Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is extraordinary coming into this debate, I have to say. You get words like 'hate speech', 'bigots' and 'racist'. Most of them have been directed at me over the last two or three years, and I have had to deal with them. The point I make is that these words are an excuse for not actually debating a substantive topic.

I have to say that there is a modicum of hypocrisy coming from some of those opposite who talk about hate speech and not protecting the rights of bigots and from those who say that somehow we are oppressing minorities and allowing only the majority to have this unfettered freedom of speech. I reject that in its entirety, just as I reject the terms 'bigots', 'racists' and any other epithets and slurs they want to throw at us. What I do support is what Senator Di Natale said—it might surprise you, Mr Acting Deputy President. He said, 'It's very easy to jump on a bandwagon when it's convenient but it is very tough to stick to principle when it seems that people are opposed to you or it is an unpopular principle.' I am quite proud of the fact that I have stuck to principle at every turn. I have stood in this place and called out the hate preachers for many years. I have called them out when they have been out there talking about 'uncovered meat' and justifying the rape of young Australian women. I called them out when some South Australia sheikh said, 'Oh Allah, count the Buddhists and the Hindus one by one. Oh Allah, count them and kill them to the very last one.' I consider that unacceptable. It is unacceptable to advocate violence against someone on the basis of their religion.

What I do not consider unacceptable is the fact that you are able to be critical of someone. You are able to say something that someone else may find offensive or insulting. That is a subjective term. And why are we subjecting ourselves to this arbitrary decision when someone says, 'I'm offended by what you've got to say'? The offence is quite often conjured up just to stop someone from saying something that they do not want to hear. That is what has happened in the debate around the hate preachers in some of the mosques. That is what has happened in some of the debate around tackling some of the extremists that are taking up in this country. That is what happens when you call it out and say, 'We are wasting money by throwing it into circumstances where people are not lifting themselves out of poverty or making a better contribution to society.' You get called a racist or a bigot. Or someone has taken offence. When someone like Andrew Bolt, who I am proud to call a friend, says that there are people gaming the system, he is taken to court over it and he is found guilty because someone took offence. That is absolutely wrong.

I stood with the Attorney when he put forward his changes to 18C. I thought they went a bit far—I have to tell you that—but it was a starting point for negotiation. It was a starting point for community discussion. But it was drowned in these accusations of bigotry and racism. I reject that in its entirety. That is why, when the government decided not to pursue it because of the vocal minority that was up in arms about it—those in the Twittersphere and elsewhere—I joined with Senator Dean Smith, Senator Leyonhjelm and Senator Bob Day in sponsoring a very simple repeal of two words of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act: 'insult' and 'offend'. Somehow, that is racism. Somehow, saying that I do not want 'insult' and 'offend' in the act means that I am a bigot. That is simply not true, and it is not true because it has a cross-section of support. People like Paul Howes have said, 'That's a reasonable change.' You know, those notable right-wingers out there, like Julian Burnside QC, who said, 'That seems reasonable.' Greg Barns—who has been a candidate for every political party in the country, I think—has said, 'Yeah, that's okay.' A whole range of people across the political spectrum have said, 'This is a reasonable and sensible amendment to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.' But we will not hear that from those who are interested in perpetuating this cult of victimhood, this sense that somehow, because someone says something you do not like and you find offensive, you should be able to take them to a tribunal. This is a failing and it is a failing of debate in this country if we cannot stand up and have an honest and straightforward discussion without the sorts of slurs that have been put forward in this chamber and out there in the public domain.

What passes for debate in this country and what passes for media reporting in this country is, more often than not, some outraged leftie on Twitter who has been quoted by the media saying look how upset Cory Bernardi has made everyone today, because there is some anonymous desk jockey filing 140 characters of smear and abuse. That is not meaningful debate in the long-term interests of the country. We must be able to have serious conversations about the issues that are impacting us that risk offending people—and they do risk offending people.

We are somewhat protected from it in this place because we have this thing called parliamentary privilege where we can say basically what we like. We wear the wrath of it in the public sphere, but we cannot be taken to court over it. We have to use that judiciously. We have to use it appropriately. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong, but we know we are never going to front up to court over it. But the point I make is this: the rest of the country does not have that same privilege. If someone makes a comment that simply upsets someone because they have annoyed them or they have pestered or they have somehow made them feel uncomfortable, they can find themselves before some quasi-tribunal. This is absolutely wrong. It is devoid of common sense.

I do not agree that we should have unfettered free speech, because then we would have people like Sheikh Sharif Hussein in South Australia who is praying to god that all the Hindus and Buddhists would be killed. I think it is wrong to be preaching that sort of stuff out there. We should be countering it in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, we are not able to, because when you pick up this and you write to them and you say, 'What are you doing?' you get called a racist or a bigot or some other slur. That is what is fundamentally wrong. We cannot call out the hate preachers where they are.

When we are talking about hate, many times it is in the eye of the beholder. If we want to look at the hypocrisy, it was only in recent years the Greens decided the Murdoch press was somehow the hate press and were preaching hatred against the Greens and they wanted to enact some sort of government mechanism to limit the freedom of the press. I find that anathema. We have opportunities, if you are maligned by the press, to pursue it through the courts, as anyone else would, for defamation, but not simply because you are upset or somehow offended by what they have got to say. This is the hypocrisy that we are seeing in this chamber today. If we want to have a serious debate, let's have a discussion without the slurs. Let's have a discussion without the epithets. Let's have a discussion about what is in the national interest.