Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Je suis Charlie—I am Charlie. Those words, as we know, resonated around the world on and after 7 January 2015, when two brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, burst into the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine based in Paris, and murdered 12 people and shot to injure 11 others simply because they were exercising their right to freedom of speech. Such was the hatred of those two brothers towards satirical cartoonists who were exercising a right that has long been established in France and elsewhere that it led to those cartoonists being murdered or injured. Indeed, our own President Parry represented the parliament and the people of Australia at the memorial service that occurred in Paris soon after that event. The world was outraged. Everybody went around with T-shirts with those words 'Je suis Charlie'—I am Charlie. Yet, all too quickly, many people who confected that particular view have had cause to change it in relation to the debate that is in front of us at the moment.

Go back into history, because if we ignore or forget the lessons of history we are bound to repeat them. I do not know if it was the French historian and philosopher Voltaire, who lived between 1694 and 1778, who wrote these words, which we all know, but let's give him the credit for them: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' We can go forward to the first President of the United States of America, George Washington, and I quote his comment:

… the freedom of Speech may be taken away—and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.

Come forward to the present day and let's examine some of the comments of people in the current sphere on their view on 18C and whether it needs amendment. Mr David Marr, a person not given to the right of politics, has spoken on this matter. I will quote three of his statements. In the first he says:

… in a free and energetic society, giving offence is necessary.

Elsewhere he has said:

Offence and insults are the everyday reality of free discourse.

That resonates with Voltaire and Washington. In the third of his quotes that I will refer to he says:

Hurt feelings should never attract the law as they do now under section 18C.

I will now go to comments of Professor James Spigelman, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and, until recently, chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He has said:

I am not aware of any international human rights instrument, or national anti-discrimination statute in another liberal democracy, that extends to conduct which is merely offensive.

Those are the words of the ex-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. In the same debate he also said:

The freedom to offend is an integral component of freedom of speech. There is no right not to be offended.

I go now to the comments of former senator Joe Bullock, whose only offence was to say to his then leader, Mr Shorten, 'If you want to continue to support same-sex marriage, then, unfortunately, I will have to pack my bags.' I still feel very angry about that fact today. This is what Senator Bullock said in a speech in this place:

To be tolerant of your views I do not need to pretend that you are just as right as I am but rather to accept that you have a perfect right to hold a view I believe to be wrong, even if I find your view offensive.

Those are the words of then Senator Joe Bullock.

I go, if I may, to Father Frank Brennan. Again, a Jesuit priest would normally be regarded as one of a different political persuasion to that of my own and, of course, he is the son of a past Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. He said this on 13 March this year. You cannot be much more current than that. He said:

I have since been convinced that a provision like 18C could be designed to target racial vilification, leaving offensive insults beyond the reach of the law in a robust democracy committed to freedom of speech.

The last I wish to quote from—again, they are not a person you would think is normally on our side of the political divide—is the lawyer Julian Burnside QC. We know him to be an asylum seeker advocate and lawyer. He said that people should not be prosecuted for offending a group of people on racial grounds. He made the observation that existing racial discrimination laws go too far by making it an offence to upset people. That is according to Julian Burnside. He said:

The mere fact that you insult or offend someone probably should not, of itself, give rise to legal liability.

And:

My personal view is that 18C probably reached a bit far so a bit of fine-tuning would probably be OK.

Other people who have spoken in this space are none other than Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Gillian Triggs, who has recommended that major changes be undertaken, and indeed the Law Reform Commission.

I want to draw the attention of the chamber and those who might be listening to some definitions because they are critically important to the dialogue associated with this debate. The definition of 'intimidate' is to frighten, to threaten or to severely overawe. That of 'harass' is to torment, to persistently and continually disturb and annoy. One could not have anything but sympathy for the comments of others in this place drawing attention to the unacceptable behaviours of people towards others. I refer to Senator Lines' comments particularly. But I put to you that what Senator Lines was referring to were acts associated with attempts to intimidate or harass, and the strength of this proposed legislation is the introduction of 'harass' for the first time. It should always have been there—to torment or persistently disturb or annoy. What is the absolutely essential element of those two in contrast to the other three words? It is this: they are aimed to stop a person going about their normal business. If you think back to the comments that we heard, particularly from my colleague Senator Lines, you can see that those sorts of references and others, which should remain, are there to stop a person going about their normal business. Let me, if I may, contrast those with definitions of the others. 'Offend': to displease or to cause anger. 'Insult': be offensive and indicate to somebody their worthlessness. 'Humiliate': to suggest an indignity to a person; to interfere with their self-respect or to embarrass them. In contrast to the first two, which interfere with the normal activities of a person going about their business, I put to the chamber that the other three relate to hurt feelings. I have no doubt at all that is quite possible.

