George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Di Natale, I am bound to say that I am disappointed in you that you would make a cheap political point about violence against women. You should hang your head in shame. Nevertheless, Senator Di Natale, the government has on Harmony Day strengthened the protections against racial vilification in the Racial Discrimination Act by extending its protections against harassment. There was no protection against racial harassment in Australian law. There is against sexual harassment under the Sex Discrimination Act, but there was no protection against racial harassment, and now there will be.

Senator Di Natale, I know you are fond of quoting experts from the academy. Let me recite to you some of the experts from the academy who have said that section 18C should be reformed or revisited: the Australian Law Reform Commission; Professor Gillian Triggs; Professor George Williams; Mr David Marr; the former human rights commissioner Sev Ozdowski; Justice Ronald Sackville; Professor Sarah Joseph, from the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law; and your former colleague from Western Australia Christabel Chamarette, among others, all of whom have in the recent past gone on the record to say that section 18C in its current form is poorly worded, and it is, if only—Senator Di Natale, if you would care to listen—for the fact that it omits from the categories of prohibited conduct racial harassment. How can you have an anti-racial-vilification law that does not prohibit racial harassment? That is the vice that this government is seeking to correct while at the same time protecting Australians' freedom of speech, as it should.