James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It disappoints me because I actually do like Andrew. Andrew, I am sorry that you are cranky with me at the moment. How Andrew was treated with 18C was a disgrace. It was his case that first shone a light onto how 18C was going to be used by the left to delegitimise those with different views and stop them from expressing them. A journalist—that is who 18C has been used against. Then we had some students from Queensland—some normal university students who went to the Queensland University of Technology, a university that I am actually an alumnus of. One of them, it is alleged, made a throwaway comment, though it has never been proved that this person did make this comment. What happened to these students? Their lives have all but been destroyed by how 18C was used against them. It was used to turn this into a modern day witch-hunt against them. But, of course, the poor students did not even know about 18C and the Human Rights Commission, this Stasi-like Star Chamber. A so-called investigation went on for months, if not years, into their alleged conduct. These poor students have had to face excessive legal bills and their careers have probably been destroyed by the Human Rights Commission and by the fact that someone was able to make a complaint against them under 18c because this person felt offended by something that one of them may or may not have said. That is the problem with 18C: it stops people from expressing their views.

The third person I want to talk about was a cartoonist for one of our newspapers—an artist, someone who painted and drew. 18C was used against Bill Leak, an artist who, sadly, passed away. What type of society or country are we becoming when a journalist, some students and an artist are being dragged before a Stasi-like Star Chamber, not because they have committed hate crimes but because someone out there may have felt offended by something they said?

It is offensive on so many levels that the left are using freedom of speech to effectively criminalise those people with whom they disagree. This is the challenge that is facing Australia at the moment. We have seen a revitalised and revised left who are very excited by Jeremy Corbyn because he is doing so well in the United Kingdom and very excited by Bernie Sanders because he did so well in America, and what they understand is that they can use political correctness to stop those who have different views from expressing them. But it gets worse than that: we have seen the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions say that she is going to treat the law like a smorgasbord—she will only obey the laws that she agrees with, so any laws that she disagrees with she will quite happily go and break.

Australia is based on certain pillars—freedom of speech, freedom of association and the rule of law. We are seeing—with this attack on those freedoms, through the use of 18C or how the modern union movement see the law not as something to be obeyed but as something to be disobeyed—how the modern Left think, and that is a real problem.

We have already seen this week a member of the Labor Party saying that they wish to see 18C extended—even though it is to do with racial discrimination—to include a similar provision that deals with religion. Suddenly, you cannot have discussions about religion in case people are offended. Is this modern multicultural Australia where we cannot talk about religion, where we cannot talk about issues that impact on modern society? Because the true test of a tolerant, inclusive society that believes in freedom of speech is how freedom of speech is treated and, by that, the Left only believe in freedom of speech with which they agree. Views that they disagree with, they do not believe should be expressed and they do not believe in that freedom of speech. So, if we allow the Left to continue with this tirade against freedoms, we will end up on that slippery slope—I think we are on it at the moment—where people are afraid to speak their views, and that is a problem and that is dangerous for Australia.

No-one supports racism, and it is offensive of the leftists, who snigger and are snide, to imply that, because we believe in freedom of speech, somehow we are de facto racists or supporters of racism. That is incredibly offensive.

It is those of us who believe in freedom of speech who understand that, when people express views that may be racist, the best way to deal with it is not by using the police to arrest people and lock them up because they have expressed views with which you disagree. The best way, if you are upset that someone has said something that you are offended by, is to call them out. The problem with 18C and this legislation is that the Left presume that all Australians are a bunch of bigots, a bunch of redneck racists and that only the Left—the Labor Party and the Greens—can protect Australians from themselves. If it weren't for them, there would be lynch mobs running around this country hanging people off lampposts, which is incredibly offensive to those of us who believe in freedom of speech.

If someone does say something racist, you call them out on it. You do the classic Australian thing: you go, 'Hang on. Don't say that. That's racist.' And you will find that that person will stop saying that. But, if we go down the path of 18C where we have a Stasi-like Star Chamber where journalists, artists and students are dragged before, effectively, secret inquiries determining whether someone could have been offended by a comment that someone may have made, is this modern Australia?

It is important that, when we come to freedom of speech, we consider that of course there are defences. If I go back to my rusty old days as a quite average law student, I think it was Lord Denning who said that freedom of speech is limited in terms of a person shouting out—the man on the Clapham omnibus—'Fire! in a crowded theatre. If people feel they may be libelled, there are mechanisms through the courts that people can take.

The changes that we are proposing actually strengthen the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act, because we are concerned that the subjective test of being offended is being used to stop people from expressing their points of views. We want to change that test and shift it from what a subjective member of a particular class of persons may feel to what an objective member of the Australian community may feel. This is so important because this shows the difference between the Left and the Right.

We believe in common sense, common decency and the common purpose of the Australian people. We understand that, when it comes to a test of when someone has said something that may be racially tinged, shifting from a test based on the subjective view of being offended to an objective view is a better way, a safer way and a more reasonable way to make sure that those who engage in racist conduct are properly judged. That is not how it is at the moment where 18C is used as a de facto police force to stop journalists, artists and university students from expressing points of view.

We think the changes that we are proposing to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which are to insert certain words and take out other words, will actually strengthen the act. But, as importantly, we also believe that the complaint-handling processes of the Human Rights Commission certainly need looking at. How the Human Rights Commission has operated is a concern to those of us who believe in the rule of law, which is probably only those of us on this side of the chamber. It is allowed to act as a Stasi-like star chamber to drag people in and to have investigations that go for months, if not years, and people's lives are all but destroyed by the actions of an unelected body that has in it a bunch of—let me be blunt—faceless bureaucrats or, in the alternative, attention-seeking bureaucrats who are using the Human Rights Commission as a vehicle to push their own view of what modern Australia should look like.

We on this side believe that the rule of law and natural justice were absent from, in particular, the treatment of those students—who were, I think from memory, just teenagers—by this body. I do not think the President of the Human Rights Commission has ever said sorry to these students. If it were not for these students being able to have some very able lawyers in Brisbane offering to help them pro bono to fight this insidious case that was brought against them, these poor students would probably have had to settle and sign all sorts of agreements because of the pressure that was put on them not only from a mental health perspective but also from financial impacts that were put upon them. Other students did settle for $5,000, and this shows how the Human Rights Commission was being used as some sort of fancy automatic teller machine in which complainants were able, because they were offended, to take a complaint to the Human Rights Commission and say that they were offended because someone said something that made them upset and they should get some money for it. That is wrong. It is wrong that students, an artist and a journalist were treated in such a manner by such a body because a section of an act of this parliament allowed this to happen.

What we are doing here is strengthening the provisions of 18C that concern people who may have been harassed or intimidated by racial vilification. But, as importantly, we are making sure that freedom of speech flies strong in Australia, because there is an attack from the left on freedom of speech and freedom of association in Australia. There is an attack from these leftist elites who believe that the Australian people do not have the foresight, the common sense or the thoughtfulness to make decisions on their own in relation to such matters and that government knows best, but especially a Stasi-like, Star Chamber element of government which can call people into windowless rooms and accuse them of the most heinous crimes based on the fact that someone is merely offended. This is Australia in 2017, and now is the time that we must make a stand for freedom of speech and freedom of association and defend the rule of law.