Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, and I start by making this point: it says something distressingly sad about this government that it wants to legitimise offence, insult and humiliation all in the name of free speech—a value that gives expression to one of the cornerstones of our democracy. It is even more distressing that this government, captured as it is by a small group of ideologues, is prepared to change the barrier for what may be racially discriminatory from a sense of personal offence to one of fearfulness, for that is exactly what the changes proposed by this government to the Racial Discrimination Act and the Australian Human Rights Commission Act achieve. They declare it permissible to employ verbal abuse to affront and shock people, drawing the line only at the point of harassment. Harassment is about generating fear; it is not about protecting freedom. The boundary that Senator Brandis wants to set is harassment, the fear of being pursued and harried, rather than the protection of people's dignity. But I suppose that is what one might expect of someone who proclaims the rights of people to be bigots, and it is certainly consistent with what one may perceive to be both the instinct and the aspiration of the Attorney-General.

The Racial Discrimination Act has been on the statute books for over 40 years, and it has served our community well. It was one of the many legacies of the Whitlam government to us, and the section that has caused so much discussion in recent times has been with us for some 25 years. But, typical of a government bereft of any fresh or constructive ideas, this government's preferred way forward is to go backwards. Let us recall that the former Prime Minister's modus operandi was to smash down whatever the Rudd and Gillard governments had constructed—witness the reckless approach when it came to climate change policy. For his part, the present Prime Minister chooses to do little more than dance to his predecessor's tune—as I have previously described him, the organ-grinder's monkey.

Senators will remember that the Prime Minister has said on no fewer than 16 occasions that amending the Racial Discrimination Act is not on his agenda. Well, now it is. Whilst imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, what this tells us is that the Prime Minister has no control over his own agenda. His is set for him by the ideologues, and he simply obeys.

Laws are amended when they have been found to be inadequate by the courts or when they are no longer able to meet contemporary legal demands, and this government has singularly failed to demonstrate why this act needs changing. Is the government introducing these amendments because it has nothing else to do, a sort of 'make work' program? Or is it pursuing a more insidious purpose—to cuddle up to One Nation in an attempt to save seats? What is it that the Attorney-General wants to say that he cannot say now? Why does he want to change good law into bad law? Why does he want to send a signal to Australians that more racial abuse is permissible? Because that is the precisely the signal that is sent not only by the legislation that is before the chamber but by his rhetoric. Why is it that the policy preoccupations of the government, at least as they are paraded in this place, so constantly persuade us that we are in some kind of parallel universe where positives become negatives and vice versa?

Why is it that this government seems to be determined to subject us to a constant amateur-hour channelling of JRR Tolkien, transforming this parliament into a kind of Mount Doom? Why is it that it seems to model itself on the grotesques who live in the land of Mordor? Why is it that virtually everything it touches—the Racial Discrimination Act, for example—is left tarnished and spoiled as though it had been mangled by a gang of orcs?

The answer lies in the desperate need shown by the Leader of the Government in this place to acquire a bit of character. Since he has not, in all the time he has been in this place, provided the slightest evidence that he has anything that might be described as character, he is constantly grasping for the illusion of it. He might bask in the title of 'leader' but, in truth, he is a serial misleader. He has repeatedly misled the parliament and the Australian people over his involvement in the Bell Group affair. He has misled the parliament over claims that he consulted the former Solicitor-General, Justin Gleeson SC, prior to amending the Legal Services Directions. He has misled the public when he claimed to have consulted the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, before establishing the Don Dale Royal Commission when in fact he had not. In some jurisdictions it is three strikes and you are out. Whatever character this Attorney-General lacks, the Prime Minister has demonstrably failed to make up for it, because he should have sacked him years ago.

