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

That is a very good question, if I may say so, Senator Paterson. You are right and the member for Goldstein, Mr Wilson, is right as well. When section 18C was inserted into the Racial Discrimination Act by the 1995 amendments, those amendments themselves were designed to give effect to the recommendations of an inquiry conducted by what was then called the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which was the predecessor body of the Australian Human Rights Commission. That inquiry was called the National Inquiry into Racist Violence. There had been two earlier inquiries which touched upon the matter. One was the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. There was a third inquiry as well, the name of which I do not quite recall. But there were three. But the immediate inquiry, whose findings were specifically adopted by the amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act in 1995, was the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's inquiry entitled National Inquiry into Racist Violence, and that inquiry, as did the other two, specifically recommended that the word 'harass' be included as one of the species of prohibited conduct. It has never been explained why that recommendation was not adopted by the Keating government given that the purpose of part 2A of the Racial Discrimination Act, which includes section 18C, was explicitly, as Mr Lavarch, the then Attorney-General, said in his second reading speech, designed to give effect to the recommendations of the HREOC National Inquiry into Racist Violence.

But I must say that anyone who says—and we have heard from many opposition and Greens speakers in this debate—they do not want section 18C changed, whatever else they may be saying, is necessarily saying they do not want racial harassment to be prohibited in Australia. They do not want to give effect, albeit belatedly, to the recommendations of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's National Inquiry into Racist Violence. The government does want to do that, and I think it is a disgrace that others who denounce those who are promoting this bill as seeking to encourage racism of all things try to prevent us reforming the bill to give effect to the findings of the National Inquiry into Racist Violence.