Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a representative of one of Australia's most multicultural electorates, I rise to condemn the government's latest plans to weaken Australia's laws that prevent racist hate speech. The resurrection of this harmful debate by the right wing of the government will not create one new job and, in my view, is a sign of the weakness of the Prime Minister, who lacks any substantive agenda. Modern Australia has one of the most diverse populations in the world, and the protections afforded by these laws are important for people living in my community to be able to go around their daily lives free from racial vilification.

It is important to remember where these laws came from, because we forget these lessons at our peril. Despite the IPA-fuelled fantasies of those opposite, these laws were not the result of a bunch of leftie politicians trotting off to a clambake, to borrow a phrase from the member for Sturt. Section 18C was introduced in 1994 as a result of serious and thoughtful reports and public inquiries into racial violence, including the National Inquiry into Racist Violence, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Law Reform Commission's report Multiculturalism and the law. These inquiries revealed what many in our community already knew: race-based hatred and vilification has real-world consequences, psychologically and physically, for individuals in our society. This is not an intellectual masturbatory exercise divorced from real life. It might be a great topic for a 3,000-word undergraduate essay, but too many members in my community know firsthand the pain and harm caused by hate speech. Still, despite repeated calls, those opposite have not fronted up and made it clear what they think people should be able to say in public that they cannot say now.

The debate is being couched in terms of free speech as if those who support retention of these laws are somehow opposed to free speech, as if nirvana is a world with no limitations on what you can say—what nonsense! I am strong supporter of the right to free speech. However, it is not and never could be absolute. It is a value, like many democratic values, that must be counterbalanced against other values. We have many restrictions in defamation law, in consumer protection laws, in criminal laws against incitement to violence and in counter-terrorism laws—indeed, in many state laws that outlaw rude words—and there are no IPA campaigns about those. It is telling that the only campaign about free speech is to allow people to say more racist things. This parliament itself maintains numerous restrictions on what can and cannot be said during debates.

I am concerned at these worrying signs that the inquiry is a sham. It is being called under duress, it is a government controlled committee, and there have been no ads in papers and no publicity to alert people to the inquiry and of the opportunity to make a submission. There are now only a couple of weeks left for people to make a submission. There are no public hearings, and none are planned. I encourage people concerned about these laws to speak up and make a submission to the inquiry by 9 December and make their voices heard.