I have to say for the Attorney-General to arrive at the position in which he currently finds himself is a little sad. In fact, only the most hard-hearted people in this place would fail to feel a little sympathy for him. His is a lonely and thankless job: the leadership of a dysfunctional government in this place with a rabble at his heel and a rabble who is constantly on the lookout for somewhere to send him. One day it is the prospect of a High Court appointment—I presume the government is not going to be silly enough for that. Another day it is the prospect of appointment as High Commissioner in London—a suggestion that has led UK based Liberals to beg the Prime Minister to spare them the indignity of having to share London with the Attorney-General. But at last he has found his purpose, a token that might give meaning to his role as the first law officer and a cause that appears to perfectly suit his instinct and aspiration: to water down the Racial Discrimination Act. He wants to water it down so that he can say something he cannot say now: that he has found a cause that truly matters to him. To continue with the Tolkien allusion: he has found his 'precious'.

Gollum was not the most articulate of Tolkien's characters. Explanation was not his forte. In that, he displays a character not dissimilar to that of the Attorney-General, because this man has been totally unable to explain why he needs to amend 18C of the act. He has not been able to explain what he wants to change the language or why a term like 'harass' might have more legal force than 'offend, insult and humiliate'.

One might ask: if one is to change the intention of 18C, would a word like 'vilify' or 'degrade' work better than a word like 'harass'? But I think the answer is lurking in the very term the government has chosen to use, because 'harass' has connotations of the pursuit, of frequency, of repetition, of interference, of threat and even of incipient violence. It evokes the emotion of fear as distinct from loathing or disgust. That is precisely the shift in meaning that this amendment affects. Taking offence at racial vilification is no longer enough. The victim of racial vilification now would have to be fearful, if the Racial Discrimination Act is to apply, and I think that is disgraceful.

It is difficult to determine how the term 'harass' would be defined, and I daresay, should this pass—which I hope it does not—the courts would be eventually called on to interpret the proposed amendment. The Law Council of Australia has raised concerns that the term could denote proximity between people and hence not cover situations where racially offensive speech is used in a media article. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Attorney-General have been able to lend any clarity to the purpose of the amendment. Their commentary has both been vague and inconsistent.

I have to say the ducking and weaving from the Attorney-General has not been only in relation to these amendments. His behaviour in this place has been characterised by obfuscation and imprecision, a desire to obscure the truth and to mislead the parliament of the people about his intentions and actions. We all know he spent tens of thousands of dollars of public money trying to hide his diaries from public scrutiny. We all know his refusal to tell the full story in this place about the Bell matter and other matters. We also know he is not unfamiliar with conflict of interest. We have seen that he has a penchant for appointing old friends to well-paid board appointments without being able to indicate whether he did so on the advice of his department, whether he knew his old friend was in fact a Liberal Party donor or whether he acted for a member of his family in a criminal matter. The Attorney-General has clear form. His general mischief, whether as a senator or as an office-holder, begins to make sense when we see him attempt to defend the indefensible: an amendment to a sound and effective law so as to permit racial slurs that are not currently lawful. As I said earlier, what is it that he wants to say now that he could not say before?

As we look at the proposed amendments the Racial Discrimination Act, things get even more curious. Besides changing the language and meaning of section 18C, the Attorney-General is also proposing to change the objective test for determining a breach of 18C by introducing 'a reasonable member of the Australian community'. As presently drafted, the statute's objective standard is whether an act is 'reasonably likely, in all the circumstances' to have the relevant effect—offence, insult or humiliation. It is very difficult to understand the reason for such a change. Is it, for example, designed to prevent a court from taking into account the views and sensitivities of a specific ethnic or racial group on the grounds that 'a reasonable member of the Australian community' may not know or appreciate the sensitivities of the various communities that make up our multicultural Australia?

This is again a matter of concern to the Law Council of Australia, as it should be. Had the government been able to display any sense or sensibility at all, it would not have attempted to fool around with 18C or the objective standard. It would have acted as all sensible government act. It would have left well enough alone.

Tinkering with perfectly sound legislation and the associated procedures for complaints handling is always risky, not least of all because of the risk of unintended consequences—even though the changes may well, in some circumstances, be well intended. That is the real risk of the procedural changes that are sought. There is a real risk that those changes, as recommended by the Attorney, will adversely affect not only those bringing complaints under section 18C for racial discrimination but also the thousands of Australians who are party to complaints for disability discrimination, sex discrimination and age discrimination. But the government cannot leave well alone.

