Frost Down Under Our young satirists can count themselves lucky
that they practise here and not in Australia. In a recent case which has received no attention in Britain three young men in their early twenties were sent to gaol for publishing an obscene libel. The case concerned the magazine Oz—founded last year as an Australian equivalent of Private Eye—and the University of New South Wales student newspaper Tharunka. Both publications contained run-of-the-mill student vulgarity which would excite only local comment in Britain. The nearest thing to a piece of political satire was a reference to an Australian spy case in which a Russian was trapped by a security agent who became his mistress. The article went on to des- cribe Brigadier Spry, the head of Commonwealth Security, as 'Australia's most successful pimp.' The magistrate found this an 'obscene libel against a public figure.' He went on to gaol the editors of Oz, Richard Neville and Richard Walsh, for six months with hard labour. A car- toonist who had drawn for both papers, Martin Sharp, was given four months. I hope the
Australian Minister of Justice is taking a close look at these sentences, which manage at the same time to be both tough and fatuous.
Previous page
