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

In continuing my remarks on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, I will make a few brief observations before moving on to the machinery provisions. In a previous contribution, a Greens senator used what I find to be a very patronising term, and that is when the term 'ethnic groups' is used. It suggests that everybody of a particular race, as of necessity, agrees with a particular point of view. For example, with David Adler from the Jewish community we have somebody who is very supportive of changes to section 18C. In the ethnic communities that I move around in there is a divergence of opinion. Indeed, just recently, there was a meeting of various ethnic community groups in Hobart, where a few people spoke against changes to section 18C and some in favour. In a good healthy democracy, that is as it ought be. But to try to present every ethnic community as some sort of homogenous group is, quite frankly, patronising.

The other point that I would seek to make is that I was concerned about reports that a Labor member now wants to not only keep section 18C but extend its application even further—in other words, stifling freedom of speech even further. What that would mean, in effect, is that we would reintroduce a blasphemy law into this country, because this Labor person wants to extend section 18C to religion. One of the bizarre justifications for this was the case of a Muslim woman having her hijab ripped off. That is completely unacceptable behaviour, but our criminal law deals with that. That is assault. It should not occur. Whether it is a hijab or a jumper or whatever it might be, that sort of behaviour should not occur. It is outlawed, and we do not need special laws for it. It is the same with being abused in the streets. That should not occur. We have laws about public order in relation to that.

But now I am being told—and this is the point I sought to make earlier—that you can call somebody a 'dirty Arab' and be found to have offended under section 18C; but, if you call them a 'dirty Muslim', no action can be taken. This is, yet again, about hurt feelings. This Labor member would want that covered as well. So we would be offended if we were called a 'dirty Arab' or a 'dirty Muslim', according to this Labor member, but what about if you were called a 'dirty unionist', a 'dirty Liberal', a 'dirty Labor Party member' or a 'dirty deal maker'? The list goes on. Where would we have government step in and say, 'You are not allowed to use this language'? As somebody who supports freedom of speech, I do not believe governments should be involved in the area of hurt feelings but it should be in the area of having public order—protecting people from assault.

Moving briefly to the machinery provisions, the government seeks to insert a new 'reasonable person' test. We heard Senator McKim oppose that. The 'reasonable person' test, I suppose, is a very foreign concept to people in the Australian Greens, but it is a well-known concept in the law designed to ensure that the law is applied in a manner in tune with community expectations. Another one of the changes is requiring the Human Rights Commission to observe the rules of natural justice. The fact that we actually have to amend to ensure that the likes of Professor Triggs, who is going down to address a Green fundraiser later this weekend, is a sad reflection on the way the Human Rights Commission is currently being conducted under Professor Triggs. That we do have to protect—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz, if you could resume your seat. Senator McKim, on a point of order.

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

Senator Abetz has misled the chamber again. Professor Triggs is not going down to address a Greens fundraiser. I wanted to place on the record that that is a lie told by Senator Abetz.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McKim. That is a debating point. It is not a point of order. I am sorry; there is no point of order, Senator Abetz.

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

Senator McKim has to withdraw.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry, Senator Abetz. Yes, you are correct. Senator McKim, it is a ruling that the President has issued with the acting chairs that 'lie' is not a word that we use and should be avoided in all instances. I would ask if you could just rephrase or withdraw. Senator Hanson-Young, on the point of order.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, Senator McKim referred to the fact that what Senator Abetz had said was not true and that it was a lie, not that Senator Abetz himself is a liar.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, I actually gave Senator McKim an opportunity to reword if he wanted to, but it would be desirable if he could withdraw the accusation where he used the word 'lie'.

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

I do withdraw after you have asked me to, Mr Acting Deputy President. I do withdraw the accusation that it was a lie and substitute that it was 'maliciously deceitful'.

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

Chair, you are required to enforce the standing orders, and to assert that somebody has maliciously misled is a reflection and needs to be withdrawn. I should not need to direct the chair as to that.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz, I sat through question time today when the Attorney-General used different words too, and I have ruled on it.

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

Well, in that case, I would ask you to refer it to the President.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It will be referred to the President.

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

Thank you, because it will need to be withdrawn.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz, you have the call.

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

The Bob Brown Foundation is, in anybody's language, a Green organisation and it is a fundraiser that Professor Triggs is unwisely addressing.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, on a point of order.

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

I will not use the word that I used before, but I will just repeat: it is not a Green event. It is not.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you Senator McKim. That is a debating point.

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

It is the Bob Brown Foundation, completely unrelated to the Australian Greens! This is how the Australian Greens dissemble and seek to mislead the Australian people, and of course, sadly, that is what Professor Triggs has done on occasion with a Senate committee as well. But to require the Human Rights Commission to abide by the rules of natural justice should not be required. It should go without saying. But the fact that Professor Triggs and the Human Rights Commission will have to be directed to follow natural justice tells us everything we need to know about the current administration of the Human Rights Commission. Further, that we will be raising the threshold required to accept the complaint also should not be necessary, but under this administration it is, sadly, required, and similarly with limiting judicial review and allowing costs to be ordered if there are unmeritorious appeals.

This legislation was seen as bad by the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, by a Greens senator, by me and by many others some 20 years ago. The proof is now in the pudding; it is bad. Bill Leak, QUT students, Andrew Bolt and others are testimony to that and that is why this legislation needs amending. (Time expired)

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we are discussing the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. The Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, the person I believe to be the worst Attorney-General in Australia's history, has introduced this bill under the pretence of defending freedom of speech. Is it any surprise that the Attorney-General, after spending much of his ministerial career attacking the President of the Human Rights Commission for doing her job, would seek to introduce a bill that winds back human rights protections that have served Australians well for 20 years?

The changes to the Racial Discrimination Act proposed by this bill are not designed to improve freedom of speech, nor are they designed to protect ethnic communities and Indigenous Australians from racial abuse. This bill is designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to protect the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull. What has been clear from the Prime Minister's behaviour ever since he took over from Mr Abbott is that he has been beholden to an agenda pushed by the ideologues who make up the majority of his party. These ideologues are like a pack of hungry wolves, baying for Mr Turnbull's blood, and the only way he can keep them happy is to keep feeding them, so he throws them a few scraps of right-wing extremist policy to feed on, one after another, just to keep them satisfied. Whether it is his backdown on an Australian republic, an emissions trading scheme, his pursuit of a plebiscite on marriage equality or the bill that is before the Senate today, Mr Turnbull has abandoned one by one the moderate principles he once held in an increasingly futile attempt to keep the wolves at bay, and he has disappointed many. Many Australians who may have had faith in Mr Turnbull are now waking up to the fact that he is utterly beholden to the extremists, who will never, ever be completely satisfied. They will always be in charge of him. Their desire for more regressive right-wing policy will never be satisfied, and Mr Turnbull does not have the courage or even the authority to stand up to them.

It is very telling that, before the government introduced this bill, Mr Turnbull claimed that changes to the Racial Discrimination Act were 'not on his agenda' So why is it on his agenda now when it was not before? The answer is simple: the Prime Minister does not have control of his agenda. And how ironic it was that Mr Turnbull used Harmony Day, of all days, to announce that he is watering down race hate laws. It demonstrates the sheer insensitivity of this government that a day that is supposed to be about celebrating respect, inclusiveness and cultural diversity was hijacked to announce this regressive policy. What galling, shameless effrontery it was to use that day to announce that they are moving to undermine the very principles the day has been earmarked to celebrate.

It just goes to show how out of touch this government is with the concerns of Australians. After all, this is a reform that very few Australians are actually pushing for. I certainly have not been faced with a barrage of letters or emails from people saying changes to 18C must be pursued with urgency. As far as I can recall, I have received three emails, which I know is three more than many of my colleagues have received. It may be a priority for Senator Bernardi, Mr Christensen and conservative columnists such as Andrew Bolt, but no-one is coming up to me in the street to say we really need to do something about the Racial Discrimination Act.

However, when I talk to ethnic communities in my home state of Tasmania, the message is loud and clear. They want protection from racist hate speech and they are very concerned with the impact that changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act may have on people in their communities. As their peak body, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia, or FECCA, said in a media release that the Racial Discrimination Act provides an 'important protection against racially motivated attacks, including hate speech, against members of Australia's culturally and linguistically diverse communities'.

Mahatma Ghandi said that a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members. This is something that those opposite could really learn from. Time and time again—and I have given so many examples of this before—their policy approach is based on attacking the most vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians, at the expense of the privileged few. When it comes to racial abuse and racial discrimination ethnic minorities and Indigenous Australians are some of the most vulnerable people in our community. And they need the protection of the Racial Discrimination Act. Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has served those communities, and our nation, very well for more than 20 years.