It is impossible to think that the Attorney-General will be successful in his quest to amend the Racial Discrimination Act by watering it down to appease the hard Right of his party. I hope this parliament represents a people who understand what a fair go looks like and, as representatives of a people who value inclusion and harmony, I hope this parliament will demonstrate its abhorrence of anything that might render our community less inclusive or less harmonious. I hope that this parliament will vote this amendment down.

It is a poor reflection on this Prime Minister that he would even permit the proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act to see the light of day. What a disgrace it is that the government dominated Senate inquiry failed to call any Indigenous witnesses.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Disgraceful.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not only is it disgraceful, what a profound statement about freedom of speech, about who they have in mind when they lecture us all about freedom of speech. How is it that the men—and women, but in this case the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General—who stand up in the parliament and say, 'We believe in freedom of speech', then deny Aboriginal Australians and their representatives the right to speak at a committee? That is a profoundly important statement about their values. It is one that reflects most poorly upon them. The Australian people are far better than the behaviour and agenda of the government in relation to this legislation. The community wants to see the parliament toss out proposed amendments to section 18C.

I want to end on this point. In voting on this, and in discussing this legislation, I hope that people in this place can not only think of the rhetoric and the principle and the politics, I hope that in this place they can also have in their minds the experience of the young Muslim woman on the bus or the young Asian boy in the street, or some other member of Australia's multicultural community who is abused because of who they are. Not only is the amendment before this place wrong, but also in many ways what is most wrong and what has been most damaging has been the signal that has been sent by a Prime Minister who believes he is a Liberal moderate, the signal that he is sending in cahoots with this Attorney-General, that this sort of racial abuse is more permissible. I ask my colleagues in this place: think of the people who this legislation is designed to protect and think of the principle, the message, that this legislation seeks to send out to the community, because what it says to the community is, 'We do not believe in this modern multicultural Australia that it is okay for you to be abused because of your race.' That is a principle that we should all stand for.

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

I rise with mixed feelings to speak on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. I say mixed feelings, because there are some procedural aspects to this bill that the Greens intend to support. I refer specifically to parts of this bill that seek to amend the Australian Human Rights Commission Act and change some of the processes and ways that the commission conducts its business. But, of course, that is not the headline of this bill. The headline and the core attempt of this bill is undoubtedly to make it easier to be a racist in Australia by gutting the protections against racism in this country that are contained in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Those 18C matters are dealt with in schedule 1. Schedule 2 amends the Human Rights Commission Act, and, in the most part, as I said, those relate to complaint handling processes of the commission. Schedule 3 amends the Native Title Act and relates in the main to annual reports. I can flag now that we are reserving our right to move a number of amendments to those matters dealt with in schedule 2, as well as ensuring that we do whatever we can to make sure that 18C stays the way it is, which is as a strong protection against racial hate speech in this country.

I want to go to the speed with which this bill is being rushed on first. I have made some comments about that already today. A casual observer of the way that this government has conducted itself could be forgiven for thinking that this is the most pressing issue facing Australians today. Quite frankly, not only is it not the most pressing issue but it is also not in the top 10 of pressing issues. In fact, it is not in the top 100 most pressing issues facing Australia today. This entire cacophony of a debate has been generated by The Australian newspaper, by the IPA and by the agents of the IPA on the Far Right of the Liberal Party. They have succeeded in bullying a gutless Prime Minister into supporting changes to racial protection laws in this country that, if passed by this place, will make it easier to be a racist in Australia.

There is never a good time to make it easier to be a racist, but now is the worst of all times. Multicultural Australia has united to defend 18C as it currently stands. In doing so, they have been abundantly clear with anyone who is prepared to listen. They have been clear that racism is on the rise in Australia. They have been clear about the physical and mental health impacts on people who suffer from racism. They have been clear about the fact that racism practised against their communities is detrimental to individuals and it is detrimental to communities as a whole. And the Greens have listened very closely to that evidence as put before the human rights committee, time after time. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with multicultural Australia. We will defend the protections against racism in this country and we will do everything that we can to ensure that multiculturalism in Australia, that beautiful fabric that weaves right through almost every element of our society, is protected and enhanced.

