The political uses and abuses of sedition : the trial of Brian Cooper

This article discusses several important articles that have been published, over the last 15 years, on the political misuse of sedition laws in Australia, particularly during the opening years of the so-called Cold War, from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. This work has laid bare a damning record of successive governments, both Labor and Coalition, in exploiting sedition prosecutions to harass, disrupt, vilify and, in some instances, jail, political dissenters. The exploration of this record clearly has renewed significance in the context of the indefinite 'war on terror,' which has seen the revamping and incorporation of sedition legislation in the 2005 Anti-Terrorism Act.