Before I talk about why section 18C, as it is currently drafted, should be defended let me explain a few things about racial discrimination. First of all, we know that racial discrimination, or racism, is still widespread in Australia. Nearly half of Australian residents from a culturally and linguistically diverse background have experienced racism at some time in their life, and three in four Indigenous Australians regularly experience racism. The most common form of racism is racial abuse, of which one in five people living in Australia has been a target.

There have been a number of studies that show racism can have profound negative effects on the people who experience it—impacts on physical and mental health, reduced productivity and reduced life expectancy. A study of 823 Australian secondary school students found that the mental health impacts of racism include depression; a constant fear of being physically or verbally attacked; having little or no trust in anyone except family; and even some physical symptoms such as headaches, increased heart rate, sweating, trembling and muscle tension.

Racism also presents barriers to participation which can entrench social and economic disadvantage. Before his election to parliament the member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh, co-authored a study which found that an Indigenous Australian must submit 35 per cent more applications than an Anglo-Australian to get a job interview. For the same chance of an interview an applicant of Middle Eastern heritage must submit 64 per cent more applications, and one of Chinese heritage must submit 68 per cent more.

While we have all heard the saying 'sticks and stones may break my bones', the truth is that what we say can hurt and can have real consequences. It can affect people's lives, their livelihoods and their mental and physical wellbeing. Let's also recognise that if we tolerate or permit racist language, particularly in the public arena, it sends a message to Australians that it is okay to discriminate through other means. The proponents of this change to section 18C claim that insulting or offending someone is objective, that it is up to an individual whether they are insulted or offended by a statement. I believe that anyone who says that has not had to suffer racial abuse, certainly not on a regular basis.

As FECCA said in their evidence to Friday's hearing into this bill, the removal of the terms 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' sends a message to Australians that it is okay to offend, insult or humiliate someone on the basis of their race. To those opposite, who want to weaken the protections in section 18C, I pose this simple question—and it is one that most people on our side have been asking for a long time: what is the problem you are trying to solve? What is it that Australians are not allowed to say now that you would like to permit them to say? As I said, we have been asking that question for a long time but we cannot get an answer from those on that side in regard to that.

In 2015-16, the Human Rights Commission received 77 complaints under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. This represented less than one per cent of all the complaints received by the commission. While the majority of complaints were either withdrawn or resolved through conciliation, only one complaint proceeded to court. While hundreds of complaints have been made under section 18C since it was introduced, proponents of changing this section cite a small number of cases as examples of why the current section needs reform.

One of the cases often cited—in fact, it was mentioned by Senator Abetz—is that of a complaint against the Queensland University of Technology for Facebook posts made by some of its students. This case went to court, but was dismissed by the Federal Court and leave was denied for the complainant to appeal. Without providing any comment on the appropriateness of the students' posts or the merits of the complainant's grievances, I simply ask the question: how does this example provide a case for watering down the protections of section 18C? If the court found that the case did not meet the threshold for a breach of section 18C then what changes to 18C would have improved the outcome for the students? The answer is none.

Government members who have advocated for changes to section 18C have argued that change is needed to protect free speech. But the free speech protections that those opposite are so set on are already provided in section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act. Quite simply, you cannot read section 18C in isolation, as it interacts with 18D. Section 18D provides a number of exemptions which ensure that public interest and constructive public discourse are protected. For example, you cannot say anything unlawful if it is said in good faith in an artistic performance or in publishing a report in the public interest or in contributing to genuine academic debate.

That brings me to another case that is often put forward in favour of a change in the law—that of political cartoonist Bill Leak. Regardless of the merits of the process to which Mr Leak was subjected, you cannot use his case to argue the merits of the wording in section 18C, because the complaint against him was withdrawn. We have no test as to whether his cartoon was a breach of section 18C. And if it was, it is very possible that the free speech protections provided by section 18D would have applied to him anyway.

Neither of these examples provide a case for change to sections 18C or 18D of the act. The QUT example is a bad example because it was found not to be a breach of the act. The Bill Leak example is a bad example because there was no opportunity to test its legality under the act. I am not saying that the cases could not have been handled better, but this goes to process issues that would not be addressed by changes to section 18C.

I have yet to hear the proponents of removing the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' from section 18C put forward a real example of something that they say should have been allowed, but was which was found to be a breach under the act. If Senator Brandis or any of those opposite have an example, please enlighten me, because I am still waiting for just one example. What words which would offend, insult or humiliate a person on the basis of race should people be allowed to say freely that they cannot say now under the current law? What racially vilifying language—what racist hate speech—does the government want to permit in the name of free speech?

Advocates for removing or watering down section 18C constantly misunderstand or deliberately misrepresent what this law does. This section of the act protects ethnic minorities and Indigenous Australians from nothing more than some of the most vile, hurtful racist language. It is completely disingenuous to claim that section 18C, as it currently stands, allows people to take legal action against others for hurt feelings. The language prohibited by 18C goes well beyond that and, as has been pointed out many times to those opposite, the court has interpreted this section so that it only applies to:

…profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights.

If free speech is the primary concern of those pushing for this change then they should consider the implications for free speech when protections in section 18C are watered down. This point was made by Robin Banks, the former Anti-Discrimination Commissioner in my home state of Tasmania, when she explained to a parliamentary inquiry into free speech the effect racism can have on the targeted individual. Ms Banks said:

...they end up being silenced, which is an anathema to freedom of speech. It causes people to feel that they have to hide from society, shut themselves down, withdraw from active engagement and not speak out because of fear of being further attacked for being different.

This is exactly the kind of response to racism which, as I mentioned earlier, causes it to entrench disadvantage through social and economic participation.

We heard Senator Brandis using Orwellian language the other day to defend the government's changes to the act. Senator Brandis kept claiming that section 18C was being strengthened. If this is about freedom of speech, as those opposite claim, then surely the changes are about allowing people to make statements now that they could not previously. That, by inference, means a weakening of section 18C. So how can the government be strengthening this section and weakening it at the same time? The government really cannot have its cake and eat it too. Of course, the truth is obvious to most people.

Then we have the comments by Andrew Bolt, one of the government's strongest supporters on this change to the Racial Discrimination Act, that you would have to insult someone on the basis of their race five times before it met the bill's definition of harassment. Mr Bolt has revealed the uncomfortable truth that Mr Turnbull, Senator Brandis and the rest of the government do not want to admit—that this bill will lead to more racist hate speech in Australia.

If the government were completely open about the impact of their changes then why are they avoiding scrutiny of this bill? Why have they sought to rush it through a three-day Senate inquiry? Why did government members of the committee exclude the Aboriginal Legal Service from giving evidence at Friday's public hearing? Why have they allowed a situation where not a single Indigenous voice was heard in relation to a law that could have wide-reaching consequences for Indigenous Australians? And why, as was revealed in Friday's hearing, did the government only consult with the Australian Human Rights Commission on the procedural changes in the bill, but not on the changes to section 18C? The government senators simply do not want this bill subjected to scrutiny, because they know that the consequence of the changes to 18C will be more racist hate speech in Australia.

In addition to the changes to section 18C, this bill makes a number of changes to the complaints handling processes of the Australian Human Rights Commission. On this side, we are disappointed by the rushed nature of these changes and the lack of consultation—an approach to legislating that is becoming more and more the norm and a habit with this sloppy, lazy, out-of-touch government. The changes, if passed, would result in additional red tape, additional delay and added costs for parties to complaints and would impede access to justice.

Labor will move amendments to the bill to improve the government's poorly conceived changes to the complaints-handling procedures, to ensure that they do not create new problems. As for the proposed changes to 18C in schedule 1 of the bill, of course we will be opposing them. The proposed changes to 18C are, as I said earlier, an ideological obsession of the Turnbull government, without any basis. By putting forward these changes, Mr Turnbull is doing nothing more than bowing to the right-wing extremists who run the Liberal Party and providing comfort to anyone who wishes to racially vilify their fellow Australians with impunity. It just goes to show that Mr Turnbull is willing to do anything, willing to sacrifice any principle, in order to maintain his leadership of the Liberal Party. It is very well known that he is more interested in defending his prime ministership than he is in defending Australians from racism.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a servant of the people of Queensland and Australia, I am very pleased to support this long-overdue amendment to the Racial Discrimination Act. After numerous broken promises by the government, policy flip-flops and resistance to just plain common sense, I am delighted to see that reason has finally taken the day and the government has accepted One Nation's argument that the Racial Discrimination Act needs to be changed. This government-sponsored Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 seeks to remove the words 'insult', 'humiliate' and 'offend' from section 18C of the act as grounds for the charge of racial vilification and replace them with the word 'harass'. It also seeks to help filter out frivolous or vexatious complaints and require the Human Rights Commission to advise those who are the subject of complaints as soon as they are received.

