Community groups have slammed the government's decision to try to pass changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, saying they would leave vulnerable sections of the community open to further discrimination.
The government has announced that it intends to replace the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' with 'harass’, in what the Prime Minister has described as “clarifying” the law.
Executive Director of Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Peter Wertheim, said he’s already been in contact with several groups regarding the changes.
“I've been inundated actually today with emails and phone calls from other community organisations, from the Chinese community, the Arab community, the Greek community, the Armenian community, the Aboriginal community,” he said.
“They are all of the same opinion as us: that section 18C and section 18D, taken together, are a very good balance between freedom of expression on the one hand, and freedom from racial hatred on the other hand, and should be left as they are.”
Muslim community advocate and barrister, Bilal Rauf, agrees the changes would be bad news for community groups. He’s worried ‘harass’ won’t go far enough to ensure a legal protection against discriminatory behaviour.
“Mere words on a website, which may be offensive, which may be insulting, will not necessarily be caught by the word ‘harass’.”
Mr Rauf said these proposed alterations will strip away what little protection currently exists in Australian society.
“It really does remove an important protection which is available for minority groups in our society.”
The proposed amendments to the law would see complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission being tested according to the standard of a “reasonable member of the community”.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had repeatedly denied plans to implement changes.
Many organisations have called out the debate over the issue unnecessary, and a waste of political resources.
Mr Rauf said the government is bowing to pressure from certain sectors of the community.
“The change is ironic in that Malcolm Turnbull has conveyed that no changes will be made, and even now a number of the ministers have indicated that it’s an issue that no one really cares about, it’s not important, yet they are proposing this change to really appease a minority group.”
Professor Mick Dodson, newly former chairperson of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies - Professor Dodson stepped down on Tuesday, said he doesn’t understand why the Coalition is so preoccupied with the topic.
“They’re banging out about this, there are more important things they ought to be focusing on," he said.
“From an Indigenous Affairs perspective, the Prime Minister just recently gave the Closing the Gap report, things are going backwards, what are you worrying about 18C for when our kids are dying?”
