Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

How blessed are we to have these two people, the member for Wills and the member for Cowan, in the chamber? They are incredibly learned and, I would argue, a couple of Egypt's best exports to Australia. They are living evidence of how great a multicultural country can be.

I want to speak on the inquiry of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights into freedom of speech in Australia, specifically the operation of part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and related procedures under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986. I strongly support the committee's findings that there should be no change to the substantive law, no change to section 18C, and I urge the Turnbull government to drop this hateful nod to past behaviours that no longer serve our community.

No change to 18C is a victory for multicultural Australia. It is a victory for ethnic communities across our country. It is a victory for holding our laws and ourselves to a higher standard. No change to 18C is a victory for decency. The debate is being driven, and it has always been driven, by the far Right of the Liberal Party, who cannot actually tell us what racial hate speech they want to be able to free to speak. As the Leader of the Opposition said today: 'What humiliating vitriol do they think the Australian government should encourage?' If anything, we should be strengthening protections against hate speech, not weakening them.

Like many in this place, I received many form letters from campaigns, from individuals, both for and against 18C, and I also received a number of heartfelt letters that had been penned personally. I would like to read one of these, which was sent from a constituent of mine from the town of East Maitland in my electorate of Paterson. She wrote:

Ms Swanson, please ask your Labor colleagues to block the changes to 18C. Freedom of speech blanketed across the board has its responsibilities, just like any other kind of freedom. The changes are being called for to give licence to anyone who feels like exercising their right to vilify anyone they like. Haven't Aborigines, Muslims, people with a disability and women of this country had enough of that already? Can our laws give some protection to 'underdogs', or do the intellectuals who have never been discriminated against get away with their nastiness because it is legal? Why would a decent country legalise the right to exercise hatred against minorities? We are not allowed to exercise the 'freedom' to hit people with a baseball bat because we don't like them, so we must also not be allowed to damage people psychologically by demeaning them with words. The Labor Party is better than this.

I wrote back to my constituent that, yes indeed, the Labor Party is much better than this. I wrote that Labor is a staunch supporter of free speech, has always been and will always be, but we recognise that free speech is not, and never could be, absolute. Freedom of speech is a value and, like many democratic values, it must always be counterbalanced against competing values. Australia is a multicultural society, and section 18C was introduced to help ensure that the dignity of all our citizens is respected. Section 18C upholds the dignity of the individual, including the most disadvantaged in our society, and section 18D provides a very broad exemption from liability for reasonable and good-faith artistic expression, academic work, debate or public commentary. Section 18D ensures that freedom of speech is protected.

I agree with many, many people and groups in our community who have voiced their objection to this narrow-minded campaign. Racism has no place in modern Australia. The Turnbull government should be setting an example by standing up to bigotry, not placating the far Right of the Liberal Party. How will political debate—or any debate, for that matter—be improved by changing our laws to permit public statements that are likely to offend or insult people on the basis of their race? This is something from a bygone era that has no place here.

I speak in favour of the comments made by the Labor members of the committee—the member for Moreton, the member for Brand, Senator Carol Brown and Senator Claire Moore—and I thank them for their diligence. They make the point strongly in their conclusions:

The current well established and well supported provisions strike the appropriate balance between freedom of speech and freedom from racial abuse and should be retained and strongly supported by all Australians.

As we are seeing with the Brexit vote in the UK, the election of Donald Trump in the US and the renewed popularity of Pauline Hanson's One Nation in Australia, racism will regularly raise its ugly head, especially whenever there is a marginalised or repressed minority. Even people who would otherwise lead decent lives can suddenly be caught up in racist hysteria, saying and doing atrocious things. I have worked in talkback radio; I can tell you that people have said the most atrocious things on the radio about other people. How can that ever be condoned? Social media has made it easier for hate speech to be instantly communicated and widely distributed, regardless of its accuracy or relevance.

As the Labor committee members wrote in this report:

Everyday Australians take their cues from the laws set by their Parliament.

People are not stupid, but they are persuadable, at times. Part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act was introduced by the Racial Hatred Bill in 1995 by the Keating Labor government. It followed the handing down of three landmark reports by the Australian Law Reform Commission, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. It also reinforced Australia's international obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The law is most definitely settled on this, both here—or it should be—and internationally.

The vast majority of people who gave evidence to the committee agreed that the law is settled. Only the most serious offending is captured by the provision. Complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission under Part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act make up only 3.8 per cent of the commission's work—just 3.8 per cent.

There were only 77 complaints last year, and fewer than four complaints every year proceed to court. We have seen a few high-profile cases being hijacked for personal or political agendas, and they have been presented as though they are evidence that the law does not work. It is just bunkum.

On the contrary, there is evidence that the law does work. A vast array of evidence put forward to the committee agreed that any change to 18C and 18D would cause uncertainty and would likely create even more litigation and confusion. More importantly, changing 18C would send a dangerous message. It would send a message that it is acceptable to offend and insult another person on the basis of their race. Surely, in Australia, that is not an acceptable message for a government to send its people. The executive director of the Human Rights Law Centre, Mr Hugh de Kretser, told the committee:

… the debate around section 18C over the past few years is so highly charged and politicised that any perceived weakening … of the law will also be seen by those who are against 18C as enabling the kind of racial vilification that we try to prohibit through this law.

That is such an important statement. What message does it send to everyday Australians if we give a tick to this? What message does it send to those who have to deal with the issue of racism regularly and persistently? That it is acceptable? That they just have to wear it for the sake of free speech? I think not. Racism causes harm. It causes isolation. There is no doubt about that. We heard it from witnesses and we have heard it from our own parliamentarians. We see it in our communities. It causes poor mental health and high levels of psychological stress, and that stress compounds when the behaviour is repeated. What kind of a message are we sending to Australians who experience persistent racism? That you must wear it? I think not.

The ninth annual Closing the gap report has been a stark reminder of just how badly we are failing our Indigenous Australians. We are nowhere near closing the gap in life expectancy or in any other measure of health and wellbeing, for that matter. Do we want to compound these very real problems faced by our first peoples by saying they must endure racism for the sake of free speech? I know we do not. Racism has an economic cost as well. The committee heard from the Diversity Council of Australia. They said that, when we create workplaces that are inclusive and that tap into diversity, they are more productive. That is so important.

I want to leave you with one thought. As a girl, I was taught that civility costs nothing. My father taught me that lesson. But I say to you that a change in this law may be very costly to our country in so many ways that we have really no idea what the impact would be. Section 18C is there for a reason, and we should keep it, for good reason.

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