Pauline Hanson's One Nation welcomes these changes as long overdue and, whilst we would like to see far greater changes, such as the removal altogether of part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act, which contains these provisions, the government has at least taken a significant step in the right direction. At least limiting complaints to harassment imposes a requirement for an objectively measurable event as a trigger, rather than the current ridiculous situation in which complaints are derived from a subjective emotional state and therefore can be based on a whim. As most people in Australia are aware, to their cost, the now infamous Racial Discrimination Act 1975 purports to prohibit 'offensive behaviour based on racial hatred', but in reality it is simply a blatant attack on free speech. This draconian law has been used to silence individuals such as reporter Andrew Bolt and the late, great and respected cartoonist Bill Leak, who had the temerity to make comments not in accordance with the politically correct half-baked opinions of the left-wing controlling elites.

If the Senate will indulge me, I would like to recount a little history of this truly reprehensible piece of extreme leftist legislation. The Racial Discrimination Act was first enacted by the failed Whitlam government in 1975. This act purported to make so-called racial discrimination unlawful in Australia and overrode inconsistent state and territory legislation using the 'external affairs' power contained in section 51 of our Australian Constitution. As my Senate colleagues will be aware, the external affairs power has been regularly abused by both Labor and coalition governments since then in order to override the rights of the states to make laws, contrary to the intent of the founders of our Constitution.

In the case of the Racial Discrimination Act, the basis for use of the external affairs power was the signing of the so-called United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in the dying days of the Whitlam government, which was in turn adopted by the UN based on an original proposal by the Soviet Union in 1948 which sought to align democratic Western governments with Soviet policy. In 1948, following the Nuremberg trials, world leaders gathered to construct a lofty-sounding Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Soviet representatives argued that, to prevent a resurgence of Nazism, free speech should be qualified by banning so-called hate speech. The Soviets advocated making it a crime to advocate 'national, racial or religious hostility' but not of course 'class hostility'—in other words, to say anything with which they self-righteously disagreed.

Such efforts to supposedly combat hate, by denying freedom of speech, were vehemently opposed by Western delegates, including even the left-leaning Eleanor Roosevelt, who wisely said that a hate speech qualification would be 'extremely dangerous' since 'any criticism of public or religious authorities might all too easily be described as incitement to hatred'. Mrs Roosevelt and other delegates knew well that similar laws in the prewar Weimar Republic had not only failed to prevent the rise of the Nazis but had been successfully used by the Nazis to silence their critics, much as radical Muslim groups and their apologists do now.

The Soviets lost on their 'hate speech' gambit in 1948 but were finally successful in 1965 with the creation of the UN's lofty-sounding International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which contained a section calling for the criminalisation of 'ideas based on racial superiority or hatred'. This belated victory, and its subsequent adoption in 1975 by the Whitlam Labor government here in our country, represented the triumph of the Soviet view of free speech as bad and censorship as good.

Of course, not ready to be outdone in the repression-of-liberty stakes, in 1995 the Keating Labor government went one better and added section 18C. Keating's amendment states, inter alia:

(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

While some may believe that this act reflects some high-minded principle of fairness and justice, in fact nothing could be further from the truth. The hallmark of the Soviet Union was the corruption, the hijacking, of language, to become an instrument of oppression—calling war 'peace' and slavery 'freedom', for example—and this was no different. The pretence of protecting people from injustice was in fact a Trojan Horse to silence those who dared to dissent from the Communist Party line. Those of us in this parliament who believe passionately in the right to free speech are implacably opposed to this Soviet legal landmine and strongly support this amendment.

Unfortunately, the Liberal Party appears to have had a chequered history on this issue, as it has with several other key principles of classical liberalism, such as low taxes and responsible government spending. Like identical poles of a magnet, the Liberal Party and freedom of speech appear to have repeatedly approached one another only to be repelled by some invisible yet irresistible force. When the Hon. Tony Abbott was Leader of the Opposition, with square jaw and steely gaze, he publicly committed his future government to repealing section 18C following the Bolt case. However, once elected Prime Minister Mr Abbott's gaze seemed to drift out of focus and his jaw seemed to slacken. The member for Warringah suddenly decided that the promised change was a 'complication' to his 'planned overhaul of terror laws'. Perhaps it was the squeak of ministerial leather. Perhaps it was the raised voices and clenched fists of the enemies of liberty who opposed the change. Either way, Mr Abbott folded like a cheap umbrella.

However, this pesky, free speech idea just would not die, would it? In March last year the Australian Law Reform Commission called for a review of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Following a laborious two-year inquiry into Commonwealth laws that encroach on traditional rights and freedoms and an examination of whether those laws are probably justified, in a 592-page report tabled by Senator Brandis, the Australian Law Reform Commission questioned whether the Racial Discrimination Act 'unjustifiably interferes with freedom of speech'. The report further questioned whether section 18C was even constitutional, pointing out that its validity had never been tested before the High Court. Very promisingly, Senator Brandis was quoted at the time as saying that the government was 'committed to preserving and maintaining the freedoms which underpin the principles of democracy'. Senator Brandis said:

To this end, I have written to my Ministerial colleagues asking them to carefully consider what action might be taken in relation to the laws which the Commission has identified as warranting further consideration.

It is regrettable that we then had to wait another 12 months for this to bear fruit.

Happily, it seems that the member for Warringah's successor, the current Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, may well be undergoing a journey in the opposite direction to Mr Abbott. Having initially stated that free speech was 'not a priority for his government', I am heartened to see that under pressure from One Nation there are encouraging signs of a damascene conversion. Whether or not the centrist flip-floppers on the crossbench torpedo the current amendment, I very much hope that the Prime Minister's conversion will prove to be the case. It is a scientific fact that, given sufficient time, the jellyfish did eventually evolve into the vertebrate.

Although it seems hard to believe today, with neo-Stalinists like the member for Sydney lurking one heartbeat from the Labor leadership, in fact historically the Labor Party was not hostile to the principle of freedom of speech at all. Enlightened former Labor leadership figures such as John Curtin, Ben Chifley, Peter Baldwin and Barry Cohen certainly seemed to have had a strong appreciation of the importance of this issue. However, very sadly, today Labor is marching determinedly to a different drum. As the anaconda-like grip of the Socialist Left progressively tightens around the Labor Party tolerance for opinions dissenting from left-wing orthodoxy is on its last gasp.

As for the Greens, all I can say is that repression of freedom of speech could have no more eloquent a champion. The smug, elitist sense of superiority that infuses these koala-hugging commos appears to leave them without the slightest awareness of the terrible repression which they champion in their pursuit of ideological conformity with their own, frankly, antihuman world view. Even the possibility that someone else might hold a legitimate and well-reasoned opinion that differs from theirs appears to simply be beyond their comprehension.

Of course the absurdity of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is that in truth government can legislate to regulate behaviour but it cannot regulate feelings. Whether or not someone insults and offends is an entirely subjective matter in the mind of the beholder. Section 18C actually weakens and disempowers people. It turns people into victims. As my crossbench colleague Senator David Leyonhjelm said, the truth is that offence may only be taken, not given. The idea that the world is otherwise is simply a rose-tinted left-wing fantasy. But then a colourful lunar landscape seems to be a pretty accurate description of the Green vision of society. Transgender pixies riding their solar-powered unicorns over oh-so-sustainable rainbows seems to be a more accurate representation.

Throughout this debate a common rhetorical question asked by senators, like the former speaker Senator Bilyk, and members, like Mr Bill Shorten, on the control side of politics is: what is it that you think people want to say but cannot say under the current legislation? The answer to this fatuous question is obviously just 'the truth'—'All we want to hear is just the truth.' When Bill Leak called out Aboriginal mistreatment of their own children, the enemies of free speech swooped and charged him but, as demonstrated by the Northern Territory intervention, rampant child sexual abuse, neglect and drug taking in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities is simply fact.

Because of laws like the Racial Discrimination Act ordinary decent people are simply afraid to speak the truth because the truth can get you arrested, fined or even jailed. If your Muslim Sudanese neighbour is engaging in female genital mutilation, your Syrian Muslim cafe owner is a terrorist building a bomb or the Afghan Muslims in the public housing flat next to you are molesting small children, chances are that you are afraid to speak out.

