Race discrimination commissioner backs Tony Abbott's race law decision
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Version 0 of 1. Australia’s race discrimination commissioner has hailed the Abbott government’s decision to abandon proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act, saying the watering down of the bill would have sent “a green light to racism and bigotry”. But the government’s backdown has triggered a furious response from the chief backers of the changes, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), which portrayed it as a clear broken promise. And the News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt, whose articles about light-skinned Indigenous people were found by the Federal Court in 2011 to have breached the law, blamed the u-turn on the government’s poor efforts to sell the reforms and “too many lobby groups hate free speech”. Under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, it is unlawful to publicly “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people” on the basis of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin. The government’s proposed changes would have removed offend, insult and humiliate from the provisions, added a new measure about vilification, and expanded the exemptions. The attorney general, George Brandis, was defending the government’s intentions to change 18C as recently as Monday night. But on Tuesday Tony Abbott announced the abandonment of the changes, casting the backdown as an attempt to preserve “national unity” as the government pursued a vast expansion of Australian anti-terrorism powers. The prime minister said the government would engage in “ever closer consultation” with communities, including the Muslim community, as everyone needed “to be part of team Australia”. “I don’t want to do anything that puts our national unity at risk at this time so those proposals are now off the table,” Abbott said, describing it as a “leadership call” he had made after discussions with the cabinet on Tuesday. Abbott said he was a passionate supporter of free speech “and if we were starting from scratch with 18C we wouldn’t have words such as offend and insult in the legislation, but we aren’t starting from scratch”. He added that he wanted “the communities of our country to be our friend not our critics”. The race discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, said he was pleased that the government had dropped the bill after “widespread public concern about the weakening of the racial vilification laws”. “The government released an exposure draft for public consultation; it said it would listen to the views expressed and it was very clear that the overwhelming majority of Australians were concerned that we would see a green light sent to racism and bigotry,” Soutphommasane said. He pointed out that the Racial Discrimination Act already included another section, 18D, which provided a number of exemptions. This included “anything said or done reasonably and in good faith” while publishing “a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment”. “The proponents of the repeal of section 18C were never able to answer one question: what is it that you want to say that isn’t already protected under section 18D,” Soutphommasane said. But Tim Wilson, the human rights commissioner appointed by Brandis to stand up for freedom, said he was “very disturbed” that the government had decided to “keep offensive speech illegal”. “It should not be illegal to offend someone. There is a human right to free speech. There is no human right to be free of offence,” Wilson said on Twitter. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said the proposed changes were “destructive” and it appeared Brandis had been rolled in cabinet and “humiliated”. “For nearly a year, the attorney general has seen, as his most important priority, giving the green light for racists and bigots to be racists and bigots. His priority as attorney general has been to allow racists to be racists. This has been a dreadful waste of national energy,” Shorten said. Labor’s shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said community groups and individuals had sent the government a clear message that “this is not the kind of Australia we want” or “the kind of message we want to send about our country internationally”. The acting leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, said his party was “very proud to have been part of the community campaign against watering down race hate laws” and suggested the victory gave hope to those fighting other parts of the government’s agenda. “The government’s changes would have given the green light to racism and other hate speech, and we’re very pleased the ‘Andrew Bolt Protection Bill’ has been dumped,” Bandt said. “This is a win for everyone who stands against racism, ideologues and intolerance.” The IPA, which has close links to the Liberal party, said the Coalition’s decision to break a repeated pre-election promise to repeal section 18C in its current form was “incredibly disappointing”. “If people are not free to debate and discuss ideas then we no longer live in a free society,” said the IPA’s executive director, John Roskam. “It is extremely disappointing that the Coalition no longer regards restoring free speech as a priority. Nothing is more important than freedom of speech – it is our most important freedom.” The Human Rights Law Centre said the government’s decision was “great news” as the changes “would have sent an appalling signal about the government’s views on racial tolerance”. Opponents of the changes seized on Brandis’s comment to the Senate earlier this year that “people do have a right to be bigots you know”, which became a lightning rod for criticism. |