What a change to the racial discrimination act really means

Was Harmony Day the right day to suggest changed to the Racial Discrimination Act?

Malcolm Turnbull was shouted down in Question Time when he said changes to race-hate speech laws would strengthen the act.

“I believe all Australians are absolutely opposed to racism in any form,” Malcolm Turnbull said

“The suggestion that those people who support a change to the wording of Section 18C are somehow or other racist is a deeply offensive one.”

Section 18C deals with offensive behaviour “because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin” in Australia.

Mr Turnbull said the language in the contentious section of the Racial Discrimination Act has lost credibility and will be replaced.

Under the changes approved at a joint party room meeting in Canberra on Tuesday the words “offend, insult and humiliate” will be changed to “harass and intimidate”, making claims harder to prove.

Mr Turnbull said he expects there will be many critics and opponents to the change, but it was an issues of values.

“Free speech is a value at the very core of our party, it should be at the core of every party,” he said.

Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the changes would weaken the protection against racist hate speech, not strengthen.

“It is a moving of the line that we have drawn against racist hate speech for more than 20 years in the wrong direction and he’s done it on Harmony Day,” Mark Dreyfus said.

In an opinion piece published in The Australian today, Bill Leak’s son Johannes Leak said Section 18C gave many people licence to accuse his dad of racism because of the cartoons he drew.

“Anybody who knew my Dad knows that he was the least racist person you could meet,” Johannes Leak said.

“At his memorial on Friday were some people whom he had often lampooned in cartoons, but even these people knew that my Dad never once drew a cartoon out of malice — he only ever wanted to amuse, inform and possibly enlighten.

“If the supporters of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, such as Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek, want to know what real vilification looks like, they need only look at what happened to my Dad and our family. It was genuinely offensive and placed him under enormous stress.”

What do you think of the planned changes?