Australian conservatives claim that “woke” students and leftist academics are creating an Orwellian atmosphere, silencing honest academic debate. They present themselves as the guardians of free speech on campus. In June, education minister Alan Tudge warned universities that if they did not implement the government’s preferred code of conduct, ostensibly designed to protect freedom of speech, the courts would make them do so.

The code to which Trudge was referring is the product of a 2018–19 review into freedom of speech and academic freedom commissioned by his predecessor and carried out by chief justice Robert French. The French review came after a right-wing culture war around freedom of speech on university campuses and a series of reports on academic freedom launched by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a right-wing libertarian think tank.

The Australian right’s strategy is almost identical to that of its counterparts in Britain. Having overseen years of disastrous cuts to higher education, the Coalition is now waging a war on academic freedom. Their goal is to clamp down on left-wing speech and activism, marginalize progressive academics, and push university education to the right.