Rubbish...These changes simply challenge the dogma of multiculturalism, nothing more!

Section 18C has now been clearly demonstrated to be a significant impediment to free speech and the right to express opinion even if offensive to some. There is nothing more important than these two rights in maintaining the democratic culture of Australia and Australians. The politically correct and looney left (often the same group) have had a good run, but have been shown to have feet of clay. In my opinion the Australian Human Rights Commission has done more to take away our basic human rights than to protect them. It certainly has not done anything to assist Jewish people from rampant anti-semitism from the Greens and the Left. It has reached its use-by date and I would like to see the whole shebang terminated. Another positive from that would be an extra billion or so dollars saved.

I have to agree with DD and PP.
If speech is to be truly free, then it must contain a right to offend, that any reasonable person, (or a dozen of your peers) would agree that it didn't cross a line, to become intimidation or racial vilification.
We can become just a little too precious, and hurt feelings should never be allowed to work to actually censor free speech. But particularly, if those very feeling have their origins in early formative development, i.e., blatant bullying/indoctrination?
After all, we live in a land, where the term you Pommy bar steward, said with a smile, according to tradition and the social mores, is a term of endearment!
Ditto if we ask a dark gentleman, (paraphrased) to smile in the night, so we can see him!
If we ever fall into the proposed trap, we may risk becoming like Russia, were your free to report anything Putin will actually allow.
Not too much is reported from the Gulags or the grave!
Free speech is fundamental to and a cornerstone of democracy!
In recent decades Govts have, I believe, wound back our rights and freedoms/privileges, largely because there was no bill of irrevocable rights to prevent/stop the power hungry!?
The way to protect the most vulnerable, is with a real bill of rights!
Not the defacto/risible nonsense in 18 B or C!
Rhrosty.

“these laws protect all Australians.”, you say. From what are we protected, by this retrograde law? What you assert is nonsense.

We do not want Australia to be a place where a case like the Bolt case could ever occur, and you are advocating retention of the law which enabled the case to be brought to Court.
Section 18C must be repealed. No more specious arguments can stand, now that we have seen the disgraceful working of it in practice. If Bolt were a whining lefty, he would be asking for compensation for what he suffered under this disgraceful legislation.

Exactly Leo,
Anti vilification laws don't protect all Australians, the majority of Australians are governed by these laws but not protected by them, the minorities are protected by them but not governed by them.

The most glaring current example of why 18c has to go is the way Fred Toben's submission has been seized upon by the Anti Racists, it doesn't matter that he's right about anti vilification laws being in fact Holocaust narrative protection laws he himself is vilified because his views might tend to violate that very law.
It's unworkable and the truth is most of us would welcome the end of Australia as we know it, the dumbed down, politically illiterate and intellectually barren society we inhabit needs to be knocked over and rebuilt.
Ironically the most obvious example of how restricting free speech dulls the mind and has a chilling effect not only on dissent but on intellectual inquiry can be found in National Socialist Germany, but of course we're not allowed to draw comparisons between today's Anti Racists and yesterdays socialists are we?
That might tend to offend, insult or intimidate the poor, sensitive little darlings.

Every Australian is protected by anti-vilification laws. They go to what sort of society we want.

Our laws should not condone bullying. No amount of well-intentioned community education can overcome that clear message from the Government’s legislative agenda if Senator Brandis’ proposed new law is legislated. After a while racial vilification and intimidation will become socially acceptable.

History teaches us that violence almost inevitably follows. The liberty of the powerful is enlarged; the liberty of the less powerful in society is diminished.

The English philosopher John Stuart Mill recognised that liberty does not licence individuals to do as they please in his famous "Essay on Liberty". That would mean the absence of law and of order, and ultimately the destruction of liberty

There is no such thing as a right not to be offended, but if there is, then the author needs to be thrown in prison because I find his argument offensive.

