Tony Abbott and George Brandis – champions of “freedom of speech” hate speech

Flushed with the recent victory of its owner Rupert Murdoch in the Federal elections, The Australian decided to highlight what it obviously considers as a triumph for the new regime and a number one priority.

Budget cuts announced? Talks with regional partners? Business taxes? Education?

No folks, it was this (paywall).

NB If you type the article title into the Google search box you will be able to read the whole article

Some highlights (or lowlights) of the article

TONY Abbott plans to roll back Labor’s laws that limit free speech on the basis of not “giving offence”, defend religious freedom and reform the Australian Human Rights Commission.

When conservatives use the word “reform” it inevitably means a backward step. So until we hear otherwise it no doubt means that that the AHRC is going to be stifled, its powers reduced and its individual commissioners cut in number.

This would involve amending the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits remarks that offend others on grounds of race or ethnicity. This was the provision used to prosecute newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt.

So rabble-rousing second-rate hacks and aggro shock jocks, along with the bogotariat in the ‘burbs we deal with here will be given open slather to hate and vilify.

The text of the Act is here

Quote from Abbott:

” ….then we’ve got to allow people to say things that are unsayable in polite company

So Abbott is not only sanctioning the race to the bottom, he is happy to stand there with the starter pistol.

Tony Abbott explores the bottom

Mr Abbott’s stance on championing the right of free speech also involves support for the position of Senator Brandis that the Human Rights Commission Act may need to be amended to guarantee reform in its outlook and its promotion of traditional democratic freedoms.

In other words the AHRC, the main national safeguard against defamation and vilification of minorities, a body whose reach retired MP and former Attorney-General Nicola Roxon was hoping to strengthen and extend, is to be totally gutted – all in the name of protecting and nurturing those shonks who do not need protection.

Senator Brandis has attacked the Human Rights Commission as “an anti-discrimination commission” with little attachment to classical human rights.

Well hey George, how do you intend to go about protecting the rights of the vulnerable and the powerless….oh wait…?

Back in March we foreshadowed such changes to the Racial Discrimination Act on this blog. We can probably say that vilified minorities will have no choice in seeking remedies but to submit to the expensive and long process of civil court litigation.

Or, as is no doubt hoped by Brandis, they will silently endure defamation, harassment and vilification to keep happy all of those pure-at-heart libertarians, including members of his own party.

So is Brandis going to abolish the protected status MPs and Senators enjoy under parliamentary privilege? Like Liberals Corey Bernardi and Luke Simpkins for instance?

In fact the appalling far right stink think tank Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a frat boy grooming club and finishing school for future Coalition pollies, has suggested that “market forces” will punish discrimination.

Yeah right…

Courts are generally rightly concerned about the impacts of racism and bigotry and sympathetic towards its unfortunate victims. However successful litigation costs money. Minorities do not have the money, sometimes do not have the language skills to easily describe their distress and sometimes do not have the experience to successfully navigate the system.

The landmark findings against anti-Semitic vilification Gutnick v Dow Jones & Company Inc, upheld later on appeal, came firstly from a case mounted by an individual with considerable personal resources and secondly from an aggrieved Jewish organisation.

The second matter resulted in contempt charges against the defendant who refused to remove anti-Semitic material from a website.

More recently a case was brought against Andrew Bolt by nine prominent Indigenous people disgusted by Bolt’s references to their ancestry and skin colour.  Mike Carlton outlines its results here. The point of the case was not so much that these prominent people necessarily felt personally humiliated by the sneeringly patronising venal remarks made by Bolt. They would not have been surprised because like us they know full well that Bolt is an ignorant boofhead kept on a chain in Murdoch’s stable specifically to stir up those stupid enough to read his drivel.

The point was that not only were they appearing in court for themselves but they represented people who would have been aggrieved and hurt but who would not necessarily have had the wherewithal or the power to pursue such a case.

It would be desirable that all those demeaned and vilified by racists and bigots could easily and affordably access legal remedies, and that the law was enabling such access.

However it looks like the Coalition is keen to close off one of these avenues, so keen that it was one of its first announcements after what has been a puzzling policy vacuum.

The Coalition and those it protects will find out that letting the dogs loose works both ways

Read more

Senator George Brandis wants you offended and insulted

Andrew Bolt: his rights, our freedom reblogged by us here

Nuts come out after the truth has bolted

Election special No 16 – Darryl Moore, women and “illiterate animals”

The Age

Mr Abbott said he was not aware of Mr Moore’s comments.

“But obviously people shouldn’t make unsavoury comments,” he told reporters in Adelaide.

“I repudiate unsavoury comments by candidates, whoever they might be.”

The Australian (paywall)

THE Liberal Party is standing by a real estate portfolio manager who referred to his tenants as illiterate animals, boasted about evicting them by “forklift and dumptruck” and said he always negotiated harder with women to let them know he would not “play their games”.

Federal Labor yesterday called on Tony Abbott to disendorse Darryl Moore in the seat of Perth where he is in a battle to best Labor’s Alannah MacTiernan.

It has emerged that, using the handle Dazzling, Mr Moore made dozens of provocative comments on a property investment website in 2005, including that in negotiations “I make it a particular point to be extra tough on the women”.

“They absolutely do not like it when they realise I am unwilling to play their gameoes (sic) take an extra special effort to ignore the subtle ‘non-verbal and non written’ stuff that goes on during a negotiation,” he said.

“Just my way of ensuring I don’t get rolled by that particular and common tactic.”

On a visit to Western Australia yesterday, Workplace Relations minister Bill Shorten likened Mr Moore to the fictional rake Don Draper in the television series Mad Men, saying some of his comments were suited to the script of the drama set in the 1960s.

