Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

While the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights into freedom of speech in Australia and the operation of part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act is a reasonable one, the tale that brings the chamber to consideration of this report is, however, a sorry one. The coalition's obsession with section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act reflects nothing more than their obsession with themselves. The debate about section 18C inside the Liberal Party and inside the coalition is not a debate about the concerns of everyday Australians. There are no barbecues being stopped across our nation by people demanding the 'right to be bigots', as the Attorney-General famously phrased it. As the member for Bennelong put it, as he told ABC's AM, the campaign to change section 18C is a 'fringe issue'. He said:

If you did a ranking of the top 10 … it wouldn't be in the top 100.

He is certainly right. I live in one of the most multicultural electorates in Australia and I have received barely a handful of letters from constituents seeking changes to these provisions in the nearly four years that I have been in this place. We are comfortable living in the most successful multicultural nation on earth, and Australians understand that some minor restraints on the more extreme expressions of racial abuse have helped strengthen community cohesion. Only a government that is as out of touch as the Turnbull-Abbott-Turnbull government could think that the public are clamouring for a years-long debate on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, when penalty rates are being cut for 700,000 Australians, when wages growth is at an all-time low, when underemployment is at an all-time high and when they are worried about the future of Medicare. These are the barbecue stoppers across the suburbs of Australia.

Nor, however, is the debate around section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act—in the Liberal Party, at least—a debate around Australian national identity or the kind of society that we want to build in this country. We are not talking here about how to protect one of the most successful multicultural societies on earth or how to strengthen it as we become increasingly diverse in the future. Instead, this debate is about two things and two things only. Firstly, it is an ideological plaything for the 'glibertarians' who have entrenched themselves in the state branches of the Liberal Party. Secondly, it is a tool for leadership game playing inside the Liberal Party, a cat's paw for promoting instability and leadership jockeying.

This is exactly what we saw in the first week of this parliament. In the first week of parliament after the election win by the new leader of the coalition, Malcolm Turnbull, and before the Governor-General's speech had even been delivered, all but one of the coalition Senate backbench joined with One Nation to sign a notice of motion to gut 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. It was an intervention designed deliberately to humiliate their supposed leader, the Prime Minister, in his first week in parliament after the election campaign. Since then, the issue has been continuously exploited by the member for Warringah, suspiciously, in the lead-up to Newspoll, entering the field with his band of 'deplorables'—and I acknowledge 'deplorables' who are with us here today; you are adorable to me!—the drongos who yearn for the return of the king and, presumably, knighthoods. As a result, the mere mention of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in coalition circles is like adding a drop of blood into shark-infested waters—it produces a frothing and a churning beneath the water's surface, particularly in the bowels of the coalition party room.

It is like this issue brings those opposite back into the fray of student politics, arguing more and more passionately about issues further and further away from what matters to the vast majority of the Australian population. Why is it that this issue, the issue of protections against hate speech in the Racial Discrimination Act, is the freedom-of-speech issue that winds up conservatives in Australia so much? Why weren't the party room dissidents barking when Malcolm Turnbull's former chief of staff launched defamation proceedings over an insulting televised comedy act? They lay doggo when the member for Warringah and Peter Costello sued an Australian author for writing offensive falsehoods about their wives. The guard dogs of free speech were silent when former Treasurer Joe Hockey sued TheSydney Morning Herald for its reporting on fundraising activities in his electorate. Where were the full-page newspaper ads from the IPA during any of these restraints on free speech? No-one has suggested dismantling the law of defamation every time a defamation plaintiff loses a case or every time there is an unhelpful proceeding—not even when a bloke sues a newspaper over the depiction of his mullet, as we saw before the courts last year, or when the father of a chief executive of Swisse vitamins sues over his depiction by a comedian on ABC consumer show The Checkout. No, the free-speech claxon of the 'glibertarians' who have taken over the right of Australian politics today remains silent.

Why aren't they up in arms about restraints on free speech imposed by defamation law? When asked about this cognitive dissonance, they will give you tortured philosophical justifications about individuals having a property right to their reputation, while the impact of a group's vilification is unable to be quantified and as such is worthless of protection by the law. The reality is, however, that they care about this because this one is the only constraint that they will be subject to. The other is a constraint that they are likely to transcend. A free-speech equation for these glibertarians in the coalition party room is simple: rights constraints that protect powerful people—good; rights constraints that protect vulnerable groups—bad.

As I intimated earlier, the Australian community takes a very different view. When, in the first term, the Abbott-Turnbull government the coalition sought to dismantle section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act there was a mass uprising against this move in multicultural communities across Australia, many of them in my electorate. They campaigned against the 18C changes, under the member for Warringah, and Labor was proud to campaign with them. We were pleased when the previous Prime Minister backed down on this foolish and unnecessary change. The current Prime Minister still refuses to close the door on making the same mistake.

In the report that we are considering the debate here today, the parliamentary committee—set up to water down race-hate speech—has found no basis to recommend any changes to the substance of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Those opposite often like to say, 'Forget about substance; it's the process that's the punishment under section 18C.' They act like any unsuspecting member of the public engaging in good faith political debate could be caught by the provision, ignoring utterly section 18D of the act that contains exemptions designed to protect, exactly, this behaviour and limiting and protecting from the reach of the act artistic works, scientific debate and fair comment on matters of public interest.

Still, they say the process is the punishment—as though a complaint to the Human Rights Commission under section 18C triggers some kind of modern Star Chamber. The reality is far from it. The Human Rights Commission's focus is on resolving disputes so parties can avoid court proceedings. Of complaints where conciliation was attempted, 76 per cent were successfully resolved in 2015-16. In 2015-16, in the reporting year, the average time it took the commission to finalise a complaint was 3.8 months. In that same reporting year 94 per cent of surveyed parties were satisfied with the commission's service. To be blunt, the process under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is far better than what a respondent would confront in any defamation proceeding.

Those opposite advocating change have built the biggest straw man since burning man. They dance around their creations in fervours of ideological rupture. As the saying goes: you should dance like no-one is watching. And coalition members of parliament dance around their section 18C burning man without a care for what anyone in Australia watching might think.

If Prime Minister Turnbull proceeds with changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, in light of all of this, it will be entirely his choice to do so. If the Prime Minister has any backbone at all he should use the publication of this report to kill off any attempts to water down and reform section 18C and the vital protections it provides for social cohesion in our community once and for all. This is a problem that exists only in the fevered dreams of conservative ideologues within the coalition party room. It is not a problem that exists in the suburbs, in the backyards, at the barbecues of Australians around our nation.

The protections of the Racial Discrimination Act were important when they were introduced. There are even more important today. I am proud to be a member of a Labor Party that has fought those who have sought to gut this provision over the last four years of the Abbott-Turnbull government.

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