Tim Hammond (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, 'reasonable' is a term that has long existed in relation to a statutory interpretation as to a common sense and objective approach to properly reflect community standards.

We can take a lot of issue with some of the conclusions reached in the recent report from the very hardworking Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, but one does not doubt for one minute that they certainly put every ounce of diligence into producing the report in a relatively expeditious manner. What is very clear from that report is that the consensus of views is not that the courts are getting it wrong in relation to a reasonable person test, or even to a good faith test. There is no dispute within this report that hundreds of years of judicial interpretation of statute as to a reasonable person test and a test as to what constitutes in good faith requires any drastic revision.

What is really at the nub of how perplexing the opposition is to what is currently contained within 18C and 18D are the examples that those on the conservative side like to trot out as to how the current provisions are just so egregious. We constantly fall back to the QUT case and to the Bill Leak case. Let's unpack that. I think that once we actually unpack that in a sensible and objective manner we might find that the substance of those provisions are working precisely as they were intended, and that is to ensure that there is a standard level of decency upon which we can treat our fellow man with dignity and respect.

What happened in the QUT case? My friend, the member for Hughes, gave examples of some of the evidence tendered in the court case that was heard before the Federal Court and on which its determination was made. Guess what? They won. The result in the court was that they did not breach the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act. So what we really have here—and this is where the rubber hits the road—is a complaint about process, because the complaint here is that the students were treated unfairly as a result of the procedure. And guess what this report does?

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