Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this 40-year anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act. Over the last 40 years, Labor has delivered a framework of human rights law that reflects Australia's rich and diverse multicultural society. Labor introduced the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975 to make discrimination on the basis of race unlawful. In the 1990s, Labor added to these protections by banning racially charged offensive, insulting, intimidating and humiliating speech that leads to racial hatred.

The Racial Discrimination Act 1975, also known as the RDA, was introduced by the Whitlam Labor government to make racial discrimination unlawful and to combat racial prejudice. The RDA makes it unlawful for anybody to discriminate against a person based on their race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin. It also gives effect to Australia's international human rights obligations under the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In accordance with these obligations, all people are guaranteed equality before the law without distinction as to race. It also provides that, regardless of ethnic background, people have a right to equal access to places and facilities, land, housing and other accommodation, goods and services, trade union membership and opportunities to work and find a job. The RDA also creates a process for mediation and conciliation of discrimination complaints, a process that is now undertaken by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

'Legislation has a vital role to play in the elimination of racial discrimination,' Labor's Attorney-General Kep Enderby said to parliament in February 1975. As the 20th anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act approached, three major inquiries found serious gaps in the protections provided by the law. The National Inquiry into Racist Violence, the Australian Law Reform Commission report Multiculturalism and the law, and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody all argued in favour of an extension of Australia's human rights regime to explicitly protect the victims of extreme racism.

In 1992 the National Inquiry into Racist Violence found that, while state and territory criminal law punishes the perpetrators of violence, it largely is inadequate to deal with conduct that is a precondition of racial violence. That conduct includes racially charged offensive speech. In response to these findings, Michael Lavarch, the Attorney-General in the Keating Labor government, introduced the Racial Hatred Bill 1994, which added a new part to the RDA. The new part IIA included a civil prohibition on racially motivated hate speech and a variety of defences to protect free speech. 'Racial hatred provides a climate in which people of a particular race or ethnic origin live in fear and in which discrimination can thrive,' said our then Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, in his speech to parliament in November 1994. Racism and bigotry, wherever expressed, are wrong. No-one has a right to be a bigot, particularly if they hurt someone. A bigot restrained will never suffer more than a victim shamed.

Last year, Senator Brandis seemed to accept that racially motivated attacks are part and parcel of the 'intellectual freedom' Australians expect—despite there already being broad exemptions under section 18D from current laws where people make infringing statements in good faith. The Attorney-General consistently justified his belief by referring to the unfortunate Andrew Bolt, found by the Federal Court to have made racist comments in bad faith. Indeed, Mr Bolt knowingly published errors of fact and distortions of the truth. If he had a sincere intellectual point to make, it would have avoided infringement of section 18C.

Unlike the current law, legislated by a Labor government, which protects views offered in good faith, the government proposed to give a free pass to people who vilified ethnic and racial groups, as long as they could link their comments to any 'political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter'. That means comments in an online newspaper or in a political or art blog making incendiary, racist comments. It would include a sign threatening perhaps a Jewish group at a neo-Nazi rally against immigration. It remains very difficult to imagine any conduct that falls outside these exemptions put forward by Senator Brandis.

In August last year, Senator Brandis was told by the Prime Minister to backflip with pike and abandon on that disgraceful plan that he had to water down the protections afforded by section 18C. Sadly, this decision was not motivated by any overdue realisation that the government had made the wrong judgement call on 18C. Rather, the point eventually came where the Prime Minister could no longer ignore the enormous chorus of community anger about the government's plans, and what a large chorus it was. Australians from all walks of life joined together and walked together to oppose the government's racial discrimination changes—something so strong in our community that the government could not ignore it. People attended community forums to demonstrate their support for tolerance, social inclusion and multiculturalism and to affirm their opposition to bigotry and racism. They organised on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. They wrote and called their state and federal members of parliament. Australians marched in the streets to demonstrate their support for retaining protections against racist hate speech.

But, rather than listening to the voices of the Australian community and admitting that he made a wrong captain's call on 18C, the Prime Minister explained he was changing course simply because 18C had become a 'complication' for the government. And the Prime Minister did not rule out proceeding with plans to repeal 18C in the future, if the political environment were more favourable for him to do so. Australians, in the Senate and in the street, can and do use the avenues open to them to call out racism when they see it. We use the rules to defend what is good and to show that hatred and hate speech are out. We do not accept excuses that racially motivated vilification is an ordinary and acceptable part of living in our democracy. It is not.

I would like to commend the Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, for his book, I'm Not Racist But… 40 Years of the Racial Discrimination Act. I also thank the other contributors to that book: Christos Tsiolkas, Alice Pung, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Bindi Cole Chocka and Benjamin Law.

To build a society where people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds feel able to fully participate and where people can live, work and play side by side, we need to defend our right to speak freely but fairly

The Racial Discrimination Act is integral to this. We have a wonderful, multicultural nation thanks to the laws and instruments that permit such a nation to flourish. I think Senator Wong articulated it very well when she said that the Racial Discrimination Act:

…is a collective expression of our Australian values, a collective expression that Australian's ought not be discriminated against on the basis of their race, and it is our collective agreement that we will, together, stand against bigotry and prejudice.

I would like to commend all of those who, day in and day out, stamp out racism in our community and those leaders who also do so—especially Adam Goodes, the Sydney Swans player, who has been an inspiring ambassador for the Racism. It Stops with Me campaign. I would like to thank the AFL for its ongoing stance against racism and all those in the community who continue to support a strong Racial Discrimination Act.