Page 819 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
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I strongly agree with the sentiment expressed in Dr Bourke’s motion, just as I strongly disagree with the fairly odious sentiment expressed by Senator Brandis that Australians have a right to be bigots. To express that view is one thing; to express it in the context of repealing racial hatred provisions is another, as it suggests that Australians have a right to be bigots publicly at all times, and that this is a right that trumps all others, including the right of people to be free from racial intolerance and discrimination and the right for Australians to grow a harmonious, respectful multicultural society.
I also add that it is quite another thing for that phrase—that Australians have a right to be bigots—to be uttered by the federal Attorney-General, the first law officer of our country with key responsibility for the carriage of laws that protect us against that kind of behaviour.
The federal racial hatred protections had been in place for almost 20 years. They were introduced as amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act by the Racial Hatred Act in 1995. At this point, I note for members that in my comments today I will refer to the relevant parts of the Racial Discrimination Act as “the racial hatred provisions” rather than “racial vilification” or some other terminology.
I note that Senator Brandis has employed some crafty double-think and argued that his proposal will actually strengthen protections because it introduces the term “vilification”, a term not currently referred to in the act. That is a completely spurious argument in my view, the kind of nonsensical defence that only a shameless government minister could say with a straight face to cover up some other agenda.
The second spurious argument employed by Senator Brandis and the Abbott government is that the changes are all about free speech. They are the champions of free speech. Free speech must prevail, they say. The implied corollary is that the existing racial hatred provisions are somehow curtailing free speech. That is simply nonsense. Does anyone really think that here in Australia our free speech is being restricted because of the racial hatred protections we enjoy?
As I have said, the protections have been in place for 20 years. When has free speech been curtailed? Apparently, according to the federal government, it has curtailed the ability of Andrew Bolt to spew out ridiculous, inaccurate and racially offensive diatribes. The so-called Bolt case is one of the few occasions where the federal racial hatred provisions have been used. Bolt and the federal government would have you believe that a respectable journalist had his legitimate views quashed and that the free market of ideas was closed down.
Let us look at what the court actually said about the Bolt case. The case concerned two newspaper articles he wrote which suggested that light-skinned Aboriginal people were not genuine Aboriginal people and pretended to be Aboriginal to access certain benefits and entitlements.
Note firstly that the courts have interpreted the racial hatred provisions to only capture behaviour that has “profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights”. It
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