“Women should be treated equally in the workplace. Full stop,” Mr Shorten said.

“There’s a lot of progressive Liberals, I’m sure, who would be shaking their heads at these out-of-line comments.

“This isn’t just a women’s issue. This is a men’s issue. Why should men have their daughters, their sisters, their wives go to work and be confronted with attitudes that are 50 years out of date in the Australian workplace.”

Yesterday the Liberal party issued a statement confirming Mr Moore remained its candidate for Perth.

The Australian has been told there is no intention to disendorse him over what the party describes as “poorly-worded” remarks. Mr Moore did not add to a statement he issued through the party on Monday conceding some of the dozens of comments published on The Good Oil political commentary website were “open to misinterpretation”.

Yesterday the website published more of Mr Moore’s 2005 remarks, including recounting his tactics to compel a “whinging” tenant out of a house.

In earlier posts, Mr Moore likened court action against tenants to “being forced to get in the gutter with these illiterate animals”. He preferred a method he described as “forklift and dump truck”.

“(G)etting moved on from your supposed ‘home’, as you have no ultimate control over its life if you don’t like it or don’t want to put up with that set of circumstances you can always go and buy your own castle,” he wrote.

Paul Keating: “Racism is a form of sickness…”

“Racism is a form of sickness and when a country starts building policies on race, or racial undertones, then you know you don’t have much of a future…”

The Australian

Rethink Refugees

And we will continue to regularly feature the vectors of the racism disease

Read more

Asylum seekers turned off “toxic” Australia

Senator George Brandis wants you offended and insulted

From the comfortable, well-paid and powerful position he holds in the Federal Parliament, Senator George Brandis, Coalition Shadow Attorney-General, Senior Counsel (SC) and long-serving Parliamentarian intoned:

“Offensive and insulting words are part of the robust democratic process which is essential to a free country.”

Source

Now we know that Parliament is a tough and robust environment in Australia. We know that both sides attack each other with vigour in the Parliament and expect the other side to respond in kind. That’s why both Houses have presiding officers and Standing Orders to ensure that debate does not descend into defamation. We expect our Parliamentarians to both strongly represent us and to be thick-skinned enough to withstand a fair amount of invective, often confected.

However the situation enjoyed by the privileged men and women who sit in Parliament does not represent the situation faced by vilified minorities out in the community, who have neither the platform to speak out from nor the public reach of their vilifiers.

Hence, up until the Bolt case provided a (temporary) pause, shock jocks, trash media and tabloid TV have been able to create an environment where it seems any idiot can get into the comments section of newspapers, onto talkback radio and into social media and parade their hatred and freely defame Indigenous people, ethnic and religious minorities, refugees and asylum seekers, as well as GLBTI people and women.

Perhaps as George Brandis enjoys his comfortable office, his generous salary and working conditions, his ability to have his views readily heard and published and his community respect and prestige he may like to ponder the following – just a small sample from our files:

Uplifting stuff for sure…

Victims of racism urged to litigate

The Australian

National Affairs

by: Patricia Karvelas
From: The Australian
December 06, 2011 12:00AM

Senator Kate Lundy

VICTIMS of racial injustice are being urged to pursue cases and use the “full force of the law” as part of the Gillard government’s renewed policy on multiculturalism.

Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Kate Lundy told The Australian the government’s new policy would focus on educating people about existing laws and encourage their use, to send a message that racial injustice was not tolerated in Australia.

Senator Lundy said that, while she was open to creating even tougher laws to stop racism and encourage multiculturalism, she believed current provisions in federal law should be used more and the government should play a stronger role in encouraging action to stamp it out.

“It’s about calling it as a government and saying ‘yes, there is a problem and we need to address it using the full force of the law that we already have in place’,” she said.

Senator Lundy said she supported Race Discrimination Commissioner Helen Szoke, who gave qualified support to a federal multiculturalism act along the lines favoured by the Victorian Liberal government.

Dr Szoke called for a broadening of the Racial Discrimination Act to enhance multiculturalism, saying a specific act might be needed if there was found to be gaps in protections of ethnic minorities from racial vilification. She will use a review by federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland of anti-discrimination laws covering race, gender, age and sexuality to call for reforms to give ethnic minorities more rights to fight racism if a review lessens those rights.

“I think it’s a case about awareness,” Senator Lundy said. “I’m really keen to see how the human rights commission will take that campaign. We’ve provided resources.

“I think our laws are strong, I think there needs to be an awareness and education about those laws and people having a good understanding of their rights and being able to pursue complaints and challenge behaviour. That will be a terrific step for all of us.”

In the wake of the Muslim community arguing for the establishment of Koran courts and Islamic law, Senator Lundy said the multicultural policy would never allow groups to have a different set of rules.

“People come to Australia because they admire our values, so it’s not about changing Australian law; it’s about asking people to subscribe to those values.”

She said stamping out racism in the workplace was a “top priority”. “We need to remind everybody that is in a position of power and employs people that they have obligations under Australian law not to discriminate.

“We need to be educating and supporting employers to make good decisions that are not discriminatory … and supporting the people who are applying for the jobs so they know their rights and we have a good system of handling complaints.”

Senator Lundy ruled out a broader constitutional recognition of racial diversity.

“I think that our very character as a nation is one built on migration and there’s a lot inherent in who we already are,” she said. “I think it is a fact rather than some stated policy that we are multicultural, so that is not something I’m considering.

“We can’t tell people what they can and can’t do, there’s no magic clicking of fingers.”

Source