The government has consistently and abjectly failed to make the case for change in relation to 18C. I pose, for the umpteenth time, that question that proponents of change would rather run a million miles than actually front up and answer: what is it that they want Australians be able to say, what offence and insult on the basis of race do they want Australians to be allowed to give, that they cannot currently give? Time after time that question is posed, and time after time proponents of change refuse to answer it. Instead, they say that this is all about freedom of speech—as if freedom of speech was ever an unfettered right in a Western democracy!

But those of us who value freedom of speech—and I genuinely believe that is everybody in this place—ought know that it has never been an unfettered right in a liberal democracy, and it ought never be an unfettered right in a liberal democracy. No, this is not about freedom of speech; it is about freedom from consequence. It is about making it easier for people to say racist things in this country without facing consequences for those statements. If this government was serious about freedom of speech, they would be in here repealing section 42 of the Border Force Act, which imposes jail terms of up to two years for people like teachers and nurses who speak publicly about the horrors they witness in Australia's detention centre network.

But the government is not in here doing that. If they were serious about freedom of speech, they would be having a sophisticated debate about defamation law in this country. But they are not doing that, because this is not about freedom of speech; it is about freedom from consequence. If they were serious about freedom of speech, they would be revisiting the powers that exist to issue suppression orders in this country, to stop journalists reporting the truth in Australia. But they are not having that debate, because it is not about freedom of speech. This legislation it is about freedom from consequences.

We have the sad but entirely predictable spectacle of the Attorney-General coming into this place claiming with more front than a D9 bulldozer that these changes to 18C are about strengthening section 18C. It absolutely beggars belief. Black might be white in the Attorney-General's mind, and war might be peace, but, no, in no reasonable assessment is the government doing anything other than gutting protections against racism in this country.

Back to the unholy rush with which the government has conducted itself. I want to remind the Senate what the President of the Human Rights Commission submitted to the quick-and-dirty Senate Legal And Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into this legislation. This is Professor Triggs:

Any proposal to amend the RDA should involve extensive public consultation as it has the capacity to affect the human rights of all Australians. In particular, there should be consultation with those communities whose members are most vulnerable to experiencing racial discrimination.

And she is absolutely right about that. But, instead, what we have had is a quick-and-dirty inquiry that gave just three working days for people to make submissions and less than 24 hours notice for people to appear at a public hearing—a public hearing, mind you, that denied representatives of the Aboriginal Legal Service their opportunity to appear.

Despite the advocacy of ALP and Greens members of that committee, the government used its numbers to deny the Aboriginal Legal Service a chance to appear at that hearing, and in doing so ensured that that hearing and that committee process—the only process that was specifically inquiring into the legislation that we are debating—did not hear from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. They did not hear from this country's original inhabitants—the group which is potentially most impacted by racism in this country and certainly the group that has subjected to racism in this country for the longest time, because racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians started the day Europeans arrived in this country, over 200 years ago, and it is still going today. For this Senate to make a decision not to hear from those people through the committee process is an absolute bloody disgrace.

I want to talk about the human rights committee process. I am the Greens representative on that committee, and I want to be very clear about what we heard through the processes of that committee. Day after day, submission after submission, we heard and read that weakening 18C would unleash more racism in Australia, which would harm the health and wellbeing of members of the multicultural spectrum in this country. We heard about the harm that racism causes. We heard how it can cripple self-esteem. We heard how it can damage mental health. We heard how it can make people less likely to engage with their communities and with government services that are there to support them. We heard those stories and similar stories from the Islamic community, the Jewish community, the Chinese community, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the Lebanese community, the Vietnamese community, the Sikh community, the Japanese community, the Indian community, African communities, the Greek community, the Cambodian community and many others, including many peak bodies of multicultural Australia.

