Prompete,

"Good article. We always have a choice as to how we feel/ react/respond to any situation, otherwise we are no more grown up than a 2 year olds. To suggest otherwise I regard as quite offensive."

I hope that was you being "witty"...(you are free, after all "to choose another feeling":)

Jay of Melbourne look up the story of Brody's Law made in response to work mates blamed for causing her suicide. Look up Mindframe and SANE's StigmaWatch and see the mitigation strategies that only exist becuase it is not accepted "that nobody but the deceased party is responsible for suicide". You can't hound somebody to death and not be gulity of the same.

Just dismissing someone as too sensitive is immoral and cruel. Why should I be picked on publically all my life? The offence I feel makes me angry which makes me do a heap of volunteer work to turn it around.

Showing due care and courtesy to other drivers and pedestrians is a fundamental rule of the road. Showing due courtesy to all those with whom you interact in your work capacity is a fundamental tenet of all codes of conduct. So showing due courtesy in all manner of speech or interaction should be a fundamental principle.

People should definitely NOT be free to be offensive at will.

A mob of poxy youths in a public street should not be free to abuse men walking past or be offensively sexist to young women.

No one should be free to launch a tirade of abuse at someone because they disagree with their opinions.

It is certainly NOT entirely the choice of the person on the receiving end as to whether they take offence or not.
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A vital aspect of the law as it pertains to freedom of speech is that it be reasonably simple to comprehend, written in a manner that reduces ambiguity and grey areas to a minimum, is as easy to police as possible, gets policed as per the intent of the law and not as something quite different, which is all too often the case with all manner of laws, and is evenly policed so that the same regulations apply to everyone across the board.

The policng of the laws is every bit as problematic as coming up with the right laws in the first place.

We shouldn’t just be thinking about what the best balance between maximum freedom of speech and harm minimisation is and what laws we need to achieve it, but also about how these laws will actually work. They’ve got to be workable and even-handed… or else we will have achieved very little.

Freedom of speech must include the right to say things that may be deemed offensive, or it is no freedom at all.

We already have laws that protect against genuinely harmful and malicious speech and actions. Slander and libel laws protect against harmful lies. Criminal law protects against threats and intimidation. Workplace law provides (perhaps inadequate) protection against bullying and racial/gender discrimination.

Protecting hurt feelings takes things too far, especially as we have no way to know exactly what will be hurtful. Some people take offence extremely easily, at things that were not intended to offend.

And, it’s the kind of law which will encourage people to magnify or feign offence in order to silence or intimidate those they disagree with.

One problem I think is that we have lost the distinction between behaviour that is socially unacceptable, and behaviour that should be legally sanctioned. As a society we determine that some types of behaviour and speech are unacceptable. That doesn’t mean they have to be illegal.

If David makes a habit of regularly commenting on women’s bum sizes, he will I hope be reproved by those who find this offensive, and advised by his friends to be more considerate, and eventually ostracised if he persists. He should not be jailed

If the law is backdated I dare say the PM's hair dresser might be in gaol for his remarks about small Asian female doctors.

Eric,
Brodie's law was an amendment to the existing anti stalking laws and it would only apply to extreme cases, probably where a death or suicide attempt had already been made. As is the case with the other anti vilification laws and the guidelines on bias crimes they are extremely difficult to prosecute, such laws are mostly symbolic or at best cautionary, legal experts concur that they do nothing to prevent the acts occurring.
Your earlier comments about "White Privilege" are indicative of the biased attitudes among the elites and bourgeoisie and are in themselves discriminatory, defamatory and offensive. The problem is that if the new amendments were passed then anyone could make a claim, do you want White men making claims against Aboriginals on the basis that they have been offended? Of course you don't and neither do I but what do you suggest, that we exclude White men from seeking redress for perceived wrongs under this proposed framework? It's bad for everyone, I don't want men from my ethnic group thinking that they can hide behind Nicola Roxon's skirts if they're feeling slighted, I'm sure the attitude is the same among men in other ethnic groups.