Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

How on earth do you decide that it is too extreme to have a law saying it is wrong to humiliate someone? What sort of human being looks at people who are being racially abused and says humiliation is okay, insults are okay, offence is okay. If their argument is that it is just words, why do they not object to defamation law. If it is just words, why do they not object to gag clauses that prevent non-government organisations from speaking out against the government. Why do they not object to clauses that prevent employees from talking about what happens at their workplace. The answer is simple: they are the forms of freedom of speech that they get a benefit from curtailing. They can imagine themselves being defined. They can imagine themselves being the minister who does not want the NGOs speaking out against them. They can imagine themselves being in the situation where they are an employer and they do not want their employees to be able to say something, and so they whack it into a work contract. But the moment it is a form of freedom of speech that they might want to use because they would never be the victim of then they say, 'Oh, no, we can change the law on those.'

If you believe in freedom of speech, then why does freedom of speech only become a public issue if it involves getting stuck in people on the basis of their race? If you believe in freedom of speech, why is it that when you see the person being abused on the train you decide the abuser is the victim who you want to stand up for? How many times have we heard the Prime Minister when he talks about family and domestic violence say, 'Not all disrespect leads to violence, but all violence begins with a lack of respect'? Well, that is not just true of family violence. Racial violence in this country is real. If those opposite think that racial violence and racial hatred have nothing to do with each other, then get into the real world. Get into the world beyond the IPA. Get into the world beyond their little dinner parties where they can chat about how wonderful these issues are in theory. It is not theoretical when you are dealing with a child traumatised through having seen how their parents are treated or when you are talking to woman who is wondering whether she can continue to keep her job because of what is said to her on the way to and from work. These examples are real.

Government members interjecting —

If those opposite want to say all of this would be covered by 'harassment', all of this would be covered in exactly the same way, then how has it got anything to do with freedom of speech? If the amendment changes nothing, then what has it got to do with freedom of speech? The answer is really simple. Those opposite simply do not want to say out loud what it is they want people to be allowed to say because they know the answer is offensive. They are fooling nobody with these claims. As I say, this is real.

For those opposite who think some of their members will be protected by the bill starting in the Senate, no it will not. It will be interesting to see which of the five on that side get chosen to be given permission to speak today. I bet they have chosen their number very, very carefully. I bet there are some people who have made their position very clear over the years that have folded today. Make no mistake, no-one expected that the member for Wentworth would be less sympathetic to opposing racial hate speech than his predecessor as Prime Minister.

No-one thought we would see the day when the leader of the Liberal Party was overtaken in decency by the leader of the National Party in their party room in deciding how they should deal with racial hatred. But we are in new times, where we have a Prime Minister who stands for nothing. Today the end of the Turnbull prime ministership is complete. There is nothing left of that man—imagine after all those years of wanting to be Prime Minister and now realising that his time will come and go without ever having a government that he could believe in or that anyone else could believe in. I urge those opposite who have stood up for this issue in the past that, when the issue comes here, if you are true to your word, cross the floor. If you are true to your word, you will get a choice to either stand with the nutters who have been arguing that this is all about freedom of speech or to stand with your communities and the victims of racial hatred—(Time expired)

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