Page 817 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
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vilification protection will be practically impossible in any potential case of racial abuse or intimidation. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a situation where a racist act would not fall within one of these many and very broad exceptions.
The Australian Race Discrimination Commissioner has stated that these changes constitute a radical departure. Very simply, there would be significantly fewer instances of racist behaviour that would be captured as unlawful. Is this the sort of community we want Australia to become? As the former Chief Justice of the High Court, Justice Gleeson, said in the case of Coleman v Power:
… almost any conduct … including indecency, obscenity, profanity, threats, abuse, insults, and offensiveness, is capable of occurring in a “political” context, especially if that term is given its most expansive application. Reconciling freedom of political expression with the reasonable requirements of public order becomes increasingly difficult when one is operating at the margins of the term “political”.
The Race Discrimination Commissioner has concluded that if this so-called freedom of speech bill is passed in its current form, the dividing line between free speech and hate speech will be removed. There would be no distinction between venting racial hostility and conducting a legitimate public debate about ideas. The sheer breadth of the exceptions sends an inappropriate message that an individual who wishes to vilify or intimidate another on the basis of race will be able to do so with impunity. It encourages a “speak before you think” mentally.
The fact is that what we communicate has a real and lasting impact on the reputation, esteem and standing of others in our community. If someone is defamed or slandered, an apology can be offered, but the reality, in most instances, is that the damage is already done and it is permanent. Under the proposed bill there is no test about whether the communication is based on fact, is honest or is a reasonable contribution to a public discussion.
Under the proposed changes, whether an act is reasonably likely to have the effect of vilifying or intimidating a member of a racial group will be examined by the standards of an ordinary reasonable member of the Australian community, not by the standards of a particular racial group within the Australian community. In other words, whether or not the act has the effect of vilifying or intimidating a person because of their race will be determined by whether it would threaten the average white Christian male in Australia. I do not believe that is an appropriate test.
This motion is an important one today. The government has committed to making a submission to the commonwealth in relation to its proposed changes and that submission is currently being prepared. We will await the outcome of the federal parliament’s debate on these questions and the form of any potential amendment before we consider our next steps in relation to ACT law. (Time expired.)
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (11.29): I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I thank Dr Bourke for bringing this motion before us. At the outset let me say very clearly something I think we would all agree on—that racism should never be tolerated. Bigotry should never be tolerated. It should be shunned and it should never
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