Similar laws overseas have led to exactly this. In the UK, where similar anti-liberal restrictions on freedom of speech exist, 1,400 children were raped by Pakistani Muslim gangs in Rotherham. But, in the words of the inquiry into this mass crime, 'Staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist.' In San Bernadino in the US, where a Muslim terrorist killed 14 innocent—

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts is entitled to be heard in silence, as are all senators.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In San Bernadino in the US, where a Muslim terrorist killed 14 innocent people, neighbours of the killers subsequently admitted that they did not report suspicious activity because they didn't want to 'racially profile' these people. So let's be clear: political correctness ruins lives. It kills people. State censorship by provisions like section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act actually gets people killed.

To the Leader of the Opposition, his Labor colleagues, weak-kneed crossbenchers and the cultural Marxists in the Greens: that is what we want to be able to say. We want to be able to call a spade a spade. We want to be able to call out Muslim drug dealers, child mutilators, hate preachers, terrorists and perverts.

Much has been made of the effect of the amendment of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act on ethnic minorities, such as the Jewish community. Extreme left-wing organisations, such as GetUp!, have tried to fan concerns that somehow free speech equals hate speech. This line has been enthusiastically run by left-wing secular Jewish pressure groups, such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. However, it is utterly untrue to claim that the Australian Jewish community is opposed to the government's proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act.

In fact, as Jewish One Nation staff members have been keen to point out, the Rabbinical Council of New South Wales has publicly made statements expressing concern that the existing wording of 18C prevents rabbis speaking out on matters of faith. Going further, in the online journal J-Wire, leading Jewish barrister Geoffrey Bloch has strongly argued for repeal of section 18C. As Professor Michael Berenbaum, founder of the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum, has pointed out, discrediting anti-Semitism is much to be preferred to gagging anti-Semites and so infuriating and driving them underground. This is, of course, the reason I am happy for the Greens to continue to stand up on their hind legs and give vent to their anti-Semitic spleen in this place.

This issue was taken further by the Australian Jewish News in December last year when it argued:

When Jews act to restrict freedom of speech they undermine their argument against people like Jake Lynch and his cohort who prevented supporters from Israel from presenting their point of view at Sydney University.

And my Jewish friend David Adler strongly supports the removal of 18C.

In truth, the real beneficiaries of section 18C are, of course, Australia's Islamists. Australia's Muslim community is bulging with hate preachers and terrorist apologists, none of whom have ever been brought up before the Human Rights Commission for insulting, humiliating or offending their Jewish, Christian or secular Australian communities.

So, apparently, the current section 18C only applies to non-Muslims. No wonder the Greens and Labor want to keep it as it stands. The fact is, once you suppress free speech, all forms of other political ills are possible. Civilization as a whole may pass unremarked and unchallenged from an open society into one of systemic oppression, without the ability of the victims of such tyranny to even speak out against their oppressors.

Perhaps the real problem here with those who oppose amending 18C is a lack of understanding of what free speech actually means. Free speech is not the ability to say things that conform to the politically correct consensus that increasingly is dominating our lives. Free speech is the ability to say things that those in power disagree with. It needs to be remembered that even in Stalin's Russia people were still free to politically agree with Comrade Stalin! But that was no freedom at all.

What the thoughtful apologists for section 18C are really about is silencing criticism of their own actions and ideas, because they see this as the beginning of opposition that may thwart their plans for control of us all. What the Spanish Inquisition, Stalin's Russia, ISIS and the Greens who screech their support for 18C have in common is their belief that they—and they alone—are right and that those who disagree with them are not just wrong but immoral. What they fail to grasp is that this hubris is the common fountainhead of all tyranny.

It is no consolation if the goons who knock on your door in the middle of the night to drag you away are wearing socks and sandals instead of jackboots. In the words of Salman Rushdie, 'The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.'

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, on a point of order.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, it is obvious that Senator Roberts has got himself all worked up into a lather, here, this afternoon. I understand he is passionate about this issue. He is giving a very good description as to why freedom of speech is important to him.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, come to the point of your point of order, please.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think he should consider his reflections on other people in this chamber. Senator Roberts, you will always have the defence of satire on your side.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, resume your seat. There is no point of order. Senator Dastyari?

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, I would like some clarification, Mr Acting Deputy President. What are the rules around us being able to bring popcorn into the chamber when Senator Roberts—

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Dastyari, please resume your seat.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can see that this issue is a comedy issue because the people of Australia are abused in this. Genuinely free societies do not arrest cartoonists, kids at university or reporters because some activist claims that they were offended by what they said. For goodness sake, what has this country come to? How can anyone call themselves a liberal or even a social democrat and allow this Stalinist repression of free speech to continue?

I urge senators in the Labor Party and the crossbench who do genuinely believe in free speech: do not be bound by your party's errors. Please think for yourselves and consider what sort of society we all want our children to grow up in.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unlike the previous speaker, Senator Roberts, I do not feel the need to bring a cheer squad of giggling knuckle draggers to sit in the chamber with me to support me. I feel confident in my own beliefs.

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is the nicest thing you have ever said about me!

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were not giggling at that point! So, it is disappointing that some senators are so lacking in belief in their own speeches that they need those sort of cheer squads with them to encourage them. I will try to make a little bit more of a sensible contribution to the debate on this Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 than what we have just heard.

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

It is a low bar.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a low bar. I am sure all senators fondly remember my first speech to the Senate! I am sure it is emblazoned on your memories, especially my friends Senator Smith and Senator Rushton! In my first speech, really the core theme that I touched on was the need for us all—regardless of our party and regardless of where we are from geographically—to work hard to bring our community together. It is only by bringing our community together that we can solve the big challenges that face our country and the world as a whole. So it is extremely disappointing that we find ourselves debating a bill that will do the exact opposite of bringing us together. In fact, this bill will further divide Australia, and there has never been a worse time for a bill such as this which will divide Australians and turn them against each other. As I say, our country does have big challenges facing it, and we all know that it is only by working together that we will solve those challenges.

Evidence that was received in the rushed inquiry into this bill from the federation of ethnic communities in Australia pointed to the absolute, undisputed fact that racism is on the rise in our country. It is a very sad fact that, for a range of reasons and, I dare say, partly because of some of the racist sentiment which, unfortunately, we do hear at times from members of this chamber and other people in leadership positions in our community, we are seeing racism on the rise. We are seeing more complaints from people of non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds about the racism they experience on public transport, in employment situations, when they are being served at stores and in all sorts of other situations.

I am not for a moment saying that most Australians are racist. I am very proud of the fact that our country is the most successful multicultural nation in the world. Most Australians, I think, are not racist people but, unfortunately, we do have some among us who want to pick on people from other backgrounds. It is happening all too often, and I do fear that this bill will only encourage that into the future. Given that and given the risk of opening the door to more racist speech, we have to ask ourselves: why is the government so determined to push on with this bill?

We have had a number of speakers from the government talk about the importance of free speech. I accept that, particularly for the Liberal Party, the rights of the individual are an important value, and many members of the Liberal Party fight hard for them. But what is not ever recognised by members of the Liberal Party in advocating this free speech reason behind this bill is that there has always been constraints on free speech—in our society, in every Westminster parliament and in every Western democracy like our own. The law of defamation restricts people's ability to go out in public and say things which damage the reputation of other people, especially without any foundation. That is just one of numerous examples I could give where there have been constraints placed around free speech for what is considered to be for the benefit of society as a whole. That is nothing more than what section 18C, as it currently stands, seeks to do. It seeks to put limits on free speech for the benefit of the community as a whole. I think that most people in Australia recognise that there does need to be a limit on what people can say about each other because of the damage and hurt that can be inflicted when unfair, untrue or hurtful comments are made about someone, particularly in relation to their race.

Australia has come a long way in its dealing with these kind of matters. Unfortunately, my own party supported the White Australia policy, I think until the 60s, before it came to its senses and realised that was not the kind of Australia we wanted to build. Australia has come a long way in rejecting those sorts of policies; although I am sure there are a couple of senators in this chamber who pine for those days. We have moved on from that, including by recognising the need to put constraints around what people can say about others on the basis of their race.

