The Forum > Article Comments > Coalition’s backdown on repeal of section 18c is shameful > Comments
Coalition’s backdown on repeal of section 18c is shameful : Comments
By James Allan, published 11/9/2014Forget principle and ask yourself why a political party that has at most one seat at risk from the dislike of the
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Posted by Bazz, Thursday, 11 September 2014 10:04:40 PM
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Virginia Trioli wrote an interesting article
on this very subject in the magazine, "The Weekly Review, August 13, 2014, page 3. I'm going to quote the entire article for you because I don't want to be accused of "cherry- picking." : "Turns out we don't have the right to be bigots after all. The Federal Government has abandoned its crusade to repel Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Columnists who want to offend someone about their race will now have to make sure they get their facts straight, and there's no legislation to make sure they do that." "Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for someone to do an act that is reasonably likely to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" someone because of their race or ethnicity." "The question that those arguing for its repeal never managed to answer was what did they want to be able to say that they couldn't say now?" "In other words - what problem would the repeal fix?" "The worries of those who saw a greater problem with unstitching the legislation were clear: if everyone had the right to be a bigot, just imagine what would be said and written when bigots declared open season. But the advantage created by removing the sanctions was never made clear." "The rhetoric was always powerful - dangerous restrictions on free speech, trampled liberties, et cetera - but the solid examples were scarce." cont'd ... Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 11 September 2014 10:23:28 PM
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The offending was stating that someone could, because of partial
ethnicity decide which one gave them the best advantage. That offended the complainant. Posted by Bazz, Thursday, 11 September 2014 10:36:10 PM
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cont'd ...
"The morning after the decision to abandon the repeal was announced, the man at the centre of the legislative row, columnist Andrew Bolt, could still only come up with two examples of "banned" speech for his comment piece that day, and they were the columns that got him into trouble in the first place - columns described by Justice Bromberg in his 2011 finding against Bolt for breaching the Racial Discrimination Act as containing "errors of fact, distortions of the truth, and inflammatory and provocative language." "While Section 18C makes it an offense to offend, insult etc, the bit straight after it, Section 18D, gives us all a way out: this is the guarantee protecting freedom of speech." "Let me just say that again, because the ideological warriors in this fight have conveniently ignored this crucial section." "This section protects freedom of speech. Under our laws we all have a defence for our sinsulting: if you are engaged in artistic works, scientific debate and fair comment on matter of public interest, you can vent to your heart's content providing what you do is said or done reasonably and in good faith." "That's why Bolt couldn't rely on this protection for his columns. The judge found that through his errors and inflammatory language he had not acted in good faith. It bears noting - for this truly is the straw-man at the centre of this high-fallutin' row - that Bolt probably could have got away with almost everything he wrote in those strangely skin colour-obsessed columns if he had just done the one thing a journalist is required to do - get his facts straight." cont'd ... Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 11 September 2014 10:41:18 PM
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cont'd ...
"But let's return to the problem that this repeal was supposed to solve: what can't you say right now because of 18C? The argument, such as it is, seemed to be made even weaker when Bolt had another go the next day at arguing his corner. His lament was that once upon a time he could have denouced someone and "in perfect safety drawn links between his faith and his bigotry. I could have wondered whether we were safe, importing so many people from such a culture." "Once he could have done this? Seems to me this columnist just managed to say now what he said he couldn't." "Situation normal: everyone go back to your homes." Posted by Foxy, Thursday, 11 September 2014 10:46:47 PM
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'Rottenham' (Rotherham).
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997 – 2013) "In just over a third of cases, children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known to services because of child protection and neglect. It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators. This abuse is not confined to the past but continues to this day. .. Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential care and from youth workers who knew the young people well. Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers. At an operational level, the Police gave no priority to CSE, regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime. Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham. The first of these reports was effectively suppressed because some senior officers disbelieved the data it contained. This had led to suggestions of cover- up. The other two reports set out the links between child sexual exploitation and drugs, guns and criminality in the Borough. These reports were ignored and no action was taken to deal with the issues that were identified in them." http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/1407/independent_inquiry_cse_in_rotherham tbc. Posted by onthebeach, Friday, 12 September 2014 4:44:29 AM
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The Bilal gang did the grooming technique on at least one girl that was
known to one of them when she got into their car.
Whether it is/has happened on such a scale I wouldn't know.
However the police/ DOCs should be active enquiring, but I would bet
quids it would be politically incorrect to make such enquiry.