And we heard that weakening protections against racism in this country has the potential to unleash a torrent of vilification and abuse and to ostracise people from different cultures from around the world and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their own country. And remember: in many, many instances we are dealing here with Australians—Australian people who hold Australian citizenship, people who this government wants to leave more vulnerable to racism.

I want to raise a case that highlights some of the problems with what the government is proposing in regard to its 18C changes. It is Campbell v Kirstenfeldt 2008, a case in which an Aboriginal woman, Kaye Campbell, was subjected to appalling racism from her neighbour, Mervyn Kirstenfeldt. Mr Kirstenfeldt made derogatory comments to Mrs Campbell's family, using appalling racial slurs and telling them to go back to the scrub where they belonged. Mrs Campbell's 18-year-old son was a target of this abuse. Mrs Campbell said that, when she walked past Mr Kirstenfeldt's house, he would stand inside his screen door and glare and swear at her. Mrs Campbell said she was not able to go anywhere without being scared. This case ended up in the Federal Court, where Mr Kirstenfeldt's conduct was found to be offensive and insulting—two of the words that the government is seeking to remove from the act.

The simple fact is: we do not know if behaviour like that is going to meet the replacement standard that the government is seeking to insert, because the government is actually throwing away two decades of case law with these changes. The explanatory memorandum states:

The new test of whether a public act harasses or intimidates a person or a group of people on the basis of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin will focus on the vice at the heart of racial vilification. It will protect individuals from genuine racial vilification, not simply from mere slights …

Well, to have an explanatory memorandum signed off by an Attorney-General who clearly does not know the case law in regard to section 18C is an absolute disgrace. The Attorney ought to be aware of the Creek v Cairns Post Pty Ltd case where Justice Kiefel, now Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, held that the relevant harm threshold under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is behaviour that has, to quote from her judgement: 'profound and serious effects, not likened to mere slights.' So the Attorney says that people ought to be protected from vilification, not simply from mere slights, whereas Justice Kiefel's decision in the Cairns Post case makes it very clear that mere slights do not clear the bar, as the law is currently drafted. What a joke of an Attorney-General this country currently suffers under.

This government wants to also insert what is known as a 'reasonable person test'. I want to be very clear about what this reasonable person test seeks to do. It seeks to set a benchmark for racism in this country that no longer relies on the lived experience of the people who have suffered its effects. It is a logical absurdity that the government is engaged in here. What it does is to remove the current objective standard of a reasonable member of the relevant racial group—and I want to quote the Human Rights Law Centre on this: 'Section 18C has been interpreted by the courts to require an objective standard—that is, whether conduct is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate, judged from the perspective of a hypothetical reasonable or ordinary person from the relevant racial, ethnic or national group.' I will quote further from the Human Rights Law Centre: 'Courts have said that extreme, atypical or intolerant reactions of members of the group are not to be taken into account. This means that conduct is not unlawful under the current law if it racially offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates an overly sensitive person in the group.' I hope that is clear.

Put simply—and, I will admit, quite crudely—how can someone who has never been called the N-word in anger, or denigrated because of their particular race, possibly know what it feels like to have that happen? But that is the test the government wants to apply. Make no mistake: when taken as a whole, the changes to 18C—that is, the removal of words and the insertion of 'harassment', and the insertion of a reasonable person test—completely gut protections against racism in this country.

In the short time left to me, I want to address schedule 2, which has amendments to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act. The Greens welcome some of these amendments, and in fact many of them were recommended by the commission itself. Of the 59 items that we currently see in the legislation, the Human Rights Commission supports 50 of them. The Attorney-General has flagged that he intends to bring in amendments, which we still have not seen, despite the debate on this bill starting, that will address some of the commission's other concerns. But we do not know how many of the remaining nine issues that are of concern to the Human Rights Commission are going to be dealt with by the amendments in the government's package, because we simply have not seen those amendments.