There are other values which are just as important to Australia in the modern day as the need to protect people's free speech and their liberty, and one of those values is respect for others. In a previous speech I gave to the chamber about this topic, I talked about the fact that all of us who are parents—regardless of the party we are from—I am sure try to instil in our children respect as a value that they take on right throughout their lives. I talked at that previous time about the importance of respect for others no matter who they are and no matter where they are from. Again, opening the door to more racist speech in a form that this bill will allow is the complete antithesis of showing other people respect and it effectively gives the green light to people to be disrespectful of others on the basis of their race. That is not something I have ever encouraged in my own children and I doubt there is a senator on the other side of this chamber who would want to see their children behave in that kind of disrespectful manner. But unfortunately, that is going to be the consequence of this bill.

By their continued reliance on this notion of free speech, what we have seen from a number of speakers from the government is that they do not get it. I was here earlier today when Senator Abetz was talking about how important free speech is. He was asking why we should be putting constraints around people and what they can say on the basis of someone's race; he said that next it will be about whether someone has freckles or—I think he said—about whether someone has spectacles or braces. That sort of analogy shows how out of touch members of this government are and shows that a number of them just do not get it. They just do not get the fact that as people who are elected to this Senate we are all incredibly privileged people. Most of us have had the good fortune to be raised in a loving family and have had certain opportunities along the way, whether or not we have come from very humble beginnings.

The fact that certain government senators have drawn those sorts of analogies demonstrates that they have never actually experienced being in a position where they have less power than other members of the community, which is the daily experience of people from non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds in this country. No-one from an Anglo-Saxon background in this country gets picked on because of their race or gets discriminated against because of their race, and that is because we are the more powerful members of this community. It is only people from less powerful backgrounds, such as those from our ethnic communities, that experience this. Indeed, listening to Senator Abetz's speech reminded me of some of the debates I had to endure in student politics from speakers from the Young Liberals. It is very unfortunate that some government senators have not evolved from those kinds of juvenile arguments that you would put up when you were in your 20s. These are real problems that are experienced by people all around Australia.

Again, why is this government changing section 18C? We all know that this country faces massive challenges, whether they be economic, environmental, social—all sorts of challenges—into the future. We are spending time on this, and an inordinate amount of time has been spent by both the government and certain media outlets pushing this barrow, when there are all these other challenges out there that need to be dealt with. The Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, made the point that no-one is talking to him about this in his electorate, and I have to tell you no-one is talking to me about it anywhere I go in Queensland, whether it be Brisbane, the Gold Coast or regional Queensland. It has not been raised with me once as a burning priority for this country to deal with. I was in the chamber when Senator Williams spoke about this bill the other day, and he made the same point.

It is not surprising that a new opinion poll released today, a Fairfax Ipsos poll, showed that 80 per cent of Australians oppose what the government is doing through this bill. So, the very first item of business on the government's agenda today in the Senate was to try and push through legislation that 80 per cent of the community actually oppose! We can only assume that the real reason why this change has been such a big priority is that 80 per cent is the proportion of the coalition caucus that wants to see these measures go through and that is obsessed with these kinds of changes in the same way that certain media outlets are obsessed with it.

As part of the arguments that have been put up along the way for why this is necessary, we have continually heard members of the government seize upon two cases that have involved section 18C. One was the case involving QUT students, and one was the case involving the late cartoonist Bill Leak. Now, there may be issues with the way those cases were handled—and I note that a number of the procedural changes that are being moved in this bill will seek to improve some of the processes for handling complaints. But what has been forgotten in this entire debate is that those two cases that apparently underpin why these changes are so essential are both cases where the complainants lost. The complainant made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission; the relevant process was undertaken; and, whether it was the QUT students or Bill Leak, their actions were not successful.

I do not remember too many other instances where we have devoted so much time to debating legislation to try to fix problems that do not actually exist. The existing legislation is working. The legislation is weeding out cases that are lacking in merit and is preventing people from upholding frivolous complaints. Yet, despite that, the government is spending all this time trying to change this legislation—for a problem that does not exist.

I was a lawyer. Every single day of the week, people bring legal actions, whether they be about negligence or contract law, competition law, migration law or any other area of the law. People lose those cases, but we do not see the government say, 'The law has got to change because too many people are losing their cases.' We have only found the government to show that level of dedication in this one area, and that is because, as I say, the Prime Minister's leadership is so weak, and he so terrified of being done out of this position by conservative members of his party, that he has to jump at their beck and call. It is embarrassing to see the leader of our country held hostage by an extreme rump in his own party that is preventing him from showing leadership and from standing up for the values that we know he actually believes in.

What are the changes being proposed here? In the first instance, I want to deal with the changes of substance to the wording of section 18C. Section 18C, as it stands, essentially states that people cannot offend, insult or humiliate others on the basis of their race. It seems like a pretty reasonable position to take. As I say, it is a sentiment that demonstrates the kind of respect that we try to instil in our children and in all Australians. That has been changed in this bill so that you will only breach section 18C if you harass or intimidate someone on the basis of their race.

Now, none of us knows exactly what that is going to mean, and we took evidence at the committee inquiry on the problems that will be caused by that uncertainty, particularly around the meaning of the word 'harass'. No-one knows what constitutes harassment, rather than offending or insulting. All we have had to rely on so far is one of the chief barrackers for this change, Andrew Bolt, who has said that in his view it probably amounts to racially abusing someone on five occasions. So it will be 'okay' to do so on one occasion, two occasions, three occasions or four occasions, but it is not until the fifth time someone is racially abused that it starts becoming a problem and the law should step in. I do not think that is acceptable. I think it is unacceptable to racially abuse anyone once, let alone twice, three times, four times or five times.

There is no doubt—and again we took evidence about this at the inquiry—that, in making this change, the government is raising the threshold for what is required to constitute discrimination. The sorts of racial slurs that would currently be in breach of section 18C and on which people can take action will now be allowed to go through to the keeper. It will only be if someone is harassed and if there is a cause of conduct of racially abusing them that they will be able to take action. How is that supposed to make all of the members of our community of ethnic backgrounds or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds feel now that they are exposed to greater levels of racial slurs that they cannot take action about? They can only take action if it constitutes harassment, which suggests a course of conduct. I do not think that is fair. I do not think that is the kind of Australia that we want.

There are also a number of changes to the process that the Human Rights Commission will need to follow in taking these kinds of complaints. Labor has made it clear for some time now that we accept that the processes the Human Rights Commission follow could be improved. Indeed, the Human Rights Commission has made that point themselves. What we still remain concerned about is that we understand that there are more amendments going to be made by the government to this bill, which I think we only received about an hour ago. I do not know what the amendments are. I cannot comment on them. It is pretty unfair, I think, that the government is tabling these kinds of amendments to important legislation as it is being debated. That is just a reflection of the appalling process that this government has followed around this bill.

The bill was introduced in the middle of last week. I think it was Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon we found out that there was going to be a rushed half-day hearing into this bill. There was very limited opportunity to consult with anyone who would be affected by these changes. Labor senators managed to at least include representatives of ethnic communities to come along and give evidence at the hearing on Friday morning, but, shamefully, led by Senator Macdonald, government senators prevented the Aboriginal Legal Service from giving evidence. I just could not believe that an Aboriginal organisation was prevented from giving evidence about changes to the law which would make it easier for their own people to be racially abused. Unfortunately, that is the kind of government we have, or that is at least the kind of chair of that committee we have in Senator Macdonald. Members of the government might like to reflect on his continued behaviour as the chair of that committee.

We were also told in the inquiry that, despite comments by Senator Brandis to the contrary, the Human Rights Commission did have serious concerns about some of the changes to this bill. The Human Rights Commission did make a number of what seemed to be worthwhile suggestions as to how the bill could be improved, particularly in the area of procedures that it would follow. As I said, I do not know which of those suggestions have been picked up. I know that about an hour ago the shadow Attorney-General received some proposed amendments to this bill.

The fact that the government is sharing amendments to this bill as we are debating it just shows what a rushed process this has been, what a shambolic process this has been and how it really is just being driven by an internal political objective, which is to try to get the extreme right of the Liberal Party off the back of the Prime Minister and give him a little bit of breathing space. Now, I have some really sad news for the Prime Minister: it is not going to happen. Every time you give in, they just take more comfort. We have seen it on climate change. We have seen it on marriage equality. Now we are seeing it on the Racial Discrimination Act. Give them an inch and they will take a mile. I think that they all thought that, with Senator Bernardi defecting and going and forming his own party, the pressure would be off, but apparently it is not the case.

