Page 5211 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
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I am indebted to the Attorney for making his law officers available to me to assist with redrafting the amendments I had earlier foreshadowed. They adopted, with very little variation, the amendments made on 9 October 1990 to the Western Australian criminal code, introduced by Premier Carmen Lawrence.
By way of introduction I say that the response by the Western Australian Government followed, by a year, initiatives taken on 1 October 1989, when the New South Wales anti-discrimination Act was amended. I will come back to the New South Wales model because that is now the one I prefer, but I will mention the background to the Western Australian changes because I think it is relevant to the debate.
The situation which developed in Western Australia was to stop the activities of a prolonged, highly organised and large-scale racist propaganda and graffiti campaign that developed in Perth during the 1980s. That campaign had a very damaging effect on individuals, community groups and businesses - and I stress businesses - which were its targets. Those businesses, as members know, were largely Vietnamese and Jewish businesses. I think all members will agree that that State has traditionally been a conservative State, and that has not changed much under Labor. I found it highly significant that the two conservative-led States in Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia, should be the first to bring in racial vilification laws to deal with serious racial incitement.
I am not going to go into the details of Western Australia or mention names and places, because I am not entirely clear in my mind, as a lawyer, whether there are any appeals pending in relation to proceedings there. Rather than risk any prejudice, unless members want further clarification, let me assure them that the Western Australian police found extensive literature; they discovered a right wing nationalist fascist movement; they discovered, on advice available to me in my former role as Attorney-General, that there were linkages within Australia with the far Right network; and there were constant references to the League of Rights.
I believe that the director of the Western Australian League of Rights, a Mr Robert Nixon, adopted a somewhat ambiguous and equivocal attitude during the pogrom - there is no other word for it - in Western Australia. The last thing we need in this national capital Territory - the seat of government and the window on Australia through the overseas diplomatic community - is for any of what has occurred in Western Australia to transfer itself here. It is with great regret that we observe a very active far Right element developing in the Australian Capital Territory.
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