I want to end this second reading contribution—I will have more to say as we move through the clauses as we have given a commitment that we will—on the divisive politics that are contained in this legislation. True leaders will try and unite a community and not divide it; in particular, true leaders will not seek to divide a community for base political aims. But that is exactly what the Prime Minister has done. I know there will be people who will be happy that he has done it: Senator Abetz, who is in the chamber now, his colleague Senator Paterson, Senator Leyonhjelm and many of the other culture warriors in this place who dedicate themselves far more to the culture war than they do to standing up for ordinary, everyday Australians. They will be happy that they have actually bullied a Prime Minister into doing the things that are contained in this legislation. They will be happy that we are debating this today when, in fact, there are so many other, more urgent issues like climate change, economic inequality and the government abandoning the people doing it toughest in this country, which we are not debating while we are debating changes to section 18C. Ordinary, everyday Australians will not be happy, but they will be happy when these changes go down, as they will. (Time expired)

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Freedom of speech is one of the virtues that underpin the functioning of our society, a society which is the envy of the world. One of the greatest protections a minority and oppressed group could have is freedom of speech. As Robert Menzies enunciated in founding the Liberal Party, 'We believe in the great human freedoms'. And amongst them is to speak. Further, he reminded us that, by elevating the individual, we meet and defeat the terrible doctrine of the all-powerful state—a doctrine at once destructive, reactionary and negative. When government determines what we can and cannot say and has tribunals enforcing this stifling approach, we go down the destructive, the reactionary and the negative path against which Menzies warned.

It was not only Menzies. When this stifling, anti-free-speech legislation was first introduced back in 1995, it was not only I who warned about its potential consequences. Listen to this:

If this legislation is passed it will create a crime of words. This will take the legislation across a certain threshold into the realm of thought police—the most commonly voiced concern in the community and one which I share

This was spoken by former Greens Senator Christabel Chamarette. There you go: all those years ago, a former Greens senator could see how this legislation would stifle freedom of speech, and she and I shared our views. Today, I stand in this place again to indicate that, sadly, the history of this legislation has confirmed the concerns expressed by former Senator Chamarette and me all those years ago. As a result of this legislation we have a journalist commentator, a cartoonist and four students hauled before these 'thought police' because they allegedly insulted, offended or humiliated.

Indeed, back in 1995 the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties—hardly a right-wing stronghold—warned about this legislation in these terms:

… essentially the effect of that legislation will be to protect people from hurt feelings. The legislation is designed specifically and in terms to protect people from offence and insults. No other legislation or principle of law that we are aware of in this country has that effect. No other legislation or principal of the law that we are aware of seeks to protect people from hurt feelings. We say the Government has no role as the guardian of hurt feelings.

That is from the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties as expressed by one Mr Pearce.

So let's be clear: there may well be unattractive behaviours which we do not like but that government, quite rightly, does not seek to outlaw. Insulting or humiliating people should not be condoned. But you could not help but note that Senator McKim's speech was peppered with insult to the Attorney-General. Indeed, I read a letter to the editor the other day saying that no change should be made to section 18C 'by Turnbull's bunch of bigots' because it would allow insults. So the term 'bunch of bigots' was not designed to insult! Their lack of self-awareness and their lack of understanding of how they are more than happy to dish out an insult, but in a certain particular discrete area it is not allowed, according to their view of the world.

Strangely, what we have in this legislation is that the government says that you should not be allowed to 'insult, offended or humiliate' on only one ground: namely, race. If government says that one cannot encroach on individual sensitivities because of race, why not religion; the height of a person or, indeed, the shortness of a person; the overweightness of a person or the lack of it; the colour of hair; the lack of hair; skin complexion; whether somebody has freckles or not; one's financial position or lack of it; or a physical aid, such as glasses or hearing aids—the list, quite frankly, is, and can be, endless. Indeed, I saw a recent study of bullying at schools, and what was the top criterion? Was it race? No, it was not. Was it sexuality? No, it was not. It was, sadly, the issue of physical characteristics—whether somebody has buckteeth, whether they are overweight, whether they have red hair—and their social acceptance within the particular group. If you have a look at youth suicide, you will see that it is those factors, sadly, that overwhelmingly lead to that scourge that currently plagues our community.

