It’s not a good day for Attorney General George Brandis. Proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act championed for so long by the Liberal Party are now simply being straight-up dropped altogether after Prime Minister Tony Abbott made what he calls a “leadership decision” on the matter.
The proposed changes related specifically to Section 18C of the act which, as it stands, makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone based on their race or ethnicity. The changes would have seen 18C repealed entirely, and replaced with the phrasing “It is unlawful for a person to do an act that is reasonably likely to vilify another person or a group of persons, or to intimidate another person or a group of persons.“
The changes were often referred to as the “Bolt Law” after prominent right-wing journalist Andrew Bolt was found in breach of the act after Bolt published articles claiming that fair-skinned Aboriginals or people of diverse cultural backgrounds would pick and choose Aboriginal ancestry due to the alleged political and career clout it carried.
These are the same changes to the law that saw Attorney General George Brandis stand up in Parliament and defend Australian’s “right to be bigots.“
In the outright binning of these amendments, Prime Minister Abbott has shown some modicum of common sense, preventing a profoundly unjust law from coming into being, and subsequently preventing an open season for hateful, bigoted, and dangerous speech to be broadcast throughout the public sphere unchecked.
There is no place for language and speech – such as that which comes from Andrew Bolt – within this nation, and to freely allow so only prevents us from shedding our casually, comfortably racist reputation even further.
If a law is the only way to do so, then so be it. Broadcasted words have immense power, and their delivery should not be above scrutiny and consequence.
Photo: Saeed Kahn via Getty Images.
via SMH.
