After cabinet approved surgery to the Racial Discrimination Act, Malcolm Turnbull took it to the party room.
The change removes the measures of insult, offend and humiliate and inserts the higher bar of “harass”. The changes also clean up the processes of the Human Rights Commission to ensure dodgy claims are thrown out earlier.
A small group in the Coalition party room argued against making the changes. They were mostly in ethnically diverse seats.
Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce said 18C was not a burning issue in the electorate and they would lose votes on it.
Nevertheless, the changes passed the party room.
The prime minister said the changes strengthened both free speech and racial protections.
Labor said bollocks.
Bill Shorten said if the government was genuine about freedom of speech, why the deafening silence on the many other pieces of legislation and areas of policy which severely restrict freedom of speech and other civil liberties?
The Senate remains hostile to the idea, given Labor, the Greens, three Xenophones and one Jacqui Lambie opposes.
As a result, barring a late-night conversion, the substantive bill will fail.
Tomorrow the industry minister, Arthur Sinodinos, is speaking at the press club.
That’s your lot for the evening. Thanks to the brains trust Gareth Hutchens, Paul Karp, Katharine Murphy and Mike Bowers.
The Nick Xenophon Team does not support the government’s proposed changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, but we do support sensible changes to the process involved in the handling of such complaints so the process does not become the punishment.
Which means the 18C changes will not pass the Senate.
The attorney general, George Brandis, has a message for Xenophon, via David Speers on Sky:
If you are careful enough you can write legislation that protects people from racial discrimination ... which does not have a chill effect on free speech.
Brandis says the government has indeed been careful.
Labor’s Malardirri McCarthy has taken issue with George Brandis’ statement that he does not believe Australians are racist.
As a white man growing up in Petersham, attending private schools, I am sure you have never been denied access or service in a shop.
You have never had taxis drivers past, pretending not to see you. You have never received hateful letters and emails because of your race or the colour of your skin.
I really wish I could believe there are not any racists in Australia. But certainly my personal experience and my family’s experience informs me of the reality that I live in this country. It is deeply unfortunate.
The social services minister, Christian Porter, on why harass needs to replace offend and insult and why the government believes it makes the act stronger.
The standard and clarity that you get from a word like ‘harassment’ is going to make it clearer from the very outset what sort of complaint is going to be properly sustainable, and that is very important, because what we have at the moment is complete lack of clarity as to what is the standard for a sustainable complaint, and indeed, what actually constitutes this formulation of words ‘offend, insult, humiliate’.
This definitely makes it stronger because it makes it clearer, it makes it fairer and the system that we have at the moment in that formulation of words has become meaningless to the point of bringing the whole system into disrepute.
Liberal MP for North Sydney, Trent Zimmerman, has advocated compulsory voter identification for federal elections in the Coalition party room on Tuesday.
Zimmerman told Guardian Australia it would be a “reasonably simple step to ensure the integrity of the voting system”.
“It seems bizarre that you require more ID to get into a pub in Sydney than to determine the prime minister of Australia. It’s about time we ensured the possibility of multiple voting is precluded by this simple step.”
He said there were 8,000 cases of suspected multiple voting referred to the Australian federal police at the 2013 election. But because the lack of resources to investigate and burden of evidence is so high, it was more important to prevent rather than punish multiple voting, Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman was the only one to speak directly on the issue but it had widespread support, indicating it could soon become official policy.
Asked about the possibility voters could be disenfranchised because they lacked ID, Zimmerman said that people who attended the polls without ID could cast a provisional ballot and have their identity checked later before the vote was counted.
There was also a “legitimate discussion” about whether photo ID would be required or a credit card or Medicare card would suffice, which would also alleviate the concern of disenfranchisement.
The special minister of state, Scott Ryan, has announced the government will introduce legislation next week to require authorisations for robocalls and texts explaining who sent them, in a bid to head off anonymous or misleading electoral messages.
In an interim report in December, the joint standing committee on electoral matters (Jscem) recommended that all electoral advertising, including telephone, text messaging or social media, should have authorisations.
Ryan said the law would require “political parties, candidates and others to put their name to a greater range of political communications, ensuring voters fully understand who is trying to influence their vote”.
“It will also strengthen laws to prevent individuals or organisations from impersonating a commonwealth body.”
Jscem suggested that change was necessary because the current prohibition on impersonating a commonwealth officer may not prevent impersonating a commonwealth entity, such as Medicare.
Jscem noted concerns that at the 2016 election text messages were sent that were “alleged to be or [gave] the impression that they were” from Medicare.
The text messages, sent by the Queensland branch of the Labor party, said: “Mr Turnbull’s plans to privatise Medicare will take us down the road of no return. Time is running out to save Medicare.”
On Tuesday, Ryan said the legal changes would “better serve voters by making sure Australians know who is trying to influence them”.
The Coalition is unable to drop this particular hot potato, despite senior players like Barnaby Joyce and Scott Morrison saying very clearly that the issue really isn’t a priority down the back paddock, or in the cafe where you picked up your coffee this morning, because a significant bloc in the right faction of the Liberal party intended to keep on pushing until the Freedom™ lady sang.
This is an internal crusade, a little passion play for the conservative base, pure and simple, and never mind the casualties – even if the casualties are your hard-working government colleagues, attempting to defend marginal seats with large ethnic populations.
Tim Wilson is champing at the bit in his seat on the backbench.
Tony Burke says the Coalition has no idea of the real effect of the 18C changes, then quips maybe that’s because they had so many at the Cronulla riots.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion