Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on a matter that is indeed of great public importance. It is Labor's belief that every Australian has the right to be protected from speech that offends, insults or humiliates on the basis of race. By contrast, the Abbott government believes in the rights of the bigots. The Abbott government wants to legitimise, encourage and empower bigotry. The Attorney-General's stated rationale for the government's proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act is to protect the rights of the bigots. As he told the Senate so famously already on Monday of this week, 'people do have a right to be bigots'. Even for a government which seems to specialise in backward-looking policy, in aggressive and bullying politics, this was an extraordinary and retrograde step.

We in this country have built a remarkably tolerant, democratic and free multicultural Australia. But we all know that there are still the bigoted and the prejudiced amongst us. We all know that their conduct can humiliate, belittle, hurt and damage people. That is why, collectively, we have agreed to the protections contained in the Racial Discrimination Act and that is why those protections are needed. It is also why people in leadership positions have a responsibility to stand up to bigotry and prejudice, especially in this place. We in this place have a responsibility to denounce racial prejudice, not to defend it on specious grounds, not to encourage it by our actions or our silence and certainly not to legislate in its interests.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister proclaimed that reinstating the British honours would add a grace note to Australian society. On the same day, the government released legislation to allow Australians to be insulted and humiliated on the basis of their race. That is not a grace note. It is an ugly note—a jarring note of discord. It will encourage bullies and create division and intolerance. It will damage the fabric of our society and, most importantly, it will hurt real people, individuals who will experience real pain.

This week in the Senate, as I have said, we saw the first law officer of the land stand up, loudly and proudly defending the rights of bigots. This really revealed the ethical framework that lies behind this legislation. It reveals the philosophy which is driving this government to seek these changes—a philosophy which prioritises the rights of bigots to say what they will, ahead of the rights of individuals to be free from harassment. It puts the rights of bullies ahead of the rights of victims of bullying. It gives the professional loudmouths, the prejudiced and the ignorant a licence to trample all over the marginalised, the powerless and the vulnerable. This is a warped set of priorities and a walked philosophy. Professor Andrew Lynch, from the centre of public law at UNSW, said today:

Law is an instrument through which a community's values and rights may be given effect. In Monday's debate, Brandis came down firmly on the side of those who would give voice to racially motivated insult and offence, over those who are targeted by such comments.

I acknowledge that there are many good people in the Liberal Party who have taken a stand and who show leadership against racism and discrimination: people such as former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, and people inside the Abbott government who have spoken against changes to the act, such as Mr Wyatt and Mr Laundy. But the Prime Minister and this Attorney-General have, with this legislation, revealed that they are ideological throwbacks. They are prosecuting the agenda of the narrowest of sectional interests imaginable—the sectional interests of a single powerful columnist whose opinions are amplified daily by the resources of one of the world's biggest media corporations and who evidently wields considerable power over this government. His interests are to be put ahead of the interests of so many Australians—ahead of the interests of Indigenous Australians, immigrants and the children of immigrants. One person's agenda is being allowed to trump the interests of Australians who seek to live in a decent and tolerant society.

We have previously seen this failure of leadership on race from the most senior figures in the Liberal Party, because when the Attorney-General responds to criticism of this legislation by saying, 'People do have a right to be bigots, you know,' he is echoing someone we all remember. He is doing exactly as former Prime Minister John Howard did at the time when Pauline Hanson called for multiculturalism to be abolished and claimed Australia was being swamped by Asians. What was the response from the then Prime Minister? When he was asked whether Asian Australians should be protected from people like her, he said:

Well, are you saying that somebody shouldn't be allowed to say what she said? I would say in a country such as Australia people should be allowed to say that.

He defended her right to speak freely, but who did he not defend? He did not defend the rights of those she attacked, to be free of vilification. When senior political figures in this country engage in this kind of manoeuvre it sends a bad message. It sends a message that it is acceptable to rail against those who look different, and that is a point I made in my first speech to this place in 2002.

I am distressed and angry that this is a point that still needs to be made today, because we always need leadership on issues of race. It is not about denying free speech; it is about asserting the harm done by racist speech. It is not just about laws and legal protection; it is about the message influential people send to the community. And the message our Attorney-General has sent is that those who are marginalised, victimised and harassed are not a priority for this government. So when he says to Senator Peris, 'People do have a right to be bigots, you know,' he is empathising with the bullies and showing callous disregard for the vulnerable. It is moral equivocation and dog-whistle politics, masquerading as support for free speech. This remark from our Attorney-General shows he does not appreciate the need for leadership in a society where people experience bigotry.

I have seen bigotry face on and it is not a pretty sight. Words have an impact. They hurt and do lasting damage—not only the words of bigots but also the words of those in leadership positions when they defend the rights of bigots and stand by silent.

As Australia's first law officer, the Attorney-General has a responsibility to show leadership on these issues. Instead, we have seen him fail the test of leadership by bringing forward these retrograde proposals. We have seen him fail the test of leadership in choosing to defend the rights of bigots rather than standing up for victims. We also see him fail that test in the way he conducts himself in public debate, because he has a predilection for getting personal—a predilection for personal attack, denigration and denunciation. We all remember his disgraceful claim in this place about there being a criminal in the Lodge.

Then, this morning, when he was asked to respond to the shadow Attorney-General's argument that the exemptions in the government's proposed section 18D were so wide that you could drive a truck through them, he responded:

I doubt the Shadow Attorney-General could drive a truck through anything frankly.

That is personal denigration rather than principled debate, abuse rather than analysis. And I will not even deign to respond to his accusation of me of bigotry. It is extraordinary and false. Frankly, Senator Brandis's predilection for going personal are the tactics of a bully stuck in the sandpit of student politics, not those of the Attorney-General of this country. What is the public benefit in removing legal protection against hate speech? There is no conceivable public benefit in enabling blatant racial attacks. How does it benefit our Australian community to make it easier for people to vilify others because of their race or ethnicity? How does it benefit our community to defend bigotry instead of tolerance? It does not benefit our community. In fact, it damages and divides our community. It is very clear that there are really two sides in this debate. We on this side—the Labor party—stand with the community, the ethnic groups, the Indigenous Australians, and the hardworking migrants who have come to Australia and who helped build this nation because it is a fair and free society. And on the other side of this debate, we have an Abbott government who stands with a powerful journalist, with libertarian ideologues, and with the defenders of bigotry. I have said before in this place: prejudice and distrust cannot build a community, but they can tear one apart.