I am one of those Australians who actually does live a multicultural life. I am European, the widow of a man who was Aboriginal/Japanese/Samoan/European. We have 28 descendants so far. I spent years living in a remote Aboriginal community, at one stage I was the only white person there.
My last 44 years I have been surrounded by not just Aboriginal but Asian and mixed blood people. I am currently living in a town with about 40% non European people.
From my experience, no law has ever stopped anyone making a racist comment. From any race.
But what is now happening, and becoming worse, is the reluctance of the general community to discuss urgent issues such as family violence, sexual abuse, suicide and crime rates amongst the indigenous community. It is not any law, as such, that stops the debate, but fear of offending. We desperately need to have a dialogue about these problems in order to address them, and anything that reduces the barrier to conversation can only be good.
There will always be racists. You can't legislate against ignorance, in any race, so the targets just have to learn to ignore comments they don't like.
As my late husband used to say " anyone who doesn't like me for the colour of my skin is the one who has the problem, not me."

To a person imbued with the spirit of the enlightenment the sections 18c and 18d of the RDA are unacceptable. This is not to condone racial abuse and hooligan behaviour. I expect there are laws which make it a crime to shout “filthy yid” say from a car window as worshippers leave their synagogue. Given always that the miscreants can be located and charged. The problem is the misuse of 18c and 18d to block legitimate discussion and opinion. The subjective nature of the judgment in Bolt case illustrates the dangers and problems with current legislation.

Further 18c and 18d is useless in dealing with the university thugs who prevent liberal party speakers from speaking on campus. History provides many examples of the success of thuggery from both the political right and political left in inhibiting free speech and the expression of opinion. A notorious example would be Hitler’s Brown Shirts in the 1920s, this in spite of the Weimar’s Republic anti-discrimination laws.

“The Weimar Constitution granted citizens civil liberties like freedom of speech and press. It also provided economic and social rights such as unemployment benefits and a ban against job discrimination because of sex, religion, or politics. In addition, the people had the right to put laws directly before the voters in a referendum.”
http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-21-3-b-the-german-weimar-republic-why-did-democracy-fail

Whatever the nature of the anti-discrimination laws in the Weimar’s Republic, they were useless. Just as our laws area useless protection against thuggery.

Sadly, the politically correct attitude evidenced here shows this Author fails to appreciate that when bigots and haters highlight their attitudes by their outspokenness they surely unknowingly lose the respect of their peers.
Let them speak !
Gagging comment is a catalyst for encouraging mistaken attitudes which may never be challenged
V.

the bigotry, nastiness and hatred shown by the 'regressives' towards Abbott and his family far supercedes most so called vilification. The moral outrage (mainly by regressives) against getting rid of this legislation I suspect is a mask for their own hatred.

Hear,hear Anti Green & Big Nana.
The only thing which will fall apart if 18c is repealed is the house of cards atop which the anti Racists roost.
There are already adequate laws in place to deal with hooligans and troublemakers and the Police are the only people who should be dealing with such complaints.
Let's quit pussyfooting around, the central issue is and always has been protection of the post 1945 Holocaust narrative.
What the anti Racists willfully neglect to mention is that the coalition's proposal would make racial vilification an indictable offence and that "Holocaust Denial" would be illegal, this actually puts "Racists" in a far more delicate position than the current arrangement.What we'd basically end up with is a system closer to that found in many European countries where there is no defence permissable to a charge of minimising or aggrandising the crimes of the National Socialists, the accused has only two options, stand mute or throw himself upon the mercy of the court.
Methinks the objection to the repeal of 18c is calculated to avoid the above scenario because in a country which places it's resistance to totalitarianism as one of it's core national myths it would create such a backlash that the Holocaust proponents would very quickly see their position become untenable and it really would be "all over" in that sense.
Under the present system any deviation from the orthodox Holocaust dogma can be suppressed by HRC action,mediation, trial by media and if all else fails civil action. If 18c were repealed it would become a criminal matter and, as in the Zundel trials in Canada the anti Racists would suffer the indignity of cross examination and be forced to back their claims, which always goes badly for them.

Looks as though the racists are getting too little attention lately so they'd better jump up & down again.

"destroy the Australia we know"

You already did.
This isn't Australia.
It's Multopia.

"Approximately 25 per cent of the people of NSW were born overseas, while another 25 per cent have at least one parent who was born overseas"

And most of those are White, so the laws can't even apply.

It doesn't matter what the dictionary "definition" (as if there's only one) of any word is.
Laws themselves contain their own definitions on page one, so no confusion.

"Nor has anyone articulated exactly what it is they would like to say that the law as it stands is preventing them from saying."

Whatever they want, short of inciting violence.

"it would enjoy complete exemption if it occurs in the course of “public discussion” about virtually any matter."

