Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Rennick. Again, I'm not going to offer a legal opinion on whether someone's behaviour breaches the laws that this parliament has passed. But I guess the point I've been making is that we live in a democracy and we do value freedom of speech, but we also recognise that there are limits around what people should be able to say out of consideration for other members of the community. The robust expression of diverse opinions is an important feature of our democracy, and the bill that we passed last week on hate crimes respected the need for vibrant public debate. The offences in that bill were carefully crafted to target only the most serious forms of harmful hate speech—namely the promotion or threat of violent conduct. The offences are not intended to criminalise mere expressions of belief or opinion, however unpleasant they may be. The offences in the bill apply only where a person's communication or other conduct could result in violence or force against groups or members of such groups.