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

Senator Kitching, the government is not ignoring anybody's concerns, but the government does believe that we should be able to have a sensible and respectful debate in this country about the question of how we best write our antivilification laws to protect the very people that vilification laws are meant to protect. The government is proposing to do that by including in the list of prohibited conduct 'racial harassment'.

I am afraid, Senator Kitching, that in this debate there has been so much noise, so much hysteria and too little listening to each other's point of view. I do not know any serious person who has studied section 18C as it is currently written who would defend it as the best possible way in which this law could be expressed—not Professor Gillian Triggs, the President of the Human Rights Commission, who has said that the law could be improved; not Professor Rosalind Croucher, the President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, who has recommended that the law be improved; not Professor George Williams, a former Labor Party preselection candidate and Dean of the University of New South Wales Law School, who suggested that the law be improved; not David Marr, a journalist who is not a supporter of my side of politics, who has suggested that the law be improved; and not Professor Sarah Joseph from the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, who has suggested that the law be improved.

We listen to every contribution to this debate, but please do not tell me, Senator Kitching, that there is anyone in this debate who says that we should not have a serious discussion about how to write antivilification laws as effectively as possible.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Kitching, supplementary question.