Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today also to speak about the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and its report on the freedom of speech in Australia, particularly as it pertains to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

I note that this is a fraught issue, with many stakeholders and with many submissions, and I acknowledge the diversity of opinion. I think that is a very good thing; it reflects a healthy Australian society. The fact that we are having this debate here is also an indicator that we have a healthy, functioning democracy.

There are a number of things that I want to say up-front, because those opposite have misconstrued many of our positions with words like 'divisive' and 'hysteria'. I want to make it very clear where I stand, so I want to lift the bonnet a bit on my thinking before I get to 18C itself. I am not a libertarian, but I am a Liberal, which is to say that I am committed to freedom: freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of enterprise and a whole host of freedoms that we hold dear in this country. Of course, today we are talking about freedom of speech.

I am going to quote John Donne and, at risk of sounding terribly heteronormative, I am going to use the original words of his poem:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

Freedom only makes sense in the context of community. We do not live in isolation from each other in this country. We have constant exchange with our neighbours. We have a mutual dependence upon each other, which is why we come together to form local, state and federal governments. That reflects our search for order and our desire to secure our collective freedoms. Government is especially important when we come together to do tasks that we cannot do ourselves, especially in emergencies. So I just want to make clear that I am not a libertarian; I am a Liberal, and I believe in limited government, in the separation of powers and in the diffusion of power. That is why our Westminster system, I think, is the best system of government in the world, and I am proud that Australia has that as our system of government.

But alongside those freedoms and rights come responsibilities. As I said, we have a mutual dependence upon each other. At the heart of our democracy is the volunteer spirit. In an ideal world, every Australian would self-regulate or self-govern, but of course that is not true. But it does raise the question: what role does government have in our lives? Is it the supporting act or is it the main protagonist? I am of the view that it is the supporting act, and my point about 18C is that it ultimately is symbolic of government overreach. It is government overreach interfering in the lives of individual Australians and regulating one of our most basic freedoms, which is freedom of speech.

I also want to be very clear on my anthropology, my view of humankind. I believe that all people are endowed with respect and inherent worth and dignity, whatever their race, ethnicity, colour, religion, sex or sexuality. It does not matter: everyone is deserving of respect, because we are all endowed with inherent worth. I want to state that upfront very clearly. I also believe that a healthy civic society means that government can step back out of our lives. We call these mediating institutions or prepolitical institutions, and every single electorate has them. We start with the family and we work outwards to clubs—sporting clubs, Rotary clubs, Surf Life Saving clubs—churches, temples, mosques, schools and charities—you name it. They are in every single electorate around this country, and I believe they should be the first line of defence against discriminatory speech. They should be the first line of defence. I would rather see them empowered than big government interfering in people's lives, which I think is what has been the case with the exercise of 18C. Of course, in my electorate, and I am sure around the country, people have disengaged from civic society, so this is a task that all Australians should be engaged in: to rebuild a strong civic society.

Back to the topic of the Racial Discrimination Act and 18C. This is part of the question: what sort of a society do we want? Do we want one regulated by the state, or do we want one regulated by the citizenry? Do we want the state as the main protagonist or the supporting act? I think we have seen with the QUT case and the Bill Leak case that 18C has allowed vexatious litigation to creep into our society, where people are being inhibited in the exercise of their freedom of speech. We are seeing creeping political correctness across the board. We are seeing it in universities and schools. Not every Australian fully understands what 18C means, but for a lot of people it is emblematic of that creeping state interference and political correctness.

George Orwell wrote a famous essay, 'Politics and the English language', and in that he argued that language and thought are intimately related, so if we are to truly exercise freedom of conscience we need to have the freedom to exercise our speech as well. Of course, 'If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,' as he famously made clear. If we have the state regulating our speech, you also have the state regulating our thought, and I think that looks a lot like 1984, another great book by George Orwell.

The cases that have been litigated under 18C have caused a lot of psychological stress and trauma to those involved and also significant financial cost. I think of Bill Leak. You may not like Bill Leak's cartoons, and that is fine. I find them funny. I have found some of his cartoons to be very risque and found that they push the boundaries, but that is who he is. I want to acknowledge that after the 'Je suis Charlie'attacks in January 2015 he had the courage to do a cartoon in which he illustrated the Prophet Mohammed. Whatever you may think of that, he showed significant courage. He had to relocate his home because of death threats to him on the internet. I find it rather ironic in a free society that when he published a cartoon—whatever you might think of that cartoon—he was then pursued under 18C for that cartoon. What the terrorists themselves could not achieve in a free society, we had a mechanism of government for, which was used to pursue him for another cartoon of his. I think that is just unacceptable.

I turn to the report itself and recommendation 1. I approve of recommendation 1, which recommends addressing racism in Australian society. Absolutely we need to address racism. We need to address racism in all the mediating institutions that I just mentioned. Recommendation 2 says:

Recognising the profound impacts of serious forms of racism, the committee recommends that leaders of the Australian community and politicians exercise their freedom of speech to identify and condemn racially hateful and discriminatory speech where it occurs in public.

I affirm that absolutely. In fact, I copped a flogging on Facebook a couple of weeks ago after Larry Pickering's comments at the Q Society. I condemned his remarks. I condemned him for what he said about gay people and I condemned him for what he said about Islamic State and their barbarous acts in Iraq and Syria. A lot of people said I overstepped the mark. Great! I am happy for that. I enjoyed the flogging, in a sense, because it was another healthy indicator that democracy is alive and well and everyone can have their point of view.

I now turn to recommendation 3, and specifically to where it says:

(c) removing the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' from section 18C and replacing them with 'harass'; I think we need to do that. My colleague Senator James Paterson last night said that in this parliament we have a unique opportunity, a pathway where we have consensus around some of these recommendations. I recognise that this parliament is a tough one. It is rather austere from a legislative point of view. It is difficult to get legislation through. But I think we can all agree, on the evidence, that the QUT case, the Bill Leak case and others are a step too far. We absolutely need to reform the legislation. Politics is the art of the possible. I would rather not have 18C at all. I know that is not going to be achieved, but I do think we need to make changes. We need to make the threshold much higher to avoid the vexatious litigation that we have seen.

Ultimately, as I said, I am a Liberal, so I am going to err on the side of individual liberty. I hope that my fellow Australians are committed to a united country that is not divisive; that can preserve freedom and also ensure that the responsibilities of individual citizens are enforced and met. Section 18C has a chilling effect and we need reform. That is why I endorse it.

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