He Won. The Speech Police Won Too.

A man wins his legal battle, then shuts down his public commentary. That is the ugly picture emerging from Bernard Gaynor’s latest account of his marathon struggle against complaints brought by a man whom Wikipedia describes as a "lawfare activist, serial litigant, and LGBTIQA+ activist."

The proceedings end, but the costs keep coming, so the speaker leaves the field.

In an update dated 12 October, Gaynor says the latest proceedings against him were thrown out and the court awarded costs against his complainant. He puts the total at 43 unsuccessful complaints over more than a decade. Yet the most consequential announcement appears near the end of his message: his social media pages are already shut down, and he intends to revamp or remove his website.

“I am sick of court,” he writes.

Those five words should be nailed above the entrance to every parliament contemplating another expansion of speech restrictions. They describe what happens when the freedom to express an opinion comes attached to years of legal combat. A citizen can prevail and still reach the point where silence looks like the only affordable option.

According to Gaynor, the latest dispute involved two complaints concerning the same commentary about a Brisbane pride parade and a Greens council candidate. He says the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board referred both complaints onwards, leaving him defending simultaneous proceedings over a single expression of opinion.

Consider the burden that creates. Every fresh proceeding demands attention, legal advice, paperwork and money. A complaint does not need to produce a successful judgment to consume the respondent’s life. The defence bill arrives regardless.

Gaynor’s earlier battles are documented. Following ann unsuccessful High Court bid, Gaynor’s complainant faced an approximately $81,000 costs bill. He sought a NSW government payment to cover it, but was refused. The litigation had already travelled through the country’s highest court years before this latest chapter.

Now, seven years later, Gaynor is announcing another victory and explaining why he wants out.

That is the story Australia’s politicians need to confront. They sell speech regulation through comforting promises about protection and respect. The respondent encounters the machinery behind those promises: investigations, referrals, hearings, solicitors and the possibility of another complaint arriving after the previous one ends.

The chilling effect extends beyond the person receiving the paperwork. Everyone watching learns a lesson. A political opinion can become a financial liability. A religious conviction can bring years of demands on your time. Speaking publicly can expose your family to a burden no election campaign or parliamentary speech ever mentions.

Gaynor says he wants to concentrate on being a better husband and father. That is an entirely understandable decision. It also demonstrates the pressure these proceedings exert. Family life becomes the thing a speaker must recover after defending his right to participate in public debate.

His account deserves scrutiny. The NSW Government and its jumped-up kangaroo court of a discrimination tribunal need to answer questions about why they put a man who had done nothing wrong through the wringer. Any institution exercising power over political expression owes Australians an explanation of the consequences of that power.

Reform must tackle the machinery that allows repeated proceedings to become a grinding punishment. Duplicate complaints should face firm barriers. Persistent misuse should trigger effective restrictions. Respondents need practical protection against being dragged through years of expense, followed by the hollow consolation of a costs order that may itself require another fight to enforce.

Australia cannot sustain free public debate when participation requires the resources and stamina to survive a decade in court.

Gaynor says he has won again. His public voice is nevertheless being withdrawn. For everyone concerned about freedom, that is the fact that should ring like an alarm bell.

A system that exhausts citizens into silence faces a serious reckoning.

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.”
– Frederick Douglass