“The Human Rights Commission Acts Like Terrorists”: Welcome To Australia’s Free Speech Debate

Chances are you haven’t been closely following Australia’s chaotic and nonsensical ‘debate’ on free speech and our racial vilification laws, particularly Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

That’s fine. That makes you a completely normal person.

Here’s a quick recap:

1. In 1995, Parliament made it unlawful to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone, or a group of people, based on their race, colour or national or ethnic origin”.

2. Everything was fine.

3. Even when John Howard, a conservative warrior, ruled the country for a decade, everything remained fine. No one cared about 18C.

4. Andrew Bolt was found by a court to have breached 18C.

5. Conservatives got very upset. But things were still kinda fine.

6. Bill Leak, a cartoonist for The Australian, drew some offensive cartoons about Indigenous Australians.

7. A lot of people complained about those cartoons and the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is following up the complaints.

8. All hell broke lose. Conservatives got even more upset and they tried to make “Je Suis Bill Leak” a thing.

9. Malcolm Turnbull responded to all the conservative angst by launching an inquiry into freedom of speech.

10. Seriously.

The inquiry is specifically looking into our racial vilification laws and how the AHRC responds to complaints. It’s now accepting submissions from the public.

This morning The Australian revealed that Bill Leak himself had made a submission. And no, it wasn’t just a crude cartoon portraying the President of the AHRC, Gillian Triggs, as a Nazi. Leak’s already done that.

Instead Leak’s submission compared the AHRC to… Islamist terrorists.

“While less murderous than the tactics deployed by Islamist terrorists, the actions taken by the AHRC were no less authoritarian and they sprang from the same ­impulse: to use whatever means they have at their disposal to ­silence those with whom they disagree,” Leak wrote.

At least he got one thing right: the AHRC is certainly “less murderous” than terrorists. Some would even say it’s not murderous at all. But comparing our Human Rights Commission to extremist religious terrorists is obviously next level cooked.

The “means” that terrorist groups use to “silence those with whom they disagree” is violence. Like the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

The AHRC facilitates mediation between two parties when a complaint arises. That’s it. Comparing the two is deeply, deeply weird.

Leak isn’t the only one who’s gotten very worked up by this review. The Institute of Public Affairs have submitted a 140 page document calling for the full repeal of Section 18C to the inquiry. Not one mention of terrorism though.

Most of the other submissions, largely from legal experts and multicultural organisations, are calling for the protections to be kept or clarified.

The inquiry will hold public hearings and report back to Parliament in February next year. Given how the conservative wing of the Liberal Party is so fired up about this issue — and they have a pretty solid record of getting what they want lately — chances are we will end up seeing some changes to 18C.

How big those changes are depends on how much of a spine Malcolm Turnbull has left in February.