Sea Change ?

It's only a personal impression, based on the dubious evidence of surfing other people's blogs, but it seems to me that one of the great changes that has come over Australia in the past six months is that people do feel able to speak a little more freely and a little more openly about what they feel. In a sense the pall of censorship on certain issues has been lifted. I think we were facing the possibility of becoming a more narrow and restrictive society and that free speech could not be taken so easily for granted as we might in our calmer moments have assumed. I think there has been that change and I think that’s a very good thing. I welcome the fact that people can now talk about certain things without living in fear of being branded as a slave of political correctness or as un-Australian or any of the other expressions that have been too carelessly flung around in this country whenever somebody has disagreed with what somebody has said.

Correction: I was wrong:

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says the Prime Minister should reveal whether the independent investigation will go ahead.

"John Howard's got a responsibility today to the Australian people [to] stand up in the Australian Parliament and just level with people, use a bit of straight talking and say whether he's going to have [an] independent commission of inquiry or not," he said.

"This going around the backdoor and letting the story dribble out I think is frankly un-Australian."

Thanks a lot Kev.