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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that while speaking about the government's watering down of protections against racist hate speech, One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts said he is very happy the government is starting to follow One Nation, and Liberal senator James Paterson said it would help win back One Nation votes. Was it One Nation or the conservative backbench who convinced the Prime Minister to abandon his long-held beliefs and instead to water down protections against racist hate speech, or was it both?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would remind the honourable member that throughout my life I have been committed to multiculturalism, to Australia as the most successful multicultural society in the world.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would also say to the honourable member—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The members for Lyons and Fremantle will leave the House, under standing order 94(a). Anyone else who wishes to join them, it is a matter for them, if they continue to interject.

The members for Lyons and Fremantle then left the chamber.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Throughout my life I have defended free speech in the courts, in public, in every arena. Free speech is the absolute foundation of our democracy.

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Perth will leave the chamber, under standing order 94(a).

The membe r for Perth then left the chamber.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the honourable member thinks it is right that a cartoonist like Bill Leak should be hauled into the Human Rights Commission—

Opposition members interjecting—

Well, I can see some of his colleagues think it was right that he should be hauled into the Human Rights Commission or that young students at QUT, the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, should be hauled through the courts, having years and years of legal expense. What objective is being served by that? It has been said for years that the provisions of 18C have lost their credibility. They have been criticised by one authority after another.

The honourable member asks who has been influential in forming that point of view. Let me give you one example. The Hon. James Spigelman AC, QC, a former Chief Justice of New South Wales and a former chairman of the ABC, said in a Human Rights Day Oration in 2012:

… declaring conduct, relevantly speech, to be unlawful, because it causes offence, goes too far.

That is James Spigelman, a great Labor figure, a great Chief Justice and one of our great lawyers. Or what about Irene Moss, the former Race Discrimination Commissioner who led the national inquiry into racist violence that was the origin of the laws against racial discrimination. In March 2017, just so few weeks ago, she said:

In 1991, the report of the national inquiry into racist violence recommended that the legislation should not be about hurt feelings or injured sensibilities but should focus on incitement to racial hostility.

She said:

I continue to believe that that … was essentially correct.

Or indeed Warren Mundine, who said in October last year:

If people are going to be hauled before tribunals or courts over these very issues, it is going to stifle debate.

I could go on with more quotations, expressing the same reservations, from equally distinguished Australians. The language of that section lost its credibility a long time ago. I have made this point in the past. What we have done is made the law stronger, fairer and clearer, and we have stood up for free speech. (Time expired)