An Australian mother has won a long-running free speech battle against the government’s online censorship chief over an X post exposing a Melbourne primary school for running a “queer club”.
Celine Baumgarten, who made the post in May 2024, successfully challenged a takedown notice from Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in February last year, only for the controversial unelected bureaucrat to attempt to overturn the ruling in the Federal Court.
On Wednesday a full bench of three Federal Court justices ruled there was no error in the Administrative Review Tribunal’s original finding that there were serious concerns about the eSafety Office’s practices, including the issuing of takedown notices it claimed couldn’t be legally challenged because they were “informal”.
Ms Baumgarten, who previously described the appeal as a pointless waste of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, told Noticer News the ruling was a victory for freedom of speech and parental rights in Australia.
“This is a massive win for free speech. Parents should feel comfortable criticising inappropriate content in Australian schools, and I feel honoured to have influenced many others to start speaking out,” Ms Baumgarten said.
“It’s become pretty clear that the eSafety office exists only as an ideologically driven powerhouse with a bottomless pit of taxpayer funds, it’s about time it is shut down entirely.”
Ms Baumgarten’s post, which was un-blocked by X after her tribunal win, revealed that Montmorency South Primary School was running a club for students in Years 3 to 6 who “identify as LGBTQIA+”, and used “gender inclusive” language models, resulting in students not being referred to as boys or girls.
🚨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
She was supported at the Tribunal and at the Federal Court by the Free Speech Union of Australia, and co-director Dr Reuben Kirkham said the decision meant Ms Inman Grant would need to stop issuing the informal notices, and called on her to resign.
“Last year, the Administrative Review Tribunal Tribunal has exposed the eSafety Commissioner’s scheme of sending “informal takedown orders” that can’t be reviewed,” Dr Kirkham said.
“The Tribunal and now the Chief Justice of the Federal Court has made it clear that these decisions can be reviewed, despite the Commissioner instructing Senior Counsel to try and argue otherwise.“
“The decision is about what we contend is a scheme that the eSafety Commissioner uses to evade scrutiny and accountability. 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 practice must now stop.
“The decision of the Full Bench of the Federal Court is a major victory for both Celine and the Free Speech Union of Australia. It also means that the eSafety Commissioner will need to radically revise their operations to comply with the law. We would also invite Ms Inman Grant to resign.”
Last month it was revealed that Ms Inman-Grant, who was born in the US and previously worked for Twitter, was given a $74,000 pay rise and now earns $536,000 per year despite being embroiled in a series of lawsuits and controversies while trying to censor global social media platforms in recent years.
In September she threatened to fine X $X825,000 per day unless it removed 23 posts containing CCTV footage of the brutal murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a black career criminal in the US, sparking global outrage about censorship overreach, is responsible for bringing in mandatory search engine age checks, and coordinated with a shadowy global “advertising cartel” to silence free speech.
She was also criticised by Elon Musk for her failed legal attempts to impose a global censorship regime by forcing X to delete videos she claimed were illegal, and last year threatened to fine X $800,000 over a post calling a biological female a woman.
Header image: Left, Celine Baumgarten (Instagram). Right, Julie Inman Grant (Facebook).
