Antinuclear

The courts have interpreted the law to mean that a ”mere slight” is not unlawful – it needs to be serious racial abuse. The laws were controversial from the beginning, with then opposition leader John Howard opposing them. The government’s changes would get rid of ”offend, insult and humiliate”, which the government says amounts to ”hurt feelings”, which shouldn’t be outlawed in a rowdy democracy. It keeps ”intimidate”, but defines it narrowly as causing fear of physical harm, with no mention of psychological harm. It introduces a provision against vilification, defined as inciting hatred

. The key is that the emphasis switches from the impact racial hatred has on its victims to whether it causes fear or incites racial hatred in others. Even if you do intimidate or vilify someone on the basis of race, there is a broad exemption for anything ”communicated in the course of participating in the public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter”. The requirement to be reasonable and in good faith are gone. Prime Minister Tony Abbott told The Conversation that the proposals would produce ”a stronger prohibition on real racism, while maintaining freedom of speech in ordinary public discussion”. Soutphommasane, whose job is to oversee the laws, begs to differ. ‘

‘This would involve a very dramatic change to the law … it severely weakens the protections that exist against racial vilification and may have the effect of encouraging a minority of the population that they can racially abuse and harass someone with impunity.” His boss, Gillian Triggs, believes the exemptions are so broad that ”it is difficult to see any circumstances in public that these protections would apply”. There would not be another Andrew Bolt case. Judge Mordecai Bromberg found that Bolt couldn’t rely on the free speech exemption because he did not act reasonably and in good faith, and that his articles contained ”gross inaccuracies”. Even if it was found that his articles caused others to be fearful or incited racial hatred, they would be exempt because they were part of public debate. Critics are bewildered as to why these changes are a priority. The vast majority of complaints to the Human Rights Commission are settled through mediation, with only about 3 per cent reaching court. ……..

”But the biggest problem is the exemption which seems to remove all statements made in public debate,” she said. ”There’s no requirement for reasonableness or good faith. It’s an extremely broad exemption.” [The director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, Professor Sarah Joseph] Joseph believes that only racial abuse such as neighbourhood disputes – where a neighbour hurls racial insults at another over a fence, for instance – might be caught. Anything to do with public debate, unless it incites hatred in another or intimidates to the point of causing fear of physical harm, would not be unlawful. Virtually nothing that appeared in the media, including blogs, was likely to fall foul of the law…….http://www.smh.com.au/national/locked-in-a-war-of-words-to-define-free-speech-20140328-35oi1.html