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The Forum > Article Comments > Alan Austin does himself a disservice > Comments

Alan Austin does himself a disservice : Comments

By Calum Thwaites, published 5/9/2017

If Austin is keen to do a 'Media Watch' review of reporting on the QUT case, he would do well to refresh his memory of the ABC's and Fairfax media's coverage.

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Alan,

I welcome your admission that the ABC talks just as much bollocks as the Australian, but not as much as you clearly.

18C - Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

It is clearly written that with conditions that it is illegal to offend someone. And as the term offend is so subjective it is entirely up to the judge to determine whether it meets community standards, which themselves are exceptionally vague and subjective.

That many people have been unfairly targeted and hurt as these students were by the incorrect application of this law shows that not only is it used to punish free speech, but it is used for extortion.

That Cindy Prior managed to inflict huge costs on QUT and the students and got away with a slap on the wrist shows exactly how powerful a weapon 18c is for unscrupulous rent seekers.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 3:24:52 AM
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Hi SM,

The ABC sometimes gets things wrong, but never intentionally. The Australian, in contrast, deliberately lies to you routinely.
All we know about costs against Cindy Prior so far is that Judge Dowsett awarded $4000 to Alex Woods and $10,780 to Calum Thwaites and Jackson Powell. Ms Prior has paid them.
There will be more to come, but probably not much more.
Anything else is speculation.

SM, you are revealing precisely the distorted misunderstanding of section 18C that The Australian wants you to have.
This is what The Australian says:
“Section 18C makes it illegal to say anything which is ‘reasonably likely … to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people’ because of their ‘race, colour or national or ethnic origin’.”
That is an exact quote. With a fullstop.
It leaves out the heading of the section: "Part IIA—Prohibition of offensive behaviour based on racial hatred." And it leaves out the critical conditions which have been developed by the cases.

The humiliating or intimidating statements made MUST BE part of a sustained public campaign clearly motivated by racial hatred.
That part of the application of the RDA is critical. It is an outrageous distortion by The Australian to leave out the critical conditions.
It is just as bad as saying “An adult can be charged with murder for hitting a child.”
Of course that is false.
But the full sentence is true: “An adult can be charged with murder for hitting a child with such force that the child is killed.”
What The Australian is doing is exactly like sprouting half that sentence – and then campaigning for the murder laws to be scrapped.

Don’t let them suck you in, SM?
AA
Posted by Alan Austin, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 5:39:40 AM
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Alan,

You along with many from the left claim that The Australian lies yet are unable to produce actual examples. Over 1000s of articles produced every year only a handful have included incorrect information which compares starkly with the shoddy record of IA.

Your latest post contains a blatant falsehood:

18c and its qualifier 18d are below:

"The humiliating or intimidating statements made MUST BE part of a sustained public campaign clearly motivated by racial hatred." is patently false, otherwise Bolt would have been cleared.
(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith:

(a) in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or

(b) in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or

(c) in making or publishing:

(i) a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or

(ii) a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.

The problem is not that there is a theoretical chance of 18c being abused but real cases where the threat of a ruinously expensive court case (for those that can't find pro bono lawyers) or the handing over of a few $1000 to a grub and his activist lawyers.

The QUT students could have been vindicated and financially bankrupt.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 6:39:27 AM
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Not at all, SM.

There are countless examples of falsehoods from The Australian. For example:

1. "Section 18C makes it illegal to say anything which is 'reasonably likely … to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people' because of their 'race, colour or national or ethnic origin'.”

2. "You can hardly blame (Cindy) Prior for slogging it out in the courts. The law — section 18C — invites her to put her alleged pain ahead of freedom of expression."

3. "And the deceptively labelled Human Rights Commission is there to usher the case into court, bypassing the most basic human right — to speak freely."

4. "Defamation laws rightly exist to protect people’s reputation. But section 18C is a direct hit on words that merely hurt someone’s feelings."

5. "In 2011, columnist Andrew Bolt was found guilty of breaching section 18C for expressing his views on how people identify as indigenous."

6. "Reforming section 18C was never about Bolt. It’s about a handful of QUT students who wrote a few comments on Facebook poking fun at racial segregation at QUT."

All six are clearly false. They are all from same article. Easily googled. They have been repeated countless times.

The killer blow to the case advanced here by The Australian is in the judgments handed down in this very matter. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Cindy Prior was offended, insulted, humiliated and intimidated. So she should have won hands down if what The Australian and you are claiming were true.

But she didn’t. She lost comprehensively – as I said she would back in February 2016. She lost because the actions of the students were NOT part of a sustained public campaign clearly motivated by racial hatred as evidenced by multiple lies.

Time to revise your views in the light of realities, SM.

Cheers,
AA
Posted by Alan Austin, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 10:53:41 AM
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Alan,

None of the 6 snippets you have taken out of Janet Albrechtsen's column are falsehoods. While they are not complete and sometimes overly concise, they are not false.

1 This does not mention section 18d, but in itself is not false.

2 This is also true, and she succeeding in extracting monies from some students before a barrister offered his services pro bono and stopped her.

3 The AHRC should not do this but functionally does. It does help with deputy Tim S actively encouraging people to complain.

4 Offending someone is hurting someone's feelings.

5 Having read the judgement, this is overly simplified but not false.

6 Here she is stating her opinion.

0/6 so far for you Alan.

Your next paragraph is a lie. Note that in Woods' case against CP's lawyers for bringing a frivolous case, he lost as the judge determined that the case was not completely hopeless, which actually verifies what the Australian and I were saying.

So 0/7

That the comments were not of a sustained public campaign was irrelevant to the case.

So 0/8.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 1:41:18 PM
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If those statements from The Australian were true, SM, then how come Cindy Prior lost her case so quickly, so easily and so comprehensively?

As the judge said:

"my decision in this case was entirely unremarkable. It did nothing than extract the principles from the decisions in the superior courts – the Federal Court and the High Court – that apply to cases that assert a contravention of s.18C and then attempt to apply those principles to the facts before me. This case creates no precedent. This case is simply an application of the facts to the law."

This is exactly what I said would happen. It is the opposite of what The Australian said would happen.

Correct, SM?

Cheers,
AA
Posted by Alan Austin, Tuesday, 19 September 2017 2:04:48 PM
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