A Boring Dystopia

Well in Australia whistle blowers don't haha. Authoritarian shithole lacking town squares to prevent assembly that we are.

But it's not just for pollies, like if I'm before Parliament presenting something or say making a submission in favour of legalising weed or whatever and I admit to a crime I'm also protected. In theory Parliament should always have the best information to make decisions and people there can't present info fearlessly if they can be arrested mid speech (or when they walk out the door).

It's a reaction to some of the horrible stuff authoritarians used in the past so I get why. It doesn't tend to be used that way, and that's a problem of implementation and culture (and that Westminster representative democracy isn't really very Democratic at all). So we do have the same treatment as pollies but not the same resources, it's a bridges and rich and poor thing and I think that reflects problems in our legal system.

Tweeking defamation for public figures is probably my preferred solution. Like I don't think rich powerful people with platforms should be able to sue random twitter users for getting too fired up in their expression of frustration. Or that stuff like the Jordies situation can happen at all is nonsense. If I show up in Parliament and say "I to sodomy, legalise it I'm normal" (btw hand jobs and vibrators are sodomy, we're all sodomites :p) and someone says "naeva admits to being sodomite" in the paper the next day, and can make a convincing case that publicising my words is in the public interest well then fair cop I say.

The bar for proving defamation is already high enough that there's no risk of accidentally chilling honest political speech.

Not in Australia, the bar for defo is stupidly low. The defendant basically has to prove their innocence. The law is fucked and the new "public interest" defence failed its first test in court. Defamation law is abused by the rich and powerful to suppress free speech and silence critics. Even if you can successfully prove substantial truth or genuinely held opinion you'll still be ruined by all the legal costs.