There are still people within the Liberal Party who want to drag it to the right—failing to recognise the politics in this country is won in the centre. I even feel a little bit sad for the Prime Minister, because we know that he does not believe in these changes just as we know that he does not believe in the changes he has to stick with around marriage equality and climate change, but, because he is beholden to a rump in his party and has no courage and no strength of his convictions, he has given in yet again. I can only imagine what the next fight is going to be. Senator Paterson and all the other ideologues from the Institute of Public Affairs are no doubt dreaming it up as we speak. It is pretty amazing that the Prime Minister of this country feels so intimidated by Senator Paterson, who I do not think has even turned 30—not that there is anything wrong with being young. It is a real sign of how weak this Prime Minister is. (Time expired)

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in support of this bill. As a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I too participated in the inquiry to freedom of speech in Australia, but, unlike those opposite, I took great heart from the process. I would like to share with this chamber why I did so.

There is no greater democratic value or individual freedom that is more greatly valued or more often cited in the Western world than the right to freedom of speech or freedom of expression. But no freedom is ever truly free in any society, and our society here is no different.

Human rights and our democratic freedoms are universal ones, but the preservation of these rights is not an issue for the left or right of any parliament, because they are truly universal rights. We may disagree on process and what the outcome looks like, but I do not believe any of us have a moral high ground on human rights or the preservation of democratic freedoms. As I said, democratic freedoms are the foundation of all modern democracies and are something that should never be taken for granted, because they are neither self-evident nor self-sustaining. Because of that, here in this place and in the other place we are the guardians of democratic freedoms of all Australians. I believe that there is no more important responsibility charged to any of us on behalf of the Australian people.

Our constitutional founders deliberately did not codify a bill of rights in our Constitution as the American founding fathers had, and that was for very good reasons. When you have a look at the reasons that they did not do it, I am very grateful today that they have given us the opportunity to progress with the times. So, rather than codifying a bill of rights, after extensive discussion and debate, our founders recognised and understood that societal values, norms and opinions change over time, and so too must the standards by which we assess freedoms and also imposition of those freedoms through human rights legislation, and that they too had to evolve with time and current values and standards. Our founders also recognised that once codified in a constitution, they would be difficult, if not impossible, to transform over time. I would ask all in this place to imagine had our founders actually codified the morals and the values and societal norms of 1901, and shackled us with that in this house, how challenging it would be to make sure that our legislation moved with the times.

Listening to those opposite saying, 'Australians do not raise 18C with me'—of course they do not. They are not going to talk about specific aspects of complex legislation. But if you ask them a different question, if you ask any Australian, 'Do you value your freedom and your right to speak, your freedom of speech', there would be few, if any, Australians who would not identify that as an important issue. Our founders, because of that, had great faith that the Australian people, through their elected representatives—through us—would ensure that laws and judgements represented the community standards of the day. It is an incredibly difficult and challenging balancing act in all democracies, and Australia is no different, but it is something that must be constantly challenged and tested on behalf of Australian society, a process that starts and ends with us in this place.

It is the role of parliamentarians in a responsible parliament to balance human rights with our democratic freedoms, and this bill achieves that balance. The bill amends the Racial Discrimination Act to redefine conduct prohibited by section 18C to ensure that the defined conduct more accurately encompasses the notion of racial vilification. I strongly support the removal of the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' from section 18C, not because I am a bigot but because I truly believe that the word 'harass' and the legal definition around that more accurately represents what we are trying to prevent—that is, racial harassment and vilification. We are strengthening this act. We are preserving freedom of speech, but we are also ensuring that this legislation meets contemporary Australian standards, which, again, is something that our founders charged us in this place with. One of the ways it is achieving a better balance of community standards is by introducing the 'reasonable member of the Australian community' as the objective standard by which contravention of section 18C should be judged, rather than by the standard of a hypothetical representative member of a particular group. This is a critically important change to this legislation, which, again, preserves a good balance.

Almost three years ago I spoke in this place about my concerns about the restrictions on freedom of speech and how section 18C in particular has been abused. In its current form, I do not believe section 18C today strikes the right balance between people exercising their right to free speech and the prevention of racial discriminations. The human rights legislation we implement in this parliament is designed to protect the rights of Australians, but what we do not often talk about in this place is that when we implement legislation to protect somebody's rights—in this case their human rights—by that very act we are also further restricting someone else's freedom of expression and freedom of speech. That is a really important point that gets lost in the politicisation of this point—that is, when you introduce legislation that does impose rights for certain members of our community, quite rightly it does also restrict freedoms, and in this case freedoms of expression, of some Australians. That is something we need to talk about more often in this place to make sure that, politics aside, we have got the balance right and that it reflects community standards.

As a member of this committee, I was very proud of the way that the inquiry happened. I would particularly like to congratulate my colleague Mr Ian Goodenough for his chairmanship of this quite challenging inquiry. The committee received 11,000 submissions. We held nine public hearings right across this country. We heard a wide range of quite diverse input from people—different aspects of the same issue from their own personal perspectives. What really pleased me was that this discussion was robust. Quite often it was very emotional and it was very harrowing sometimes to listen to some of this evidence. But, most importantly, it was done with great respect. That gives me heart and that makes me proud to have participated in this process, because to me this inquiry demonstrates that as hard as it can be sometimes to discuss challenging issues in Australia today it can be achieved. Considerable weeks of work were put into getting the draft of this report right and to doing justice to everybody who appeared and the range and diversity of opinions. So whatever happens with this bill, I take great heart that we have not completely lost the ability in this chamber and in this place to have the debates that Australians should rightly expect us to have in this place. I passionately believe that our society is absolutely improved by a diversity of ideas, robustly contested and debated. I believe also that in this way the bad ideas that come forward, that the majority of society think are bad ideas, wither away and they die while the good ones gain traction so that changing societal norms and community standards are reflected in the legislation that we debate in this place and that we ultimately pass.

The treatment of the late Bill Leak, a respected cartoonist and satirist, demonstrated to me that we still have serious constraints on freedom of speech in Australia and that we are not actually 'je suis Charlie' as many of those tried to claim here in Australia. We have heard the criticisms of those who, I believe, deliberately misunderstood or misrepresented some of the arguments. Some of those arguments include, 'There's been no-one successfully but unfairly prosecuted under section 18C'. This conveniently ignores that those who have been pursued relentlessly and for years under 18C and have been subject to years and years and years of legal action, who have been financially crippled and also had the financial stress that it incurs. Clearly we saw that through the evidence given—not just through various representatives of ethnic groups and religious groups that had experienced racial vilification, but from those who had been unfairly put through this process. Sadly, under this process truth is no defence. Bill Leak found that out. It is also interesting to note people in here talk about cartoonists. Bill Leak was not the first cartoonist who was caught in this web of 18C. Those opposite often say, 'Well, 18D is a get-out-of-jail-free card'. But 18D is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I will explain why.

You might remember the Bropho case in Western Australia, where a cartoonist was caught up for seven years under this current legislation. In that case, truth was no defence under 18D, and he was taken through the courts for seven years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, it had taken an enormous toll on Dean Alston's life. Truth was no defence and he got caught up in this web. Again, this is a web that others have been caught up in since. Others might try to downplay it and say: 'Well, it doesn't really matter. It is only a few cases.' But, let me tell you, if it was any of you or any of your family members who were caught up in this web, in how this has been applied, you would be the first ones here saying how bad this system was. One person treated unjustly under this process is one too many.

In terms of that, I would like to share with you some of the evidence we received from Mr Alexander Woods, one of the QUT complainants. He said:

I feel I should explain the simplistic incident and add to it my personal experience. I was 19 and in my second year of uni. I was with two of my engineering mates and we were trying to find a computer so that we could do our uni work. … There was a computer lab that looked like any other. We sat down and about five minutes later a lady came towards us and asked us if we were Indigenous. We said, 'No, we are not,' and she quite brusquely asked us to leave, because they were reserved for Indigenous students, and that we had to go. We promptly left and about 45 minutes later I found another computer where I posted on a Facebook page to a couple of thousand other QUT students. I said:

Just got kicked out of the unsigned Indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation.

I did not follow the post too closely after that, but what ensued was quite a political debate both for and against the merits of the facility. It was not until the next day, when I got a letter from a staff member at QUT, that I was told to take down the post. I promptly jumped on Facebook to take it down but it was already deleted. I sort of put the incident to the back of my mind until about two years later, when I was in my last semester of uni and I was faithfully reading my emails one Friday afternoon. I had an email from the HR department at uni detailing a case that had been with the [AHRC] for over 14 months, with a conciliation scheduled for the Monday, which was just one business day after. I was quite confused because at no point had anyone from the commission ever got in contact with me personally, and, to the best of my knowledge, ever tried. I spoke to the university's lawyers, who told me that conciliation was optional and the uni has been dealing with it for quite some time. I did not appreciate the full gravity of the situation at the time, and I was not legally represented. Around two months later, I was served with a notice to appear at the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, as I was personally being sued for over $250,000. At the same time, I was offered a confidential settlement of $5,000. I was extremely disappointed with my university and the commission, who I felt have effectively hung me out to dry.

