Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act

[askandanswer]

A newly re-emerging political controversy in Australia is the proposal to amend Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. In 2014, the Prime Minister at the time announced his approval of the plan, but shortly after, as a result of enormous public pressure, he changed his mind and reversed his position, and the Act was left untouched, and the issue disappeared for a while. After our national elections in July this year, the issue has re-emerged. In August, the current Prime Minister announced that he was happy with the Act and saw no need to change it and had no intention of doing anything about it. Last week, after continuing pressure from the right wing of his party, he agreed to support a parliamentary inquiry into Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Currently, Section 18C reads

Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

             (1)  It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

                     (a)  the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

                     (b)  the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

The current push for change, and the 2014 push, is to remove the words offend and insult. Other proposals that some people are pushing for are to replace the words offend and insult with the word vilify, and yet others call for the abolition of the whole act. For better context, I've included Section 18D which states

Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith:

                     (a)  in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or

                     (b)  in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or

                     (c)  in making or publishing:

                              (i)  a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or

                             (ii)  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.

Is it pandering to special snowflakes to retain the words offend and insult, thereby making it illegal to say anything that will offend or insult someone on the basis of their race, colour or ethnic origin, or is it a fair and reasonable to protect people from being offended and insulted on the basis of their race, colour or ethnic origin? What do you think?

Incidentally, the man who was Prime Minister in 2014 who was going to remove the words offend and insult and then changed his mind, announced a few days ago that he now regrets not having made the change. Also, in 2014, when giving a speech in Parliament the Attorney General (who is still the Attorney General today) attracted a lot of attention when he declared, in defence of the proposed changes, that ‘we all have a right to be a bigot.”

[Jane_Doe]

I'm having issues getting through the legalese here (and I realize that it's not even extreme legalese.  What's the layman sum up? 

Edited November 12, 2016 by Jane_Doe

[askandanswer]

Basically, there is a strong push by the right wing of the party currently in power to change the Racial Discrimination Act by removing the words offend and insult. Currently the Section 18C makes it unlawful to say or do something that will offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person because of their race, colour or ethnic origin. The proposed change is to remove the words offend and insult, so that the amended version would make it unlawful to say or do something that would humiliate or intimidate another person because of their race or colour. 

The man in the street is very much uninterested in this debate, its being driven very much by the politicians and some interest groups. The man in the street feels that the whoe argument is a waste of time and complete non-issue. One of the reasons why the issue was revived following the last election is that a former, highly respected radio news journalist was elected as an Independent Senator, and in his former career as a journalist, he was sued under Section 18C. 

 

[Jane_Doe]

34 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

Basically, there is a strong push by the right wing of the party currently in power to change the Racial Discrimination Act by removing the words offend and insult. Currently the Section 18C makes it unlawful to say or do something that will offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person because of their race, colour or ethnic origin. The proposed change is to remove the words offend and insult, so that the amended version would make it unlawful to say or do something that would humiliate or intimidate another person because of their race or colour. 

That sounds like a good thing...

The man in the street is very much uninterested in this debate, its being driven very much by the politicians and some interest groups. The man in the street feels that the whoe argument is a waste of time and complete non-issue. 

Isn't that about half of politics?

 

[Backroads]

I don't know. Offend and insult are such tricky terms that'd be nice if they were gone, but how much of an issue are they as is?

[askandanswer]

5 hours ago, Backroads said:

I don't know. Offend and insult are such tricky terms that'd be nice if they were gone, but how much of an issue are they as is?

Its a complete non-issue for most people, but the former Prime Minister was on Radio National last  week, pointing out that in the last 10 (?) years, 218 people have been brought to court charged with this offence. It only started to become an issue in 2011 when one of the then Prime Minister's favourite columnists was successfully sued under this law for writing a column in a very popular mainstream newspaper, in which he ventured the opinion that some people had chosen to identify themselves as “Aboriginal” and consequently win grants, prizes and career advancement, despite their apparently fair skin and mixed heritage. The judge found that "fair-skinned Aboriginal people (or some of them) were reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to have been offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated by the imputations conveyed in the newspaper articles" 

More recently, a cartoonist in Australia's only national newspaper was the subject of a court action under Section 18C when the newspaper published a cartoon he had drawn. The cartoon depicted a policeman holding a young Aboriginal person in front of the young person's father The policeman says you'll have to talk to your son about social responsibility. The Aboriginal father replies "yeah, righto, what's his name then. The cartoon stirred up a lot of controversy nationally in the media and among politicians for a few weeks, but last Friday, the complainant decided to drop the matter.

ps

The newspaper in which this cartoon appeared was established, and is still controlled by, Rupert Murdoch, who I believe holds a controlling interest in Fox News, way back in the early 1960's when he was still an Australian citizen. 

 

Edited November 13, 2016 by askandanswer
added the ps