Our mission is to protect and promote free speech in Australia generally, and to go into bat for our members when their free speech rights are threatened.
Our core values are:
1. The promotion of Free Speech as the most fundamental of rights: We stand for freedom of speech, conscience, and intellectual enquiry, which we regard as the essential pillars of a free society - the foundational freedoms on which all others depend. We believe that human beings generally cannot flourish outside a free society, which means they cannot flourish in the absence of free speech.
2. The protection of free speech from opposing cultural trends and increasing legal impingements: free speech is currently under assault across all institutions and in particular where it matters most, such as in education, media and the arts. The aim of the Free Speech Union is to restore and protect free speech from cultural trends that de-value it and laws that infringe it.
3. Non-partisan and non-political: Free Speech rights should be universal. As such we take no political stance or view on the content of people's speech. We take no position on the validity of others' opinions, political or otherwise, whether expressed in speech, writing, performance, or in another form. However, we condemn and therefore will not defend speech that causes physical harm, such as incitements to violence.
4. Defend the Free Speech rights of others, even the most unpopular or disagreeable opinions: We expect our members not to restrict others' Free Speech and will insist that our members and those we come to the defence of will also defend the Free Speech of others, even those they vehemently disagree with.
5. Reclaim Larrikinism: We recognise that for Australians free speech is an innate part of our cultural identity. We hope to make Australia a place where the Larrikin can flourish once again.