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

I suspect those claims have been made in this debate because of dishonesty and the dishonesty of those who have made the claims and because of the opportunism of those who have made the claims. They are certainly not the truth.

Senator Paterson, you are right to say that Irene Moss, a former Race Discrimination Commissioner, was in fact the author of the Report of the National Inquiry into Racist Violence in Australia. And you are right when you say that she did make that recommendation, and she has made the observations that you have quoted. By the way, she is not alone among people, many of whom would be regarded as inhabiting the left of the political spectrum, who have expressed the view that the removal of 'offend' and 'insult' and the insertion of 'harassment' is a good thing. Those people include Warren Mundine. They include the Hon. Jim Spigelman, a former Chief Justice of New South Wales and at one time the principal private secretary to Mr Gough Whitlam. They include Mr Paul Howes. They include Professor George Williams of the University of New South Wales, a former Labor Party preselection candidate and a well-known constitutional scholar and commentator. They include the Hon. Ron Sackville, former judge of the Federal Court. They include the journalist David Marr. They include the editorial writers of The Sydney Morning Herald, who have also expressed that opinion. They include the Australian Law Reform Commission, which in its report on traditional rights and freedoms, delivered in December 2015, on page 119, had this to say about section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act:

… it appears that pt IIA of the RDA, of which s 18C forms a part, would benefit from more thorough review in relation to freedom of speech.

In particular, there are arguments that s 18C lacks sufficient precision and clarity, and unjustifiably interferes with freedom of speech by extending to speech that is reasonably likely to ‘offend’. The provision appears broader than is required under international law to prohibit the advocacy of racial hatred and broader than similar laws in other jurisdictions, and may be susceptible to constitutional challenge.

That was the opinion of the Australian Law Reform Commission, and its chair, Professor Rosalind Croucher, who in that particular reference was assisted by the Hon. John Middleton, a much respected judge of the Federal Court of Australia, and Emeritus Professor Suri Ratnapala of the TC Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland. And of course we had in an interview with Fran Kelly last November, even the president of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, observing that it was appropriate to review and strengthen section 18C. When I quoted her in the Senate hearing last Friday, there were some unsavoury interjections from certain Labor and Greens senators—