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

Once again we see yet another last-minute attempt to delay the Senate from dealing with an issue that has been the subject of public discussion and the subject of discussion in this parliament and in this Senate, by its committees, since the end of 2013. There is nothing more to be said on this matter, because every possible argument about section 18C has been made and made again over the course of the last 3½ years.

Might I remind honourable senators, and particularly those members of the crossbench, of the history of this matter. The coalition government was elected in September 2013, with a promise to reform section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. We promised to do that for two reasons: firstly, because it represented an unjustifiable constraint on freedom of speech, as we saw in the Bill Leak case, as we saw in the QUT students case; and, secondly, because it was not well worded to deal with the core vice of racism that is racial harassment, which was entirely missing from section 18C. We had a long public discussion in 2013. In May 2014 the Abbott government released an exposure draft of changes—changes that are very, very similar to the ultimate form of the bill that has now reached this chamber. Mr Abbott in September 2014, for reasons he explained at the time, decided not to proceed with that bill and, to use his words, took the matter off the table.

But the public discussion of section 18C continued, in particular because we continued to see section 18C being used as a vehicle for the persecution of innocent Australians, as it was used as a vehicle for the persecution of the late, great Bill Leak, as it was used as a vehicle for the persecution of a handful of completely innocent teenagers who were students at the QUT who made a wisecrack about a racially discriminatory computer lab. Those youngsters were subject to the persecution of a process for months and years. That is the reason the matter continued to be a matter of concern to all thinking Australians.

Last year the Prime Minister decided to revisit the issue, by asking me to refer the issue to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights for inquiry and report. I sent that request to the parliamentary human rights committee on 8 November last year. In the following two months, the parliamentary human rights committee held nine full days of public hearings, including a public hearing in every single capital city in Australia. Nine full days of public hearings is a very long inquiry for a parliamentary committee, by any measure. It reported on 28 November. That report was tabled.

The government considered the report. I discussed the report with the President of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, whose contribution to this discussion has been very constructive, and Professor Triggs suggested some amendments of her own, many of which the government has taken up. The matter was brought up in the Senate, when the bill was introduced last week, and a view was taken by senators that, purely for the purpose of having a look at some drafting matters, there would be a brief Senate inquiry. It was not, as you say, Senator Wong, for half a day, because in substance the inquiry went for the whole of Friday, which is about the length of time a routine Senate inquiry that does not go into the merits of the issue—because the merits had already been extensively canvassed by the parliamentary human rights committee—would expect to take. That committee has reported back, and we are now ready to debate the bill, on an issue that has been a major issue in public discussion in this country for 3½ years. There are already 20 speakers on the speakers list for the second reading. The Senate can deal with this matter this week, as it always planned to do. It should deal with the matter this week, and Senator Wong should not be indulged in trying once again to play politics with this issue.