The Australian Hellenic Council, along with ten other organisations representing Australia’s multicultural communities, have come together in order to raise their concerns against proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act.
The Coalition government through Attorney General George Brandis is proposing to repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (1975), which makes it a criminal act to use language that insults, offends or humiliates a person on the basis of race or ethnicity.
The initiative of the attorney general is widely interpreted as being in response to the 2011 conviction of the conservative columnist Andrew Bolt over articles he wrote in 2009, which questioned the Aboriginal authenticity of light skinned Indigenous people.
George Brandis says he intends to proceed with the amendment so that speech found to be offensive and insulting is no longer defined as racial vilification, but he is on public record stating that he wants to consult widely before introducing the legislation, expected to be early next year. He also promised to consult on whether the amendments should “go further”.
However, even though the Attorney General has promised to speak with community leaders before introducing changes, so far this consultation has not involved the wider community.
Peter Iasonides, the Victorian Coordinator of the Australian Hellenic Council, speaking to Neos Kosmos stated :
“The fact is that there have been instances where interpretation to Section 18C may have left an opportunity for the intention of the legislation to be overlooked with, in fact, a counter-vilification. Fine tuning legislation is welcomed in all progressive democracies; however, the intention of the legislation, the spirit of its purpose must not be ignored”.
He then went on to say:
“The so called “right to freedom of speech” is not intended for people to be malicious, or demeaning or denigrating of a person because of his race or religion; nor does it give people an open cheque to defame a person.”.
Peter Iassonides called for “an extensive community consultation to discuss the intricacies and the parameters of the Racial Discrimination Act”, but he said. “Let’s not, though, delineate from the objectives of the legislation”.
In a joint statement, eleven community organisations have stated publically their concerns about the proposed changes to the Racial Vilification Act, because this will expose entire groups to vilification, as they said. The organisations who raised their concerns are the Australian Hellenic Council, the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Arab Council of Victoria, the Chinese Australian Forum, the Vietnamese Community of Australia, the Lebanese Muslim Association, the Armenian National Council of Australia, the United Muslim Women Association and All together Now.