Thank you Laurence Maher for the level of debate OLO should aspire to on such important issues as freedom of speech. I suppose its unreal to expect that Chek ling, O sung wu and like recent contributors ,who use privilege to attack Australians as racists, would reply to you. And Suseonline and others of similar kind- hearted but misguided persuasion, I hope you ,too, will benefit.

Excellent article,

Perhaps 18C and D should be amended to allow an offence of group libel, but with the same standards as normal defamation law applied to individuals. What is particularly worrying about the present situation is that truth is no defence and the question as whether a statement is reasonable or in good faith is left up to a possibly activist judge with no objective test.

The sorts of problems this can lead to are obvious in the Catch the Fire Ministries case under Victoria's religious vilification laws. One of the appeal judges made the point that completely truthful, balanced statements could arouse hatred or contempt against a religious group and therefore be banned under the act.

http://www.law.uq.edu.au/documents/qlsr/recent-issues/vol3/issue1/Klose_2010_vol3_i1.pdf

...Impossible it is to legislate to force a "love" of fellow man. Once there were Christian ethics in this country Australia; a Country where respect was actually endemic: Replaced with obtrusive lawyer nonsense, which serves only to make the rich richer, and the poor to chase riches through litigation!

Defamation law is more than adequate.

Section 18C is about censorship. It is the blunt weapon of political correctness to force the media especially to self-censor.

Divergence has summed it up, as well as anyone could!
Rhrosty.

Hypocrites....I just love them:).....If sh@t for brains was a money maker....All 8 billion of you should be what you think:)....but its not is it:)

Kat:)

Good to read an expert analysis of Section 18c which, by putting it in a legal and moral context, offers a compelling argument to explain why this ill-considered provision is actually an insult to its intended beneficiaries.

Max Atkinson

THE POINT IS WIll dopers no hopers d..DRROUGGIES STILL GET NAME CALLED
Or deniers /commiES NATZIES POLES BIAfrins irish ..or just by the jew?

JUST FOR FUN..INFOM Yourself
see that much of the fabled 'abuses',..were in HOUSE
IE THERE ARE ORe sectarian attacks og PLACES OF WHORESIP/IN ISRAEL/THAN THE REST OF US GOBALLY...HUH?

WE FIND ANNFRANK WAS WRITTen by a frank not an anne
the list goes on endesslybut their ONLY NAMES YOU arnt your name

i want SIMPLY A LAW THAT ALLOWS US TO COMPLAIN/ABOUT THE UNSPOKE ABUSES..LIKE IS FORCING SMOKERS TO WAK/SUCH A GOOD Idea?

no realy the right to anger mannage with a simple 'smoke'
is under appriciated..and over policed..and \over hated

i cant EVEN TAK OF SMOKING ON THE MEDIA
AND YOUR WORRIED ABOUT BEING A TOWEL HEAD?

STICK AND BONE MR jones
sicks aND STONE/BROKEN BONE..NO VICTIM/NO CRIme
but if i could sue you freaking name/blae callers..MAYBE YOU HATER GO AWAY/FIND OTHER WAYS TO HATE

NGOS CANT RULE THEIR OWN EXCSEss

Kat,

If your intention was to insult or offend, it fell a bit flat. But most of us would defend your right to do it. Since it's content-free, amply demonstrating how one can write even with sh@t for brains, some of us will wait until you have something half-sensible to write. Most of us won't give a toss but.

One of the corollaries of freedom of speech is that there is no law banning hypocrites or bigots, or fools, or drunkards - or even Stalinists, for that matter.

Joe

An excellent article but I'm not sure this is correct:

"As interpreted by the Federal Court, under s 18C the tendency of a statement to offend, insult etc is also judged objectively, but according its effect on the feelings of the hypothetical reasonable member of the relevant racial, national or ethnic group in the Australian community."

In Eatock v Bolt the offence was to be judged by the subjective feelings of the claimants. In other words the abolishment of the objective community standard which applies in defamation was compounded by the further subjectivity of the people so offended. There can be no defence to a subjective feeling of offence.

This is why S 18C must be repealed; it is against the community standards.

Oh Yair, Rhosty.

The measure of freedom of speech in Australia then becomes the thickness of the skin of some self appointed ethnic spokesperson with an axe to grind.