Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Back in 1859 John Stuart Mill wrote in his work On Liberty:

The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" … No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place … But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

That was back in 1859, and here I am, in 2017, discussing legislation which is a state-imposed restriction on the freedom of speech. The Leader of the Opposition before question time today asked what is it that those who propose there is some problem with 18C want to be able to say in future that they currently cannot say. The Facebook post by a young student from Queensland University of Technology provides an example of what people should be able to say but what 18C is try to prevent them from saying. He simply said:

Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation

For that Facebook post he was dragged through the courts for years and was faced with huge legal expenses. He was subject to ridicule in the media, in the press, simply for making what was nothing other than a statement of fact that he had been kicked out of an unsigned Indigenous computer room and an opinion on public policy—that the Queensland University of Technology was attempting to stop segregation with segregation. I say that is a topic that we should be able to openly debate in this country. Is it correct, in this 21st century, that a publicly funded university can decide who can walk in and out of a computer room depending on their race or the colour of their skin? I think that is a wrong principle.

There maybe some in here there who think the current policy is a good idea, but we have to be able to have the debate; we have to be able to freely debate those ideas as much as some of us might find those ideas offensive to each other—and I find it offensive that we could have in this country a computer room that someone is not allowed into because of their race. Others may find it offensive that I have that opinion, but that is what vigorous debate is all about—it is a contest of ideas to ensure that at the end of the day we get the best decision that we possibly can. That is what the history of Western civilisation has shown.

In discussing 18C and 18D it is very difficult to have a debate with opponents who want no change and who want to protect the legal fraternity who are earning very good money, taking money out of the pockets of students—like at QUT—in the form of legal extortion. Our opponents want to protect those people by saying that anyone who wants to change 18C wants to encourage racism.

I argue the exact opposite. The best way to combat racism in this country is not to sweep it under the carpet with government legislating what you can say. The best way to defeat it is to bring it out in the open and defeat it in the place of public opinion. I put to you the argument that 18C is doing exactly the opposite of what those who want to fight racism think it is doing. Having a section like 18C in legislation that prohibits discussion merely because someone takes an offence is more likely to incite racism and allow it to fester than if we remove that legislation.

This debate shows that some proponents of the current 18C have a very dark view of their fellow Australians. They think there is legislation in place that controls speech and that if this legislation is removed there will be racists running down the street yelling torrents of abuse. I have greater faith in my fellow Australians. I believe we can debate these issues in a sensitive way.

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