NOtice no one was offended by the racist offensive behaviour directed towards Bolt after this decision. Oh that's right the ABC/SBS only report on facts (often fantasy in their own mind). No wonder they are considered so low by the majority of the population with such a loathing attitude towards those who built this nation with sweat and often tears. What a joke to slag off at Murdoch when we have such blantant left wing bias with tax payer funded national broadcasters.

Put your glasses on Trashcan - not my words but Margaret Simons. I was correcting the false impression about the article that Lexi had given.

I think journalists should be held to higher standards than the guy holding-up the bar, or most commenters on most blog sites. In this case Bolt failed to exercise due care in researching his facts, but that doesn't make it a case for the Racial Discrimination Act.

I've just read the judgement all the way through. I think the judge is wrong in the imputations that he draws from the articles and in his analysis as to how they fall under the ambit of the act.

He appears to say that any comment about race falls under the act, irrespective of the intention of the person making it, or whether it promotes racial discrimination, and that this position is balanced by the defence that the statement was made in good faith.

While he has some authority on this point it appears logically ridiculous and onerous on anyone making a comment that involves race who might find themselves dragged before a court and then forced to justify themselves because the other party is offended.

In my view this sort of complaint is one that should only sound in defamation, in which case it probably wouldn't have got past first base.

Thanks Graham,

I really shouldn't read off the iPhone, and maybe get my eyes checked too.

I was a bit astounded that you would say that so I'm glad you didn't

Runner,
It makes you wonder what these "Anti Discrimination" laws are for, remember when Rob Hulls was proposing legalisation of discrimination against White Men in favour of women and racial minorities on the grounds that we'd "had it too good for too long"?
This is a man with two young sons...these "Anti Racists" are ill in the head.
If something of this nature offends thine eye then always look for the person at the top of it all, almost without fail they'll be someone who looks like you, only they have no loyalty to you.
You could call Bolt a Nazi, a White supremacist...any racial epithet under the sun and far from being prosecuted you'd have a whole section of those allegedly opposed to racial discrimination, the so called "Left", slapping you on the back.
When it comes to White people , in the eyes of Anti Racists two wrongs always make a right, they say they are Anti Racist, what they are is Anti White, Anti Racism is just a code word for Anti White.

Jay Of Melbourne

Could not agree more but I also think the leftist elite who have made all there money from Government contracts or university fees loathe someone who speaks commonsense and has done well for himself through hard work. His success obviously makes them feel small.

Clearly discussion has not been suppressed, in fact it has been sparked. Graham, one point to consider is that Bolt's comments were about specific people. No wonder he was sued when he made such blatant targets of identifiable people. You face less risk if people posting here don't name names. Obviously there are issues here that society is working out. And there's a lot of public debate about these issues. More debate, not less, because of this case. And I reckon that's a good thing. It's free speech in action, even if half of it is about the so-called death of free speech. One thing to consider is that this is regarded as an issue about "race" - but there's only one human race on earth. It was believed, just as it was believed that the earth was flat, that there were a number of races on earth, and the vestiges of that belief are still with us. These races were classified on visual appearance but DNA showed that was wrong. Linnaeus classified people as Europeans, Africans, Asiatics and American Indians. He also had a class called Monstrosus for giants and dwarfs and there was another class for mythical beings like satyrs. Science moves its goal posts. DNA came along and phenotypes - visual differences - turned out to be misleading, we are all one human race. Skin colour is a function of 10 genes out of about 50,000. Graham, I reckon you'll be fine and dandy, and free from legal action, publishing articles by named authors, and opinions by sometimes dodgy people using pseudonyms, as long you don't let anyone bully individuals by name.