Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

At the end of the motion, add “and in respect of the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, the bill be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 9 May 2017”.

This amendment has been circulated in the chamber, I think. No? Perhaps while it is being circulation I will speak to it.

As I understand it, this was raised last night—the desire to have this bill referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. Certainly, the opposition believes this is very important. This is not an insignificant bill. There is clearly a very significant depth of feeling on this issue about the proposed changes to 18C right across the country. We believe that there needs to be a proper parliamentary process to explore the position of the government, as detailed in this bill.

We know that whilst the government may not have had time to explore what these changes mean, due to their internal disunity and issues that they have been trying to manage. But certainly, affected communities have not, other members of parliament have not and also, indeed, the Human Rights Commission has not. Members of parliament deserve the opportunity to speak with the Human Rights Commission and other affected parties about what these changes might mean. Whilst I can hear that perhaps I might be pre-empting some of the discussion, we do not believe that the inquiries that have happened to date on 18C are adequate. They dealt with hypothetical situations; they did not deal with drafted laws.

It is interesting to note that previous inquiries also did not recommend any changes to 18C, so I think it is entirely reasonable that prior to debate and prior to the most significant changes to this legislation in many years—in decades—there be a thorough parliamentary scrutiny, a thorough Senate scrutiny, of these laws, to understand their impact.

I understand that it is the desire of the government to deal with this quickly—I presume for their own internal management of issues. But we do not believe that these laws should be rammed through. We do not believe that they should rammed through next week. I understand there have been other discussions with the senators in this place about whether a short inquiry is adequate. We do not believe that the issues can be looked at quickly, and certainly not in a the matter of days.

This is all about watering down of protections for people, essentially allowing racial hate speech to become a more acceptable part of the Australian community. We do not accept that. We have very strong and significant concerns. We are opposed to this legislation and we believe that those people, particularly those who are going to be the most affected—certainly, as far as I can see no-one on that side of the chamber will be—should have their voices heard. And that can only be delivered through a proper, open and public inquiry that my amendment would allow.

We are not seeking to delay this unreasonably. This is for reporting by 9 May, which is only a matter of weeks for that inquiry to be handled. We believe that would allow for at least some of these issues to be heard. They are not insignificant. Even if we look at the process or the procedural issues that are canvassed in this bill and the impact they would have on how the Human Rights Commission actually does its business alone, they are significant. So even if we just focused on those elements, they are something that need a proper process—not something rammed through, just like this government seems to be keen to do on every other piece of legislation. It is not acceptable that this type of change, where there is this level of distress amongst some parts of the community about the potential impact of these changes on members of the Australian community's lives that they be rammed through without a thorough committee inquiry and without those voices being allowed to be heard.

This is not something that should be determined by the ideologues on the back bench of the coalition. And it is something on which the Prime Minister has had to give in—like he has on marriage equality, like he has on climate change—to keep his own job. Watering down race hate law and race hate protections should not be determined by whether or not this Prime Minister keeps the numbers to keep his own job, but that is what has happened. It was not a priority. Now it is a priority. Now the laws have to be rammed through, and no-one has had the opportunity to have a say on them. That is what this amendment is about.