Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

If the honourable member thinks it is right that a cartoonist like Bill Leak should be hauled into the Human Rights Commission—

Opposition members interjecting—

Well, I can see some of his colleagues think it was right that he should be hauled into the Human Rights Commission or that young students at QUT, the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, should be hauled through the courts, having years and years of legal expense. What objective is being served by that? It has been said for years that the provisions of 18C have lost their credibility. They have been criticised by one authority after another.

The honourable member asks who has been influential in forming that point of view. Let me give you one example. The Hon. James Spigelman AC, QC, a former Chief Justice of New South Wales and a former chairman of the ABC, said in a Human Rights Day Oration in 2012:

… declaring conduct, relevantly speech, to be unlawful, because it causes offence, goes too far.

That is James Spigelman, a great Labor figure, a great Chief Justice and one of our great lawyers. Or what about Irene Moss, the former Race Discrimination Commissioner who led the national inquiry into racist violence that was the origin of the laws against racial discrimination. In March 2017, just so few weeks ago, she said:

In 1991, the report of the national inquiry into racist violence recommended that the legislation should not be about hurt feelings or injured sensibilities but should focus on incitement to racial hostility.

She said:

I continue to believe that that … was essentially correct.

Or indeed Warren Mundine, who said in October last year:

If people are going to be hauled before tribunals or courts over these very issues, it is going to stifle debate.

I could go on with more quotations, expressing the same reservations, from equally distinguished Australians. The language of that section lost its credibility a long time ago. I have made this point in the past. What we have done is made the law stronger, fairer and clearer, and we have stood up for free speech. (Time expired)

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