Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That is the lamest strawman argument I have heard since I was elected into this place, which is a fair while ago, and that is really saying something. What a load of absolute tosh we are listening to from the Attorney-General this evening. He reads from the Australian Law Reform Commission report a lengthy passage which does not call in any way for section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to be changed. Not one word of the passage the Attorney read out is a call for change or an opinion that it ought to be changed.

He quotes Professor Triggs quite accurately, saying she wanted to review 18C and strengthen it, which is emphatically not what this government is proposing to do with the amendments that are currently before the chamber. He is quoting Professor Triggs accurately, but in fact he is not benefiting his argument in any way whatsoever by doing so. I have formed the view that if we are going to have a filibuster from the government, which is clearly what is going on in here, then I have a few things I would like to place on the record.

I want to start by talking about the interactions between lawyers representing The Australian and the late Bill Leak and the Human Rights Commission, during the Human Rights Commission's good-faith attempt to settle that matter expeditiously, which was met at every turn by the legal representatives of The Australian and Mr Leak with obfuscation, delay and aggression.

Clearly what was going on here was that key figures at The Australianand I presume with the acquiescence of Mr Leak—made a decision very early on that they were going to use the complaint that somebody else had submitted to the Human Rights Commission as a weapon not only in their ongoing campaign against section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act but in the ongoing vendetta that was being conducted by The Australian and Mr Leak against the Human Rights Commission and specifically against Professor Gillian Triggs. It is not in any way inaccurate to suggest that the Human Rights Commission effectively begged The Australian and Mr Leak to submit a section 18D defence. Senator Paterson can smirk all he likes, but the facts are the facts.