Those opposite may brush away this injustice, but one injustice like this is too many, and this represents the stories of many others.

I believe the words 'insult', 'offend' and 'humiliate' are synonyms, and they are deeply subjective. They protect against hurt feelings, and they lack clarity, and that was never the intent. When you go back and have a look at the released cabinet papers, and at comments by Michael Lavarch, the Labor Party Attorney-General, you will see that how they are being applied today was never the intention of the government when they introduced this legislation. I agree that the word 'harass' captures the conduct intended and is more consistent with the original intent—and it is still the intent of government today within the act. The word 'harass' is a term deeply understood legally. It is much simpler to determine whether or not someone has been 'harassed', rather than 'offended' or 'insulted'. It is far less subjective. For an act to be unlawful under section 18C:

… a reasonable member of the Australian community must be of the view that the act must be reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to harass or intimidate a person or a group of people on the basis of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

That, despite all of the hyperbole and venom from those opposite, is not racist. We are not racist. We are not condoning hate speech. We just have a different point of view on how it should be addressed in our society. I believe that, by providing the clarity that is in this bill, the law will be stronger. There will also be a better balance with protecting Australia's freedom of speech. While we might not get to that point of genuinely—as in France, 'Je suis Charlie'—having true freedom of expression, and political expression in particular, I think it does go some way to redressing the balance. This bill will also extend protections against racial vilification. I believe the case for reform is simple and clear. It is simply the right thing for those in this chamber to do.

As I have said, these amendments will strengthen the legislation. After going through this inquiry, I believe that simply doing the process reforms and changes is not enough—as necessary as they are; they will improve the process and they will make it fairer for defendants and respondents and will also simplify the process and make it more transparent. But, without the changes to 18C in particular, it will still leave too many people who do push the boundaries of freedom of speech, such as cartoonists, vulnerable. It has been clearly shown in many cases that 18D as it is is not sufficient; people can still be dragged through the courts, because truth, in the current legislation, is no defence.

The intention of the Racial Discrimination Act under these amendments will not change. As I have said, it is still designed to protect the very people it was introduced to protect, albeit with greater clarity and without overly burdensome restrictions on people's freedom of expression. This bill restores the balance, I believe, more appropriately, between people's freedom of expression and of political communications and the legislation we introduced and we oversee to make sure that the rights of particular individuals in our society are protected as far as possible.

I have been left with the impression from the comments of those opposite that they disagree with us because they fundamentally do not trust the Australian people enough to have confidence in Australians' ability to have robust but respectful discussions about issues that are critically important to our nation, to them, to their families and to our future. Again, we have heard some of those speeches today from those opposite; they are not only hinting but I think actually, in effect, saying that they do not trust Australians to have these respectful discussions on issues that are so important to them.

But I have far more faith in the Australian people. I do believe in their ability to have robust and respectful debates. Yes, there will always be people who take discussions on either side to extremes. But I think what this inquiry has shown us all is that it is possible, even amongst those of us in this chamber who have such diverse points of view, to still come together and have these debates, and if, in this chamber, we can come together and have these debates civilly and robustly and come up with a very comprehensive report that does justice to the input from all Australians who have submitted, I think that demonstrates, more than anything else, that we need to have a lot more faith in the Australian people that we can have these debates, on same-sex marriage, on freedom of speech and on other contentious issues, and not have to nanny-state them and say, 'We can't have these discussions because it will incite hatred.' I just do not believe that, because the majority of ordinary, sensible Australians will always triumph, I believe.

So I urge all of you in this place to have the same faith in the Australian public as I do, because, if we do not preserve the balance between our democratic freedoms and the rights that we implement, who will? (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. In doing so, I wish to acknowledge Senator Reynolds was a member of the human rights committee that inquired into, particularly, 18C and 18D. Having said that, she would be well aware that there was no recommendation from that committee report that suggested that there should be a change to 18C. She would know that. She was a part of the committee inquiring into the report.

Senator Reynolds also mentioned that people are not talking about 18C. Her own colleague Mr Barnaby Joyce has indicated, to his colleagues and to the wider community, that people are not going up to him and saying, 'You have to do something about 18C.' What Senator Reynolds says to us here today is that, if you ask a different question, if you ask a question about freedom of speech, you will get a different response. And I am sure you would. Mr Joyce is not backwards in coming forwards. I think everyone in Australia would probably agree with that. But if you ask the question: 'Do you believe that we need protections to protect people from race hate?' I believe that, overwhelmingly, Australians would say yes, because this is not a racist country, and that is not what we are saying here. We are saying that the protections are in the act already. We are saying that 18C—and 18D, which provides the exemptions; that was glossed over by Senator Reynolds—is the balance that we need. That is what the Labor Party says. And of course the inquiry, as I have already indicated, found no basis to make this change.

What is even more galling is that the announcement of these changes was made on Harmony Day. I mean, seriously! Give me a break! Couldn't you have done something a bit better than that? We waited over a year to get a response to the inquiry into the violence, abuse and neglect against people with disability. And you responded within days to the inquiry into the Racial Discrimination Act—and on Harmony Day. The Prime Minister really should be ashamed.

This bill is about the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, selling his soul to keep his job. It is about the Prime Minister being forced into a position where he now says to the Australian people that racist hate speech is okay, simply to satisfy ideologues in his own party and his accomplices in One Nation. It is a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.

As has been repeatedly stated by senior government frontbenchers, including, as I have already indicated, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Joyce, and the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, the changes in this bill are not in any way a priority for Australians, and will in fact hurt the government in ethnic communities. So where is the priority? The priority is in their own caucus room, and that is no way to run a government.

The bill changes the wording of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by removing the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' and replacing them with the word 'harass'. There is no basis for this change, no logical reason why this should be done. This is an act that has served us well for over 40 years. It is one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon the Australian people by the Whitlam Labor government. It has stood the test of time as a hallmark of the values we, as a multicultural society, hold. In this country, we do not believe that people should be offended, insulted or humiliated simply on the basis of their racial or ethnic background. That is plainly wrong. Yet that is entirely the consequence of what this bill authorises.

The bill also creates a new objective standard for determining a breach of section 18C that does not allow courts to take into account the perspectives of minority groups. This is unbelievable—completely unbelievable. This is a deliberate weakening of protections against racial hate speech and racial discrimination. It is an absolute disgrace. This amendment is in fact a profound statement of what this government really stands for—what its modus operandi is.

The Senate must stand as the last line of defence from a government deliberately intent on inflicting harm on Australians from a minority background. Labor won the fight to protect Australia's laws against racial discrimination in 2014 and we will do it again. Of course this government has repeatedly failed to answer the simple question—and, in fact, I have heard Senator McKim ask this simple question: just what does the government want Australians to be able to say that they cannot say already under the existing law? Despite the government's decision not to answer this question, we know the answer. We know the answer because friend of the hard right in the Liberal Party—no friend of Mr Turnbull's—Mr Andrew Bolt, told us. Andrew Bolt has told us the truth—a truth that the Prime Minister and his government have tried not to mention: that the proposed changes to section 18C will allow more racial hate speech in Australia. According to Mr Bolt, a person will have to be insulted on the basis of their race five times before they could fall under the government's definition of 'harassment'—five times! Is this the acceptable standard that the government really wants to set? Apparently so. Labor believes that to be harassed just once on the grounds of race is not good enough, that to be offended, insulted, intimidated or humiliated just once is not good enough.

There can be no defence for racist hate speech. The Australian people agree. Just today we have seen polling in the Fairfax papers to back this up. The Fairfax Ipsos poll has found that an overwhelming majority of Australians oppose legalising speech that offends, insults or humiliates on the basis of race. The poll of about 1,400 voters shows that 78 per cent of Australians believe it should be unlawful to offend, insult or humiliate someone on the

basis of their race. Even 76 per cent of respondents who intend to vote for the coalition said they support retaining the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' in the Racial Discrimination Act.

We know the number of Australians who say they intend to vote for the coalition is dwindling. It is no wonder when the government is so intent on ignoring the advice of their own ministers in pursuit of wacky ideological changes that are simply not on the radar of most Australians. Yet for some Australians these changes will have a deeply profound impact, and I want government senators to think about this. I want to quote from Australian of the Year finalist Mr Deng Adut from the page 1 story in today's Sydney Morning Herald. I think this is a particularly pertinent passage:

Australian of the Year finalist Deng Adut, a former South Sudanese child soldier who arrived in Australia as a refugee, said he was deeply concerned by the government's proposals.