I have made the comment at different times—and it was levelled at me as a kid—that I am the grandson of bog Irish peasant farmers, and I am. The interesting thing is: in the mind of the person levelling that allegation, do they have any idea as to whether I felt humiliated, insulted or offended? How can they know what my response would be to the fact that both my maternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother came from, respectively, Galway and Tipperary? Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, you would know that, far from being offended, insulted or humiliated, I am absolutely overjoyed. I and members of my family, when we went to the north-eastern wheat belt area of Yelbeni recently, placed a plaque on a piece of granite, recognising the centenary of my grandfather taking up that land. He was the first farmer in that district. My extended family and I recounted all of the areas where their many grandchildren and now great-grandchildren have found themselves in professions around the world, around Australia and around Western Australia, contributing to the wellbeing of this place. Yet the words of that person, in calling me the grandson of a bog Irish peasant farmer, may well have been offensive, insulting or humiliating, but in no way did it stop me going about my daily business.

I want to make brief reference to one other term that is used in this place. There has been great argument from others regarding Senator Brandis, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Attorney-General, in relation to the term 'bigot'. I will place on the record what the definition of 'bigot' is. It is a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief or opinion or prejudice. All 75 of us spend plenty of time in this place and I would venture the opinion that all of us, or certainly most of us, could have reasonably levelled at us the fact that we have been utterly intolerant of the view of another or their opinion or their belief. We see it in question time every single day. That is what a bigot is, and it should be recorded to be so.

Reference has been made to the events relating to the Queensland University of Technology students. I do not intend to prosecute that much further, except to say, as my colleague Senator Griff said, it was eventually sorted out in the courts. You yourself, when you were contributing to this debate, Acting Deputy President Bernardi, from your experience involved in the court process—and there are some in this place who have had it—know that it is very much more complex, time-consuming, emotional, draining and costly than just saying, 'It was sorted out in the courts.' In fact, I saw the comment of one journalist, 'Nothing to report here.' There was plenty to report here all right, and it was a scandalous example of an abrogation of responsibility by the Human Rights Commission and its president. Indeed, thank the Lord that competent pro bono legal advice was given to some of those students.

I refer to Mr Bill Leak's cartoon. I want to comment not so much of the content of the cartoon but on the wonderful commentary given by a past national president of the Australian Labor Party, Mr Warren Mundine, himself an Aboriginal man. Mundine made the point very strongly that those who condemned Bill Leak should themselves be the ones condemned, because, as Mundine eloquently pointed out in the media, Leak was simply trying to point out what those of us who have some association with different communities, including remote communities, around this country know to be the case and deal with on a daily basis. We see the prosecution of Mr Andrew Bolt. Julian Burnside QC made the point that the plaintiffs could well have brought a libel charge against Bolt, but, no, it was worked out through 18C.

Senator Griff has pointed out his support, and that of his colleagues, for the reform to the complaints-handling process of the Human Rights Commission. I do not want to spend much more of the chamber's time, except to say that it is the case—I agree with Senator Griff—that it is an abuse of process. It is a sad dereliction in the current precepts and handling processes of the commission that either the Queensland University of Technology case or that of Mr Bill Leak were ever prosecuted to the extent they were and for the time they were. We had the regrettable circumstance of two members of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia going to Fitzroy Crossing, having a chat with a couple of Aboriginal gentlemen, putting to them the fact that this was offensive and getting them to make a formal complaint. Only afterwards, once they realised what it was they had been asked to involve themselves in, did they reverse their decision. In this place I have challenged the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia to explain the actions of those two people and to defend them. Unless I am mistaken, to this moment there has been no attempt to defend or to explain what one may reasonably call entrapment.

I conclude simply with the observation that in a robust economy, in a robust democracy, in the place where robust thoughts are argued out, it is perfectly reasonable for this to take place. I conclude simply, in my poor French, with the words, 'Je suis Bill Leak.'