For whatever bizarre reason of political correctness, government determined that we should be allowed to continue to insult, offend et cetera—and I accept this is unattractive behaviour but nevertheless should not be outlawed—just not on the basis of race. It is just as hurtful, just as insulting and just as humiliating to say insulting words to somebody because of what might be a physical disability or their religious belief, or because they are overweight, as opposed to their race. So the question that we have to ask in this place is: what is the role of government?

There is a threshold question here, and that is: should people be protected not about hurt feelings but to enable them to go about their normal day-to-day activities in society? I think we would all agree that that should be allowed and people should be protected. That is why we say: get rid of the words that deal with hurt feelings and deal with the issue of harassment. I must say, I am one of those people who question why we have a special provision that says you are not allowed to harass somebody because of race. My view is that you should not be allowed to harass people to stop them going about their normal day-to-day activities full stop, irrespective of whether the motivation is race, political belief, religious belief, or because you do not like the way the neighbour mows the lawn and so you harass them. We do have laws against harassment, we do have laws against intimidation, and that is the way it ought be.

Let's be quite clear that this legislation not only has government encroaching on our lives and policing us with tribunals—meting out, might I add, public humiliation along with penalties for saying the politically incorrect thing—but is a system that also punishes, as the four QUT students found out. After many years they were finally exonerated, but during that period they were publicly insulted, publicly humiliated and publicly offended by being labelled racists and being dragged through the papers. Oh, there was no problem with that, because our beloved Human Rights Commission was dealing with it! You know: the President of the Human Rights Commission who is going to support the Bob Brown Foundation on Friday at a fundraiser. That is why Senator Nick McKim likes Professor Triggs; that is why he quotes Professor Triggs with approval—because Professor Triggs is going down to Tasmania on Friday to do a fundraiser for the Bob Brown Foundation / the Greens party in Tasmania. But, coming back to the issue at stake, the QUT students were subjected to public ridicule, brought before the legal system and lumbered with a bill of tens of thousands of dollars to have their names exonerated, and also, might I add, they were publicly humiliated for all those years. I say unreservedly that our citizens deserve protection from such heavy handedness, from such ugliness—from the instruments of government.

Many within our community, for fear of the legal costs and for fear of being publicly humiliated and labelled racist, simply pay 'go away money' so that their names never appear in public. Thank goodness the QUT students took a stand. And I stand here with those QUT students, and others, who say that they should have been allowed to say and do what they did without the heavy, oppressive, stifling hand of government upon them to stop them. Do you know what their alleged great sin was? They called out racial segregation at their university and labelled it segregation. Oh, the thought police were into that big time! Those students were immediately pursued in circumstances where they should never have been pursued.

There are other aspects of this legislation that I will get into when I am able to continue this speech. There are machinery amendments to this legislation that are also vitally important to ensuring we have a proper system in place. When the Human Rights Commission and this legislation first started, 30 per cent of complaints were thrown out as being unmeritorious, as not being worthy. Now we have a situation, under the current regime, of only five per cent being thrown out. What you see is a make-work scheme for the Human Rights Commission.

In relation to Senator McKim's contribution, can I say very briefly that the facts of the case he referred to, the Kirstenfeldt case, would clearly fit into the category of harassment. Without any shadow of doubt, that would have been a case of harassment and not of hurt feelings, and that is something the Australian Greens and their mate on the Human Rights Commission will not say. As I have indicated, these are the people, from the left of Australian politics in particular, that spend their day insulting, offending and humiliating people for all sorts of reasons but then come into this place and say, 'Don't do as we do in the situation of race.' Well, ugly as some language may be from time to time, unattractive as it may be, government has no role in seeking to stifle people's speech, as the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties indicated, for the concept of hurt feelings.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Abetz. The time has reached 2 pm. We now move to questions without notice.