Media commentators, satirists, artists and activists should be safe from controversial sedition laws, even if their ideas are unpopular and confronting, as long as they don't urge the use of violence, under changes to federal law proposed by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC).

The five-month inquiry concluded that the Australian Government should: drop the 'red rag' term 'sedition' from federal laws; further refine the existing law to require the Crown to prove that a person urged others to use force or violence against community groups or the institutions of democratic government, and with the intention that this violence would eventuate; and lead a process through the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General to reform state and territory laws in this area 'which mostly are a good deal worse than the federal law'.