How do expect to have a "public discussion" if some members of public cannot speak freely?

"would send a dangerous signal that .... bigotry has a place in our society."

It does.
If people want it.
Just like cigars, pornography and Nazi zombie movies.

People can only be "bigoted" in their own life.
No person has a "right" to be part of another's life.

Is someone commenting on Facebook addressing *you*?
No, they're talking with their friends.
If you stumble upon their conversation, that doesn't make you part of it.

Thinking rationally a "Racist" should be immediately dismissed because by definition he is a person without any insight into the condition of his own group much less a valid perspective on any others.
The world as described by the author has nothing to fear from overt "Racists" but being primarily an anti intellectual movement it's deeply threatened by men of logic, integrity, honesty and tact.
We could, if we wanted to construct a thesis undermining the anti Racist worldview without mentioning race or identifying any particular group, that's what scares the anti Racist more than anything.

I think that it is a bit ludicrous that you cannot have a debate about the feasibility of maintaining the immigration rates.Try talking about the amount of immigrants to Australia without having the Racist card thrown at you, some of these points are valid points that people try to make,that in no way show a racist attitude !Also political Correctness disables our ability to say what we really think about vital issues that affect us all. We need our freedom of speech to be returned to us, not because it allows bigots have their say, but for the ability of the vast majority of Australians to have their say !

We didn't need any of this garbage in the Australia I grew up in, & it was awash with Poms & Southern Europeans, along with a good smattering from damn near everywhere else.

We all rubbed along pretty well in country NSW, & in Sydney. There were a few problems mainly for the older Ozzies in suburbs that became concentrated with one group. They were minor, & none became ghettoes.

Then along came multiculturalism, with con men like All Grassby, & this rubbish has developed.

I must say I am not sorry that Sydney is no longer a part of Australia I call home.

Apart from the ethical reasons for allowing free speech which other commentators have listed, it's simply good politics to allow prejudiced people to operate out in the open where you can keep an eye on them, not force them to go underground where you can't.

Isn't it time that we got realistic & identify the real racists i.e. the ones who claim to be anti racism ? The ones who keep bleating discrimination whilst getting more hand-outs than any other group ? Give us a break for a while.

There is a sense of desperation from the saviours and purveyors of 'accept multiculturalism or you are a racist'. In my travels around the world one of my most startling observations is that it is only in 'white'dominated (or majority) populations that 'multiculturalism' is seen as something which has to be worked on to make it happen. Spend time in any Asian or African country, notice the mix of races, notice the lack of attention given to the passing parades of ethnicities. Then when accepting these are blended societies take some time to recognise these are also the most racist, intolerant, and blatantly discriminatory societies you have ever seen. Why is Australia so intent on creating a homogenous society to include people who come from places where such situations do not exist. They are confused, we are confused, and the anti-white bigots flourish.

Harry H,
Science recognises and clearly defines race, anyone who says it doesn't exist or doesn't matter is not speaking from a scientific point of view. That's why the Anti Racists don't want the law changed, if the Brandis model succeeds they could find themselves having to testify to their beliefs on race in court and facing cross examination and that would be a disaster for them.

I have heard anatomists deny the validity of the concept in the genus Homo. The argument goes that there is greater genetic (DNA) variation within a nominated racial group or groups then there is between the groups.

Practically, in South Africa at the time of apartheid one sibling could be assigned by the police to one so called racial group and another sibling to another group. This was to my mind manifestly absurd.

Anti Green,
No, you only think you've heard those stories, Anti Racist sociobiologists like Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould gave us the idea that there's more diversity within groups than between but they did so for ideological reasons, they also blatantly lied about race and anatomy.
See this is why we don't trust Anti Racist activists on issues of race and social cohesion, they lie and omit information to do "what's best", but the side effect is that it's causing divisions among other ethnic groups.
The Anti Racists don't have science on their side however they do recruit people with science degrees to work as actors in their propaganda, the propaganda is then repeated as "facts" in the media, observe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OhMxPFaZVM
Of course this "documentary" (from the Smithsonian no less) is laughably bad but it's still quoted as "fact" in the media:
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/archaeologists-delicately-dig-nazi-death-camp-secrets-treblinka-n66241

Racist” is a politically correct term invented for the sole purpose of vilification of white people.

