Comment - The Hon. Michael Kirby
This outstanding documentary explains how liberty requires strict controls to be placed on governmental "guardians’’. The attempt in 1950 to ban the Communist Party and to curtail the civil rights of communists in Australia was ultimately rejected by the High Court of Australia and then by a referendum of the people. Here, told in the words of those who spied and those who were spied upon, is a vivid story. It is a very Australian tale of how the people and their judges responded when government acted in a disproportional way. Every Australian schoolchild should be instructed in this story. It is a great Australian parable which every succeeding generation needs to know about, to remember and to repeat.
The Hon Michael Kirby AC, CMG. Former Justice of the High Court of Australia’’ February 2014