Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I think in your question, Senator Van, you actually go to the very issue, which is all of our rights are not absolute—or very few. The right to freedom of speech needs to be balanced by the right for people to feel safe and to be safe. That's the balance we seek to have, for example, in the Racial Discrimination Act with section 18C. That's the balance we should exercise and observe as leaders in this place. People have a right to peaceful protest in this country, but that should not extend to violence or intimidation.

Again, I go back to this point: no matter how fervently any one of us believes that we are right, that does not give us the right to disregard the experience of others or to behaviour in a way that is not decent. All sides of the debate should remember that. (Time expired)