Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

It is not on the News Limited website. Well, it was not the last time I looked, because I checked. That was an article of opinion. Do we want to get to the point where the publication of articles of opinion can be prohibited by a court? I think that is profoundly troubling, because the next step will be that other opinions are banned. The problem with that is that the opinions banned are not always going to be ones that the proponents of laws like this want to see banned.

Under the last Labor government, there was a proposal to dramatically expand, in effect, the grounds on which free speech could be limited brought forward by the then Attorney-General, Ms Roxon. There was a proposal brought forward by the then minister for communications, Senator Conroy, that proposed—for the first time, I think, outside wartime in this country's history—the regulation of newspapers, not just broadcast media, the big difference being that the rationale for regulation of broadcast media is the public ownership of the spectrum and the fact that it is limited in quantity. But that has never been applied to newspapers because there is no limit. The idea put forward that there would be a newspaper tsar that could make rulings and compel the production of certain things in newspapers that were imposed by the state puts a great deal more faith in bureaucracy than I think any of us should have when it comes to expressing opinions.

At the time, that was fought against very strongly by the then opposition, for the same reason that these laws are being proposed today. A law that has the effect of taking fellow citizens through a gruelling process in a profoundly unfair way—exposing them to public ridicule; to the opprobrium of being officially accused, with the stamp of a Commonwealth agency, of being racist; and to thousands of dollars of financial disadvantage, all in a process that does not meet the test of natural justice—is no way to treat our fellow citizens.

A law that sees the prohibition of the expression of an opinion in a major newspaper, offended though some might be—but this is a country that has historically valued free debate—is a law that is endangering the larger law it is part of. I am a strong supporter of the Racial Discrimination Act in principle: the Commonwealth should use a law to say all our citizens will be treated equally, regardless of their creed, colour or opinions. When I do citizenship ceremonies, particularly on Australia Day, I take pride in the fact that this is a country where, when someone takes the oath in good faith, they are as Australian as someone whose family has been here for six generations, like my family, or someone who was born here. There is no test other than a civic commitment to being an Australian.

But a law that allows the perspective of some to restrict the rights of another, particularly when it is so subjective, is a law that puts the Racial Discrimination Act, in my view, at risk of not maintaining the high degree of public support that it has. The Racial Discrimination Act is an important part of our legal settlement, but this particular aspect of it will cause it damage if it continues to be used increasingly in the way we have seen it used in recent years. I do not think that anyone would like that. I read about proposals to expand the grounds upon which speech can be limited or complaints can be made, through what is effectively a replica of the Court of Star Chamber in a modern sense, although without the power to fine or imprison but with the power to put people through a fairly gruelling legal process. That is going to endanger that important piece of legislation and the degree of public support for it.

There are certain laws where I think that the less contested they are in this place, the better, because they send a signal that they are something that all of the parliament and all the groups they represent across the country support. But we are now at the point where there is a genuine perspective from an increasing number of Australians that the law limiting speech on politically contentious opinions can be used as a weapon by one side of politics against another.

I have long opposed laws against blasphemy. I remember the action taken in, I think, the Supreme Court of Victoria against Andres Serrano's work of art—which I will not repeat the name of in the chamber because I think it is unparliamentary language. The court upheld that there was no modern law that could be used to suppress the publication of that work of art.

I do not like laws that censor. I do remember, when I was younger, reading and studying politics. It was not always my side of politics that opposed the abolition of censorship laws, but those who did oppose them I think were in the right.

Yet now, in areas that are much more politically contentious, in areas where we have confronting debates about issues where at least one side will use identity politics and talk about race or other issues as part of it, if you cannot have that debate freely and frankly, you will lead to a great deal of community conflict, and you will endanger the very strong public support we have for the Racial Discrimination Act. I do not think that is something that as a country we want to do.

These changes are entirely reasonable and entirely appropriate. In years gone past, I would have thought that, apart from the Greens in that corner, they would have been non-contentious for the Labor Party, which once did fight for speech, to remove censorship, and supported due process. Sadly, that does not appear to be the case on changing the words that have been outlined, particularly removing 'insult' and 'offend' and replacing them with 'harass'. I think that is an appropriate balance. I would personally probably go further, but I accept that historically I am on the harder edge of free speech. This is not a First Amendment country, as someone who supports these laws once put to me.

But this law strikes a balance that will protect the interests of those who are vulnerable. It will protect the institutions of those who support it so that it can still undertake the work that it needs to, but it will not do so by risking support for those laws by being seen to be ideologically charged or weaponised in a political context. There are many, many other debates that will become much more difficult in this country if this law is not changed. I hope the Senate sees fit to reflect the hard work by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the work undertaken by the Attorney-General and others, over many years, to bring these changes forward and strike this balance.