12th Feb­ru­ary 2014
Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Indige­nous, Greek, Jew­ish, Chi­nese, Armen­ian and Kore­an com­mu­ni­ties are con­tin­u­ing their cam­paign to per­suade Fed­er­al politi­cians against any repeal or water­ing down of Australia’s laws against racial vil­i­fi­ca­tion.
In 2011, colum­nist Andrew Bolt was found by the Fed­er­al Court to have con­tra­vened sec­tions of the Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act (RDA) which pro­hib­it pub­lic con­duct that is rea­son­ably like­ly to “offend, insult, humil­i­ate or intim­i­date” a per­son or groups because of their skin colour or nation­al or eth­nic ori­gin.
Bolt had writ­ten a series of arti­cles chal­leng­ing the iden­ti­ty and bona fides of “light-skinned Abo­rig­ines”. The Court found that the arti­cles “con­tained errors of fact, dis­tor­tions of the truth and inflam­ma­to­ry and provoca­tive lan­guage”. Bolt did not appeal the deci­sion.
The Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has sig­nalled its inten­tion to review the RDA in light of the Bolt case but com­mu­ni­ty groups have ral­lied to the RDA’s defence.
“We have now spo­ken to Fed­er­al MP’s in the Coali­tion, ALP, the Greens, Inde­pen­dents and the minor par­ties and have been receiv­ing across the board expres­sions of sup­port for our posi­tion”, a spokesper­son for the group said.
“Once peo­ple under­stand that the exist­ing law only applies to seri­ous cas­es and requires an objec­tive test to be sat­is­fied based on com­mu­ni­ty stan­dards, rather than a sub­ject test based on hurt feel­ings, it becomes clear that the cur­rent law has noth­ing to do with lim­it­ing free speech. It does not stop any­body from offend­ing or insult­ing oth­ers because of their opin­ions or beliefs. Peo­ple can change their opin­ions or beliefs. But the cur­rent law does pro­hib­it pub­licly offend­ing and insult­ing oth­ers because of their race, which is some­thing peo­ple can­not change.”
“Offend­ing and insult­ing oth­er peo­ple because of their race is not about per­sua­sion. It’s about attack­ing their human dig­ni­ty.”
The spokesper­son said that the breadth and depth of sup­port for the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion among mem­bers of Par­lia­ment from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum had “exceed­ed our most ambi­tious hopes”. “The Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act is one of Australia’s most icon­ic pieces of leg­is­la­tion. It goes to the heart of Australia’s iden­ti­ty as a nation that is both demo­c­ra­t­ic and cul­tur­al­ly diverse. The Act ought not to be changed unless there are tru­ly com­pelling rea­sons. The out­come of the Bolt case falls a long way short in that regard”.
Ms Kirstie Park­er, Co-chair, Nation­al Con­gress of Aus­trali­a’s First Peo­ples
Mr Les Malez­er, Co-chair, Nation­al Con­gress of Aus­trali­a’s First Peo­ples
Mr George Vel­lis, Co-ordi­na­tor, Aus­tralian Hel­lenic Coun­cil
Mr Peter Wertheim, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry
Mr Patrick Voon, Pres­i­dent, Chi­nese Aus­tralian Forum
Mr Tony Pang, Sec­re­tary, Chi­nese Aus­tralian Ser­vices Soci­ety
Mr Vache Kahra­man­ian, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Armen­ian Nation­al Com­mit­tee of Aus­tralia
Mr Luke Song, Kore­an Soci­ety of Syd­ney

Sen­a­tor Nick Xenophon (back to cam­era) and ECAJ rep­re­sen­ta­tive Peter Wertheim dis­cuss retain­ing sec­tion 18C with eth­nic and indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, Can­ber­ra

L‑R: Vache Kahra­man­ian, Luke Song, Georg Vel­lis, Kirstie Park­er, Patrick Voon, Sen­a­tor Pen­ny Wright (Greens), Les Malez­er, Peter Wertheim, Tony Pang

L‑R: Pen­ny Wong, Shane Neu­mann, Jason Clare, Bill SHort­en and oth­er ALP MPs meet eth­nic and indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers