It has played a vital part in our Tasmanian democracy these past hundred years.

Which is why it is strange that the idea is now under attack all across the Western world, and especially here on the Apple Isle.

Next week will be a test for Tasmania, when controversial Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan arrives for a panel at Hobart Town Hall to discuss his book, Tough Crowd.

In it, he details how he was cancelled, banned from Twitter, and effectively ejected from the UK comedy scene for making jokes about trans people.

He has since expressed views critical of trans ideology and the use of gender medicine.

Some of his planned Australian tour events have already been cancelled on the mainland due to pressure from activists.

Will the same thing happen to his Hobart book forum?

Many people across this state feel unable to express their views on cultural issues, from the debate over trans rights and the COVID response, to indigenous affairs, and even environmental issues.

Fear of being branded with one of half a dozen reputation-destroying labels, from 'transphobe' or 'racist' to 'climate-denier' has been shutting down conversations about important issues.

There is now no doubt that speech on some of these issues is under attack in Tasmania.

Take the last state election as an example - Premier Jeremy Rockliff faced enormous pressure to dump vaccine-sceptic candidate, Dr Julie Sladden.

Her crime? Dr Sladden expressed concerns about the safety of COVID vaccines, and criticised the response to COVID and lockdowns as 'authoritarian'.

In other words, she holds views that are shared by a substantial minority of Tasmanians.

The Australian Medical Association labelled her as 'dangerous', while Labor smeared her as an extremist and tried to link her to neo-Nazis.

Then there is Women Speak Tasmania, a group of feminists that oppose what they claim is the dissemination of trans ideology in schools, and the use of puberty blockers and other gender-based medical interventions on minors.

Most recently, the group was forced to re-locate a forum to discuss the use of puberty blockers from the Burnie Library to a local cafe, after library administrators withdrew permission to use the space at the last minute.

Numerous Women Speak Tasmania events aimed at discussing the use of gender treatments and in Tasmania and elsewhere have been similarly shut down or silenced, including last year's rally outside parliament featuring British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull.

Ms Keen-Minshull and a handful of mostly elderly Tasmanian anti-trans activists were silenced and ultimately shut down by a much-larger counter protest organised by activist group Equality Tasmania, and featuring even major political figures, like then Greens leader Cassy O'Connor.

The heckler's veto won out, and in the end, counter-protesters chased Ms Keen-Minshull down the street before she escaped into a car.

Similarly, Hobart City Councillor Louise Elliot has endured numerous censures by her council colleagues, and was last year dragged through an expensive legal process for saying that "transwomen are transwomen and remain biological men".

Whether Dr Sladden is right about the danger of vaccines, or whether you subscribe to the trans-critical views of Graham Linehan, a bigger danger is that minority voices are being silenced.

Gender-critical views and anti-vaccine views are unpopular - they are minority viewpoints that go against the dominant narrative in today's society.

But as the American Civil Liberties Union once put it:

"It is easy to defend freedom of speech when the message is something many people find at least reasonable. But the defence of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive."

For Tasmania to be able to truly declare that is a free speech state, it must defend the speech of people like Dr Julie Sladden and Louise Elliot.

Their views may boil the blood of some, but we must at least allow their voices to be heard if we are to call ourselves free.