The debate over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (18C) has gone on for far too long. It's time to bring it to a close. The Turnbull government should take resolute action proposing a principled, workable amendment to parliament.
To date, I have been silent in the present debate. In part, this is because I was a critic of such legal provisions when they were first proposed in 1992 and then again in 1994. I have since been convinced that a provision like 18C could be designed to target racial vilification, leaving offensive insults beyond the reach of the law in a robust democracy committed to freedom of speech.
Back then, Labor governments proposed legislation which would have enacted a provision like 18C, while also establishing three new Commonwealth criminal offences: threatening to cause physical harm to a person or group because of their race, colour, or national or ethnic origin; threatening to destroy or damage property because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of any other person or group; and doing an act which was reasonably likely to incite racial hatred.
Labor's 1992 proposals went nowhere prior to the 1993 election. After his unexpected win, Prime Minister Paul Keating expended much political energy forging the principled compromise on the Native Title Act in the wake of the High Court's Mabo decision. Some very feisty things were said by Aboriginal leaders during the native title debate, impugning the 'racist' motivation of public servants and some politicians.
No one would have contemplated using the criminal law to prosecute passionate Aboriginal leaders fighting to retain their land rights, charging them with doing an act likely to incite racial hatred. There were already criminal laws outlawing threats to cause physical harm to a person or destruction of property. There was no need to add the race card to create further criminal offences.
Once the native title law was passed, Labor again turned its attention to racial vilification, introducing the Racial Hatred Bill 1994 to the House of Representatives in November 1994. The bill was passed through the Reps very promptly but it ran into trouble in the Senate. The Senate debate on the floor of Parliament was not brought on for another nine months. Liberal Senator Nick Minchin told the Senate: 'We have Labor sympathisers like Phillip Adams and Father Frank Brennan vehemently opposed to the law brought forward by this Labor government.'
I had been a