Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

( Well, here we go again. People watching this debate could be forgiven if they thought that reform of the Racial Discrimination Act was the most important issue facing Australia today. Obviously it is not. Freedom of speech is not under threat from section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act; in fact, there are a number of laws in this country that impose far more draconian restrictions on freedom of speech than does 18C. I want to mention again section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act, which provides sweeping protections for freedom of speech. I will come to that in more detail later in my contribution today.

For people who want reform of 18C to style themselves as self-appointed warriors for freedom of speech in this country is simply dishonest. They are not campaigning for freedom of speech; they are campaigning for freedom from consequence. They are campaigning to be able to say racist things without consequence in this country. That is unacceptable in a modern, multicultural society. And make no mistake: this campaign—which is being driven by a confused rabble of fundamentalist right-wingers in the coalition parties and media bullies, led by The Australian newspaper—is designed with only one end in mind—that is, to allow people to make racist comment without consequence in this country.

Section 18C currently makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person on the basis of their race, their colour or their national or ethnic origin. It is crucial that 18C be retained in its current form, because the campaign against 18C is part of a broader attack on multiculturalism in this country. We are seeing it in proposed amendments to the Migration Act. We are seeing it in comments made by people like the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Dutton, in comments he made targeting Lebanese Muslim Australians recently.

Multiculturalism is under sustained attack and threat, and it is only going to get worse when Senator Bernardi appears back in this chamber, re-energised by the election of President-elect Trump in the United States. And make no mistake, we are going to see politicians including Senator Macdonald, who is grumbling over there like Bill the Steam Shovel, Senator Bernardi, Mr Abbott, Senator Abetz and Senator Paterson, the representative of the IPA in this parliament—the right-wing fundamentalist cabal—take play after play from the Donald Trump playbook and try to apply it in Australian politics. The Greens will stand up against them at every turn. And we will, with others in the political spectrum in this place, defend multiculturalism in this country.

Most of the conjecture around 18C centres on the words 'offend and insult'. Opponents of 18C say that the words are vague or that they set too low a bar or too low a standard, but there are clear legal precedents, jurisprudence, which interpret 18C. As Justice Susan Kiefel said in a 2001 case, and I will quote directly from the judgement:

… to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" are profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights …

In other words, it is not enough for someone to feel offended or intimidated, and that is one of the big lies in this debate that is rolled out by people who want to weaken or, in the case of Senator Leyonhjelm's legislation, remove entirely section 18C—that it provides a foundation for people to access the justice system on the basis that they feel offended or insulted. Well, judgements and jurisprudence set the bar much higher than simply feeling offended and insulted. As I mentioned briefly earlier, section 18D creates widespread exemptions for artistic, political, scientific or academic communication, provided that those communications were done reasonably and in good faith. In other words, 18D, which is ignored in this debate almost as much as the second verse of Advance Australia Fair, provides sweeping freedom-of-speech exemptions, but you do not hear much about that from people who want to gut the Racial Discrimination Act in this country.

There is a lot a cherrypicking of cases going on here; Senator Paterson indulged in it in his speech and we have heard others indulge in it. They cherrypick a handful of cases and make it seem like the world has gone crazy and that they are the only voice of sanity in this debate. I want to go to the Andrew Bolt case, which has received an airing in the chamber this morning. It is worth pointing out that Andrew Bolt lost the case, not because what he said was edgy or controversial but in fact because Justice Mordy Bromberg found his articles:

… contained erroneous facts, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and provocative language.

That is why the judgement was made against Andrew—