company [and in Australia the Government itself] into resisting pressure from a large army of Speech Police.

This is not free speech. This is free speech as an exceptional thing — only for those with a wide, passionate following — not as a routine thing.

A&E is a cowardly organization. First it puts Robertson on ‘indefinite hiatus’ under pressure from one group of people, then it puts him back on the air because they’ve been pressured by a somewhat larger group of people.

At no point did they trip over anything resembling a general principle of speech free from ‘consequences’ of broad application.