'It's outrageous the Senate is thinking about doing this,' Mr Adut told Fairfax Media.

'This will be giving a free ticket to racism and telling the whole world we don't care about minorities.'

He said he did not believe Coalition MPs understood how damaging racist speech could be.

He said:

'In Australia politicians live very comfortable lives—they aren't the ones on the receiving end'—

of racism.

'Racism reduces you to a lesser being and that's what this legislation is about.'

'It's psychological pain, psychological injury—it holds people down.'

I ask government senators to let that sink in and to have a think about those words. 'It holds people down. It's psychological pain. It's psychological injury.' That is the legacy that Mr Turnbull wants to leave from his time in office as Prime Minister: racist hate speech. That is the gift that Mr Turnbull wants to give to Australians.

How can this government seriously condone what they are doing to our minority communities with this amendment? Really, it is deeply disturbing. Legal experts have agreed that the government's changes to 18C will significantly weaken the existing protections against racist hate speech. We know that ethnic and legal groups, including the Human Rights Commission, the Law Council of Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre, have raised serious concerns over this bill. The Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, can make ludicrous and erroneous references to free speech and Voltaire all he wants, but the fact is that this bill has nothing to do with political correctness. It has everything to do with deliberately targeting and singling out minority ethnic communities to make them feel less safe in their home, in their country. It is detrimental to individuals and to communities.

With this bill, this government is directly promoting racial hate speech in Australia. The Attorney and the Prime Minister cannot crab walk away from this damning and inconvenient truth. Let us not forget that, as I said earlier, the government chose to announce these changes on Harmony Day, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Well, there is a sickening twist if ever there was one. As they walk the tightrope of views in their own shattered and divided party room, the government have sought to bring this bill on without a proper debate. They have limited to just a few days the time available for a Senate inquiry. They deliberately excluded First Australians—unbelievable but true—through the Aboriginal Legal Service, from making adequate representations to that inquiry. A government dominated Senate inquiry did not call any Indigenous witnesses. Some respect for our First Australians shown there! For the government to exclude Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians from having a say on legislation that directly affects their ability not to suffer racist abuse in their own country is an absolute disgrace.

And isn't it interesting, Mr Acting Deputy President, that the government have chosen to introduce this bill into the Senate rather than into the other place. It is because the government believe this bill will be voted down in this place. It is all designed to stop them suffering an embarrassing and humiliating defeat on the floor of the other place, where they cannot be confident their own members will support their position. That is how deeply divided the mob over there are.

This bill has pitted members representing diverse communities against members and senators with an ideological obsession with section 18C. It is entirely unwarranted and entirely unfounded. The court has already interpreted section 18C so that it only applies to 'profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights'. The discussion within the government on this made-up issue of free speech and political correctness continues to ignore completely the subsequent section in the act, section 18D, which provides relevant exemptions. Section 18D states:

Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith:

(a)   in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or

(b)   in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or

(c)   in making or publishing:

(i)   a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or

(ii)   a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.

At the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee hearing held on Friday, Mr Harry Oppermann, vice-chair of the Canberra Interfaith Forum, said the current provisions of 18D would have excluded the late cartoonist Bill Leak from any prosecution at all. I quote now from the Guardian Australia article titled 'Ethnic minority and legal groups concerned over Racial Discrimination Act changes', published on Friday, 24 March:

Oppermann said not a single person of his mother’s family, his father's family or their circle of friends survived the Holocaust.

'Both of my families were murdered in their entirety,' he told [Liberal senator] Fawcett.

'I know of no ethnic cleansing, massacre or genocide which was ever prevented by good speech.'

There is a broad coalition of opposition to this amendment bill from ethnic and religious minorities across Australia, the people who will be most affected by this change. We should heed their call, not the siren songs of free speech and anti political correctness emanating from the Institute of Public Affairs, One Nation and half the Liberal party room. Frankly, the Prime Minister too should have heeded their calls. He should be standing with our diverse and multicultural communities. Instead, he has turned his back on them. He has decided to side with One Nation and their leader, Senator Hanson. They have morphed into the one. They are one in the same: One Nation and the Liberal Party; the Prime Minister and Senator Hanson. Well, Labor will not abandon fundamental Australian values. We will not abandon the bedrock principles of the society we have built, where we encourage and respect diversity. We will stand with multicultural communities. We will stand with persecuted minorities. Labor will not support changes to the Racial Discrimination Act deliberately designed to make life harder for Australians from minority backgrounds.

This bill also makes a number of changes to the complaints-handling processes of the Australian Human Rights Commission. A number of these changes have been poorly drafted and rushed through without adequate consultation. That goes to part of the reason that Labor tried, earlier today, to allow more time to deal with this matter by moving a suspension of standing orders. It is disappointing that that motion was voted down, because the proposed changes put forward by the government would result in additional red tape, additional delay and added costs for parties to complaints. They will impede access to justice.

Amendments to this bill must be made to ensure that the government's poorly conceived changes to the complaints-handling procedures do not create new problems. That is why these issues need to be considered properly and in an orderly manner, not in a rushed manner designed to stem the bleeding from a politically wounded Prime Minister.

The Senate should draw to a close this act, draw to a close this tawdry debate, end the hand-wringing over section 18C and vote to protect the right of Australians to freedom— (Time expired)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to this debate tonight on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. Of all the pressing issues that the government has before it, they have chosen this issue rather than looking at the housing crisis, which is killing off Australian's dreams of home ownership; at the energy crisis, which has seen Australians pay higher energy costs without doing a thing about fossil fuels; and at climate change, and we have heard what their response to climate change is today. They seem to be in denial and making a joke of the fact that the Great Barrier Reef is currently having another serious episode of bleaching. What about the atrocious evidence we saw last night on Four Corners about abuse of people with a disability in residential and institutional settings? Instead of looking at these problems, the government has chosen this one, which even the member for McMillan has described as a '15th-order issue'.

You can bet that tomorrow they will be coming into this place at some stage saying, 'We need more hours, because there are all these other bills on the Notice Paper that we think are really important.' Instead of addressing those issues that they think are really important and that they themselves have admitted are priority issues, what they are doing is wasting time here on this particular issue—not that I am saying that protection from racial discrimination is not very important, because it is. But what those on the other side think is that it is okay to tear down those protections. They want to waste our time having this debate again, which most people thought had been put to bed after Mr Abbott's little blip in history. They are trying to drag that up again. Most people assumed that after his attack on the protections of racial discrimination it would have been consigned to the dustbin as yet another part of that blip in history where he was Prime Minister—along with things like the knighthood for Prince Philip and his very strange definition of 'no surprises and no excuses'. But, like some really bad zombie movie, this just refuses to stay buried. I am hoping that we will knock this off and then it will stay buried.

Here we are again talking about a change that nobody wants, that is good for nobody and that nobody thinks is needed except for a small group of people, most of whom have never experienced racial discrimination in their lives, and it is highly unlikely that they ever will. We have just had an extensive joint parliamentary inquiry by the human rights committee, which, despite being stacked by members of the Liberal Party, did not recommend that any changes be made to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. At the hearing I attended in Perth, overwhelmingly people wanted those measures to be retained.

In the last few days, we have had yet another Senate inquiry into this current bill—that is, if you can describe what happened on Friday as a Senate inquiry. It was an inquiry in which the chair banned the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service from appearing before it. Our first peoples, the people who have been subject to racial discrimination since colonisation, were excluded from giving evidence on Friday. Time after time the parliament hears about the continued need for protections against racial discrimination. For the joint parliamentary committee inquiry alone, we heard from hundreds of organisations, and thousands of individuals, about the need for racial discrimination protections. I want to specifically address the impacts of racism on our first peoples, on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the first peoples that the chair of the inquiry, Senator Macdonald, excluded from participation in the inquiry last week. ANTaR wrote a submission to the joint parliamentary inquiry saying that, far from being a theoretical discussion, racial discrimination has a very real impact on the health and wellbeing of our first peoples. They said, in their necessarily quick submission to the inquiry on Friday:

Racism and discrimination contribute to poor mental health, increased self-harm and suicide, decreased school attendance and lower workplace productivity, and participation in society more broadly.

When releasing their reconciliation barometer, which they do every two years—they released one towards the beginning of this year, which was actually—

Debate interrupted.