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

I rise to speak on the new attack on multicultural Australia by Senator Cory Bernardi and his renegade conservative allies, including three Tasmanian Liberal senators, led by Eric Abetz, who today have signed a motion put up by Senator Cory Bernardi to water down protections from hate speech contained within Australia's Racial Discrimination Act.

The protections against offensive, insulting, humiliating and intimidating hate speech have been a feature of Australian law for more than 20 years, since the Keating Labor government introduced changes in 1994. The changes were introduced as a response to a number of reports on racial violence in Australia, 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. Our international treaty obligations also played a part, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The act as it stands gives people some way to deal with words and actions that attack them or their fellow citizens simply for being of a particular ethnic background. The act recognises that a community as rich and diverse as Australia's only functions properly when people act in a respectful and responsible way together and towards each other.

Our Racial Discrimination Act is not designed just to stop people from getting their feelings hurt. In fact, the courts have always set the bar for breaches of this law much higher than somebody simply being offended. The types of attacks this law defends against are those that have the potential to do serious harm to people or to undermine the harmony of our multicultural community. Racial discrimination is all too often a precursor to racially motivated violence. Even when violence is not involved, a lifetime of racial abuse without any means of redress can cause terrible trauma. Either way, these are examples that reasonable Australians understand have no place in a community based on equality. But, on the opening of this 45th Parliament, it seems the only thing Senator Bernardi and Senator Abetz can come up with, particularly Senator Abetz in representing Tasmania, is this regressive move to water down an act that is working just fine.

Instead of focusing on the needs of Tasmanians, Senator Abetz is prioritising the wishes of extreme elements in the Liberal Party. Tasmania has a vibrant multicultural community. Our society and economy are also enriched by growing international tourism, and the huge number of international students at the University of Tasmania. So I ask Senator Abetz: what is it that he wants to say, but cannot currently say, under the existing Racial Discrimination Act? And what is Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull going to do about these renegade conservatives who seem to be running the Liberal Party? Weakening racial vilification laws will leave many people already in our community, as well as those who may visit our communities, feeling more vulnerable and more fearful.

Liberal Prime Minister John Howard did not seek to change this law in his 11 years in government. So why would Malcolm Turnbull allow his renegade Liberal conservatives to do so now? Labor believes there is no good reason to change this law now—or ever, in fact. The Australian community and Labor stood up to Prime Minister Tony Abbott last time the coalition launched an attack on protections against race hate speech, and they will do so again. They will always stand up for migrants and refugee communities and stand against any attacks on our current protections from hate speech. So I call on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to rein in his renegade conservative colleagues and make sure he stands firm on the commitment that he has made in recent days—that he will not introduce changes to the Racial Discrimination Act in this country, for the sake of our vibrant multicultural communities. (Time expired)