Tasmanian parole board gag order on Sue Neill-Fraser challenged

The following media release was issued today, August 13, 2025 by the Human Rights Law Centre after the Tasmanian parole board’s further and more restrictive conditions were applied in April this year.

Legal challenge against Tasmanian parole board’s new gag order against Susan Neill-Fraser 

The Human Rights Law Centre has brought further legal proceedings on behalf of Tasmanian grandmother, Susan Neill-Fraser, to challenge a new restrictive parole condition which seeks to prevent her from speaking to any third parties, including the media, to claim her alleged innocence or wrongful conviction. This new parole condition replaces and expands an old parole condition which prevented her from speaking to the media.

The case, which is being heard in the Supreme Court of Tasmania, was adjourned today until 10 September. It argues that the new condition is unreasonable, improper and in breach of the constitutionally implied freedom of political communication.

Sarah Schwartz, Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre said: 

“Freedom of speech and political communication are core democratic rights that belong to everyone – including and especially people who have been in prison, whose voices are essential to a just and democratic society.

“Parole should be a pathway to reintegration, not a way of continuing to impose punishment. When parole conditions silence people or limit their freedom of expression, they violate basic human rights and increase the risk of re-incarceration.

“Instead of stopping people from speaking out after being in prison, parole should be focused on ensuring people are supported as they re-enter the community.”

Background 

Susan Neill-Fraser served 13 years in prison and has been on parole since 2022.

In December 2024, the Tasmanian Parole Board placed a condition on Susan’s parole which prohibited her from communicating “directly or indirectly with any media outlet to claim [her] alleged innocence and/or wrongful conviction”.

In May 2025, this condition was replaced with a condition which prohibits her from communicating “directly or indirectly – including through third parties, written statements, electronic communications, social media platforms, television, radio, podcasts, streaming services, online video-sharing platforms, or any other public or broadcast media – to assert claims regarding your alleged innocence, wrongful conviction, or dispute the legitimacy of your conviction or sentencing”.

COMMENT
by Andrew L. Urban

Tasmania’s legal club has scraped the bottom of the justice barrel with the parole board’s inexcusable gag order to prevent Sue Neill-Fraser claiming her innocence. This is certainly improper and even despicable. She is barred from even mentioning that Justice Estcourt’s dissnting opinion was that her appeal be allowed and her conviction quashed (see below).  The parole board can’t muzzle Estcourt J, though …

Let’s see what the Tasmanian Supreme Court will make of the legal challenge.

The current bench comprises:

The Hon Chief Justice, Cristopher Shanahan, The Hon Justice Wood, The Hon Stephen Estcourt, The Hon Robert Pearce, The Hon Michael Brett, The Hon Tamara Jago, The Hon Kate Cuthbertson, The Hon Michael Daly.

Their Honours Wood, Estcourt, Pearce and Brett have all come into contact with the Sue Neill-Fraser case previously.

In particular, Wood J issued the leading judgement dismissing Sue Neill-Fraser’s appeal. Her judgement was analysed by Flinders University legal academic Dr Bob Moles, an extract of which we published on January 13, 2022. That extract concludes with a summary of the key errors identified:

• Wood J failed to recognise that luminol test was inadmissible forensic evidence
• That this was incompetent, false and misleading evidence was not disclosed at the appeal by the prosecution
• Failure to recognise that some DNA evidence was incomplete & misleading
• Excusing that the Director ‘strayed into conjecture’ about secondary transfer of DNA
• Wood J’s misplaced emphasis on due diligence by the defence – actually a requisite by prosecution
• Wood J excusing impermissible prosecutorial speculation as ‘liberties’ & ‘hyperbole’ & ‘exaggeration and theatre’

It was Estcourt J who dissented in the 2:1 decision, saying:

459 Having regard to the evidence at the accused’s trial and the closing addresses of counsel and the learned trial judge’s summing up, I am of the view, after taking into account the fresh and compelling evidence of Mr Jones, that there has been a substantial miscarriage of justice.

461 Had Mr Jones’s evidence been before the jury, the Crown case could not have been left to the jury with the reasonable hypothesis raised by the defence as to Ms Vass being present on the yacht trivialised as it was, as a “red herring”. Had the jury been exposed to expert evidence that secondary transfer of Ms Vass’s DNA on the sole of someone’s shoe would have been a “very rare occurrence” requiring a very specific and immediate concatenation of steps …

463 In my view, on an objective assessment of the record, and recognising the limitations in doing so, after taking into account the fresh and compelling evidence of Mr Jones, there is a significant possibility that the jury, acting reasonably, might have acquitted the appellant had the fresh evidence been before it at the trial.

465 I would uphold the appeal and quash the appellant’s conviction for murder.