Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak on this issue, particularly because this morning I spent a short but reflective time thinking about the tradition of Ash Wednesday. I saw the member for Fisher in here earlier; I know he is a good Christian fellow. I started thinking about what the start of Lent means, and a little bit of the reading that I did talked about the injunction for people to 'weep with those who weep'. I have seen a lot of people in my life weeping because they have been humiliated, they have had their racial profile used to analyse them, and they have been the subject of quite vicious verbal and sometimes physical attacks. That is not usual for Caucasian, or European, people, but the member for Canning reminded me just before that you cannot always assume that there are certain types of people who are never subject to racial hate speech or worse. He also reminded me that when I was a young man I was the subject of a racial attack. It hurt me at the time, and I remember thinking, 'What did I do to deserve that?' So I know exactly how people feel who are on the receiving end, and it did not take me long, as I matured into a man, to realise that the people who had attacked me in that way were doing so after many decades, even centuries, of being on the receiving end of absolute prejudice almost to the point of genocide. So I kind of understood the psychological trauma, the intergenerational harm that is done, when race is used to attack people.

The fact that we have people in the parliament who are using this issue as a platform for internal issues to do with a political party, and because they are concerned about another political party, is, quite frankly, disgraceful. There may be a small part of our community who might agree that we need to change these parts of the Racial Discrimination Act, but my gut feeling is that it is very, very small. I think if they were to look a bit deeper into their hearts they would realise that we do not want to be that sort of country. How on earth are we going to lift up the horizons of the whole Australian people by championing causes that weaken protections of other Australians against race hate? How are we going to do that? How are we going to bring Australia together as a proud, confident and multicultural country when we have leaders who seek to use an issue like this for their own political ends?

I believe that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights have downplayed many of the opinions, as I have said, of the Australian people. I believe that. I believe they have downplayed the majority of community groups, professional organisations and legal experts they heard from. Nevertheless, the government members on that committee did not recommend any changes. They clearly preferred the retention of part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act in its current form. I understand that that must have annoyed a lot of people on the other side who are seeking to use this issue, but the sense of social justice that I was brought up with, regardless of the racial attacks that were made against me, says to me, without a second of thought, that I would never favour any amendment of this act that weakened the protections of my fellow Australians against race attack. I just would not do it. Section 18C is already subject to the limitations of 18D. I do not think it restricts fair freedom of speech at all. But, as the member for Cowan rightly said before, repealing 18C, as the member for Fisher said he wanted to do, would send the wrong signal to our community. It is the wrong type of leadership for our country. It is wrong law—it is bad law. It would be wrong law to change that act and, as I have already said, the motives would be wrong.

I want to spend some time repeating what many in my electorate of the Northern Territory have said on this issue. I think the comments of Ms Penelope Taylor, the former head researcher at the Larrakeyah National Aboriginal Corporation, are worth mentioning here. Penelope said:

… the reality is that groups such as Aboriginal people do not have the same level of freedom of speech as the groups that we seem to be advocating for by talking about amending this provision.

They do not have the same life experience.    Her evidence is based on the results of a three-year project which interviewed over 500 Aboriginal people residing in Darwin about their views on race relations. I am just sending this message very clearly from old Darwin, in my electorate—from those old families, generations of old families, that have accepted people from all over the world onto their country: they have deep concerns about any weakening of these provisions, and they wonder why anyone on earth would want to do it. I share their frustration—why would anyone want to weaken these protections?

Penny's concern is shared by Sally Sievers, the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner of the Northern Territory and whose organisation has been unable to discuss this inquiry in-depth with all the stakeholders they wanted to because of the short timeframe. I was also a bit sceptical about why the inquiry was conducted in such a hurried manner. Many people were not aware of the inquiry, but it is with strong conviction and strong confidence that I speak for the overwhelming majority of my electorate when I say that repealing the RDA is not a good idea. I am glad that the committee in their report did not recommend that, and I am glad that they have recommended that more education is needed on the issue.

We have had so many reports on this matter—we have had the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the National Inquiry into Racist Violence and the Australian Law Reform Commission report into multiculturalism and the law. All of those reports go towards making an RDA that works for our country, that enables a fair balance between the freedom of speech and the freedom of people to be protected from race hate. That is why it should continue in its current form, and I hope we can move on quickly from this low point in the life of this parliament and be a better Australia.

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