Remember when you were a little kid and your parents stopped you from using certain words? Ninety nine percent of the time these wound up being swear words and if you were anything like me, getting creative to circumvent these banned words was irresistible.

So you’d parade around sprouting off your new found cleverness, revelling in the fact that you’d found a way to use your brains and stick it to the man.

Of course eventually your parents would snap and still belt the shit out of you but for that brief period of time you’d beaten the biggest authority figures in your life; and you now had the bruises to prove it.

Whilst true, at least for me, this little anecdote highlights that banning words even at a pre-pubescent level is rather futile. Turns out politics isn’t that much different to being a little kid.

The Rudd government quietly brought in new word censorship regulations last week with the idea that “MPs may not use their printing and communications allowance to disparage or denigrate another political party.”

Whilst I think we can all agree that there’s definitely a childish feel to some of the political smear campaigns that are funded by Australian taxpayers, trying to stop this by censoring particular words is going to achieve what exactly?

Here’s the list of words the Rudd team have banned:

Disgraceful
Dreadful
Inept
Mismanagement
Reckless
Recklessly
Incompetence
Incompetent
Irresponsible
Flawed
Unfairly
Disastrous
Neglect
Disregard


Fair enough, there’s definitely nothing positive there. So why should politicians be allowed to use taxpayer funds to slag eachother off then?

Well let’s say if I was to write a letter to the government critical of these new regulations, it’d look something like this:

Dear Mr Rudd,

I read about your recklessly inept banned words list today and must say that your blatant mismanagement in introducing this flawed policy is nothing short of incompetent.

Limiting free speech by means of a flawed banned word list does nothing more then to reinforce the irresponsible incompetence the current Labor government is fast gaining a reputation for.

Like anyone else I think reckless government spending is disgraceful and is a reflection of the neglect of parliamentary policy. However banning words on the otherhand shows a disastrous disregard for free speech in Australia and a horrendous lack for foresight.

With the introduction of these dreadful regulations I can’t help but feel the government is unfairly overstepping it’s bounds when it comes to limiting criticism thrown against it. This is the beginning of a slippery slope of regulation and one I’d rather we didn’t tread in this country.

We should be working towards free speech in Australia, not against it.


With a quick trip to an online thesaurus a ready substitute for each of those words can be found within seconds.

Disgraceful –> Disreputable
Dreadful –> Atrocious
Inept –> Clumsy
Mismanagement –> Blunder
Reckless –> Careless
Recklessly –> Carelessly
Incompetence –> Inability
Incompetent –> Amateur
Irresponsible –> Ill-considered
Flawed –> Crooked
Unfairly –> Dishonestly
Disastrous –> Catastrophic
Neglect –> Disdain
Disregard –> Apathy


A quick substitution and my previously unprintable taxpayer funded letter to Mr Rudd becomes printable.

Dear Mr Rudd,

I read about your carelessly clumsy banned words list today and must say that your blatant blunder in introducing this crooked policy is nothing short of amateur.

Limiting free speech by means of a crooked banned word list does nothing more then to reinforce the ill-considered inability the current Labor government is fast gaining a reputation for.

Like anyone else I think careless government spending is disreputable and is a reflection of the disdain of parliamentary policy. However banning words on the otherhand shows a catastrophic apathy for free speech in Australia and a horrendous lack for foresight.

With the introduction of these atrocious regulations I can’t help but feel the government is dishonestly overstepping it’s bounds when it comes to limiting criticism thrown against it. This is the beginning of a slippery slope of regulation and one I’d rather we didn’t tread in this country.

We should be working towards free speech in Australia, not against it.


Sure it’s a little bit more clumsy to read but word for word the message is still clear. With a bit of a touchup there’s no reason under the new regulations why, as a politician I couldn’t continue to send out taxpayer funded political angst to my electorate.

So what happens now, does the government actively engage in a cat and mouse game and expand the list as politicians flex their thesaurusian muscles? At what point do you draw the line and realise that despite half the dictionary being on your banned word list people are still going to find ways to be critical of you?

Whether literal, verbal or even digital in the form of internet censorship ban lists rarely work due to the relative easy of circumvention. Yet here we are as a nation staring down the barrel of yet another stupidly ineffective censorship policy.

Welcome to the Rudd government; if we can’t control it, we’ll ban it.

1. Was Kevin Rudd swearing that much of a big deal?
2. Why no outcry over Kevin Rudd's 'Indonesian Solution'?
3. Rudd & the UN: Putting personal gain before the nation
4. Rudd is sending out mixed messages to asylum seekers
5. Stephen Conroy admits internet filter is useless