Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Racial Discrimination Law Amendment (Free Speech) Bill 2016. When the proverbial hit the fan in the wake of the brilliant Bill Leak cartoon in The Australian, and the orchestrated protests against him started to grow, I took to Twitter for a seven word tweet: 'Je suis Charlie, but bugger Bill Leak.' It was the height of hypocrisy from the opponents. They marched in the streets to support freedom of speech and freedom of expression and to honour the brave staff of Charlie Hebdo, who had been slaughtered intheir Paris office because of a cartoon.But a telling, sad but true, other cartoon in The Australian showing an indigenous policeman, an indigenous father and an indigenous boy was racist. Leak must besacked. The newspaper editor must be hauled before the PressCouncil. Leak must be charged by the RaceDiscrimination Commissioner. In fact, to his shame, the commish actuallypublicly touted for business—pleaded for affronted citizens offended and insulted by acartoonist's pen to lodge a complaint. Look at the way his officestaff trolled around the Northern Territory to find acouple of compliant signatories.Leak was ordered to appear and justify his work. So bugger Bill Leak, bugger artistic freedom, bugger freedom of speech, to which I will add 'bugger 18C'.

Luckily sanity prevailed and the demands against Bill Leak were dropped—u nlike the equally ludicrous case involving the Queensland University of Technology students and the computer room scandal , which , disgustingly , went on for years before a judge tossed it out. And, as mentioned before by Senator Paterson, Andrew Bolt, who is no friend of mine but deserves defence, should never have been charged and should never have been convicted. The people that he supposedly offended and insulted should and could have sued him for defamation. Because of his errors of fact, maybe they would have won.

Going back to the racial vilification law, where it says—

It is unlawful for a person to you there will 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—

I am offended and insulted that we have any legislation, any law in this country which is bad law. I am offended and insulted that such emotive and subjective words as 'offend' and 'insult' can be on our law books. Take the case of freedom of speech. You have to stand alongside people with opinions that you do not share. The Hansonites? You do not share their opinions, but it is freedom of speech. When you try to block it, when you try to make martyrs and shut down people who try to use it, it is bad and it is dangerous. I remember the case of David Irving, the Holocaust denier, to me a despicable person who spouted the most offensive and revolting stuff about Jewish people. He was banned from coming to Australia because of the words he uttered. I remember the case, because when he was banned I interviewed him on television by satellite for the Hinch program. Instead of him being made a martyr because he had been denied his freedom of speech, we let him have his freedom of speech and I spent the whole interview attacking him and deriding him, taking him down, making arguments against his puerile, offensive and insulting arguments. It was the same with Ian Paisley, that rabid man with his collar back-to-front. I think he was banned from Australia or told not to come.

Don't turn them into martyrs—don't ever do that. Go after them. Let them come and make their speeches. Freedom of speech has to be there for journalists, for cartoonists, for protesters and even for bigots. Take them on. An extension of this principle of freedom of speech is the reason I stood up here in the Senate and demanded that the photographic restrictions be removed for photographers—because, it is freedom of expression. They are doing their job. And if they take awful pictures of you, well, we have to wear it.

There are protections. I know Senator Dobson and I appreciate some of his remarks, but there are protections. You cannot and should not shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre. That is dangerous and could end up with deaths or injuries. And there are criminal offences. If you verbally threaten the president of the United States of America you will have the secret service on your door within 10 minutes, because that is an offence. And freedom of speech was born in the United States; it is enshrined in their constitution.

In this country you see so-called journalists, media people, 150 of them from Fairfax, who signed a document protesting against Bill Leak and demanding that he be fired. I think they are a disgrace to their profession. I recall a personal case. When I was young journalist in Sydney the then editor of the august Sydney Morning Herald, Guy Harriett, referred to me in the most insulting manner—and I apologise to Senator Dobson—as a 'white boong', because I had been born in New Zealand. Things have changed, and rightly changed. Hate speech must be talked down and fought all the time.

I want to wrap up by saying that it is not in me to the light-hearted, but I wonder if John O'Grady—who wrote They're A Weird Mob under the name Nino Culotta—would have been charged under 18C, because it depicted Italian people as dagos. In The Wog Boy movie, in which I played myself, I depicted the character played by Nick Giannopoulos as a shiftless, dole-bludging dago. That, I presume, would have been a breach of 18C. So, I say that this is a bad law. I will be supporting Senator Leyonhjelm on this and I hope that the Senate listens.