As David Stove said, “ "Racism" is a neologism so recent that it was still not in The Oxford English Dictionary as late as 1971. But it swept all before it once it did arrive."

""Racism" is the belief that some human races are inferior to others in certain respects, and that it is sometimes proper to make such differences the basis of our behavior towards people. It is this proposition which is nowadays constantly declared to be false, though everyone knows it is true."
http://libertarianism.livejournal.com/2764353.html

The word "n+gger" is prohibited in OLO posts. A warning appears if it is typed, But no such warning appears if the word "racist" is typed, although it is equally objectionable.
Nevertheless, we should not be subjected to the greater evil of restriction on freedom of speech. That is the politically correct solution, and, of course, it is unacceptable.

Leo Lane,
That's sort of true, the word "racists" first appears in Leon Trotsky's History Of The Russian Revolution in a chapter entitled "Peculiarities Of Russian Development". What he's saying is that Slavophilia was the "messianism of backwardness" and that science (ie Marx) had long ago defeated the arguments of the "Racists", that is to say the "Slavists".
We get the modern usage of the word "Racist" from Trotsky via his internationalist adherents, the teachings of the Frankfurt School and sixties New Left ideologues.
To be sure Anti Racist is just a code word for anti White but it's nothing but a strawman in the rhetorical tool shed of today's Leftists, there's no "Austrophile" movement in the bourgeoisie so you're correct in identifying it as just a racial slur.
Here's some "Anti Racists" picketing an anti immigration meeting in Doonside NSW last weekend, their message is pretty clear I think:
http://goo.gl/pTXIMS
Note the pasty White skin of the protestors.

Jay..I personally treat people as human-beings....if a multiculturalism hand was to reach out to you to save your life, you would say no?

Kat

Kat,
I'm not talking about "multicultural" hands lending aid, I'm talking about Anti Racist hands interfering with people's political liberty and freedoms of speech and association.
Anti Racist is just a code word for anti White,they don't help anyone, they just bully, threaten, defame and assault people they don't like. Of course mutual aid and tolerance is the norm between decent people regardless of race, however such laudable qualities are completely absent in Anti Racists because they're not decent people.
Look at the photo in my previous post, what does it remind you of? http://goo.gl/pTXIMS
This perhaps?:
http://goo.gl/HnDW0h
Anti Racism is a sign of bad character and bigotry because they single out one ethnic group and demonise them, they will say they are anti Racist, what they are is anti White, anti Racism is just a code word for anti White.

Jay....I hear your call, and it sh@ts me to the bone...while some people don't get it.....at least we do, and I dont fu@k with words, you know me.

The world as one.....first.

Jay...some just don't get how important it is to be smart....I get called everything you can imagine just because I speak another language.....in school, I had a hell of a time with them....just beat them, that's What I did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzOuM8KvjzA&feature=player_detailpage

Iam not from this country.....but I understand them.

Kat

I have every right to be 'racist' (whatever that is) in my own country. Australia for the white man, china for the chows.

I have the impression that some posts are making an oblique reference to the holocaust. From my point of view people should be free to express an opinion on this or any other matter. Even free to ignore the vast documented evidence of extermination camps and the horrors of world war II. The racial theories of the German Nazis party were both biological nonsense and morally repugnant. The murder of millions of innocent people is attributed to the Nazis racial ideas.

“When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything. You just let them talk.” [Obama on the Sterling controversy].

As academic Frank Salter has noted, section 18c has been employed by aggrieved minorities and the multicultural movement to gag their opponents as part of their implicit ethnic warfare campaign against the Anglo-Celtic Australian majority.

To quote Salter:

"To its supporters section 18C has emotional significance because it is the mechanism by which future enemies can be given the Bolt treatment. The section is a valued weapon in the armoury used by the multicultural “discourse police”, to use Betts’s phrase. That is why Greens spokeswoman Penny Wright saw Government draft legislation to change 18C as “the Andrew Bolt protection bill”. Multiculturalism has always been hostile towards Australia core Anglo identity. In practise the movement has been predicated on intolerance and intimidation directed at silencing critics, so it is understandable that minority activists are wedded to section 18C."

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2014/03/section-18c-multiculturalism-power/

Thanks, drab. He has described the Australia as we know it which this author believes will be destroyed by the removal of Section 18C.

It cannot happen soon enough.