Public Submissions on Racial Vilification Law Changes Suppressed
Thursday 17 July 2014 @ 11.32 a.m. | Crime | Torts, Damages & Civil Liability
Recent articles and blogs have reported that the Attorney-General's Department (the AG's) has blocked access to submissions made to it in response to the Attorney-Genral's exposure draft entitled, ironically: Freedom of Speech (Repeal of s. 18C) Bill 2014. As one post in New Matilda states:
"Politics is littered with irony, but blocking the publication of arguments about free speech is about as ironic as it gets . . ."
Background
On the 25 March 2014, the Attorney-General, Senator the Hon George Brandis QC (the AG), released an exposure draft Bill containing proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (the RDA), specifically amendments focusing on the repeal of section 18C which makes it an offence in Australia to do anything which "offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates another person or a group of people on the basis of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin". The AG's website also called for submissions on the exposure draft to be provided by 30 April 2014. It is reported that as at the closing date in excess of 5,000 submissions on the proposed changes were received.
Submissions Not Posted to AG's Website
However, even with the large response and public interest in the matter the AG’s website still has not posted a single submission and it is reported that the AG told a Senate Estimates Committee hearing recently that none of the submissions would be posted. This was in response to a question from the Greens wherein the AG is reported to have replied:
“They [the submissions] will not be published because [the submissions] were invited on the explicit terms that they were submissions to government that would be treated in confidence.”
This response seeming to contradict the AG's website which states:
"Submissions will not be made public without consent from the author. Personal information will be collected for the purposes of verifying submissions are not duplicates and in providing advice to government. Please advise if you wish to remain anonymous or wish to use a pseudonym when sending your submission."
The above being a statement that appears to imply that information would be published unless those submitting it request anonymity rather than an explicit term that the submissions would be treated as confidential. Rolled into this is another interesting aspect, the fact that the AG's is also refusing to reveal the percentage of submissions opposed to changing the racial discrimination protections and the percentage of submissions in support of the changes. This type of silence it would seem only promotes the notion that the response may not have been what was expected.
Previously on this Topic
We have posted extensively on this topic and a list of previous posts is provided below for those wanting more detail.
However, as a brief recount, the changes would water the current laws down by removing the words “offend, insult and humiliate” and replacing them instead with the word “vilify” in section 18C of the RDA making it in the estimate of most legal commentators "much harder to prevent hate-speech".
The attempt to amend the legislation it is argued flows from or is said to be justified by the prominent Federal Court case in 2011 (Eatock v Bolt [2011] FCA 1103 (28 September 2011)), involving the columnist Andrew Bolt who was found to have racially vilified nine Aboriginal people after writing a series of columns in 2009 alleging they were only identifying as black for financial gain. Such justification appearing to overlook that Mr Bolt also lost his case because the Federal Court also found his articles were littered with factual errors; were not reasonable; not written in good faith; and that he was therefore, excluded from the balancing protections provided by section 18D of the RDA.
Even within its own ranks the Federal Government has received criticism for its stance on this matter, for example, as we recently posted, the newly elected Liberal Premier for NSW, Mike Baird, publicly stated his opposition to the Commonwealth Government’s proposal to change racial discrimination laws and urged his federal colleagues to ditch the proposal, in doing this Mr Baird was following in the footsteps of the former premier Barry O’Farrell, who also spoke out against the proposal before his resignation.
Currently a Free Speech Paradox
In considering this matter, it can only be seen as a paradox that in a response to issues around free speech the Federal Government is not prepared to make the views of Australians known to each other or to reveal to the public at large what the considered view of reputable organisations like Amnesty International are on the matter.
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