Remember Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act? It’s the law that no one had a problem with until Andrew Bolt lost a racial vilification case in 2011.

Since then, conservative Liberal MPs have been furiously trying to amend the laws, or get rid of them altogether, presumably to make it easier for people like Bolt to offend people based on their race. Those MPs, led by Senator Cory Bernadi (who was still a member of the Liberal Party back then), were last year able to pressure Malcolm Turnbull into launching an inquiry into the Racial Discrimination Act.

That inquiry has received 11,000 submissions — which is a huge amount for a parliamentary inquiry — and has held nine public hearings around the country.

During one of the hearings, notoriously terrible cartoonist Bill Leak, who himself was subject to a complaint under Section 18C, gave evidence and called for the law to be scrapped. At one point, Leak claimed he was in fact the victim of racism, telling the inquiry that “as a white man of a certain age with a Thai wife, it is immediately assumed that I went to Thailand on some sort of sex-tour and went shopping for a new wife.”

“I copped this stuff all the time,” Leak said.

While some submissions called for the whole law to the scrapped, most Liberal MPs have been calling for the words “offend” and “insult” removed from Section 18C, meaning behaviour that humiliates or intimidates someone based on their race, colour or national or ethnic origin would still be unlawful.

Today the inquiry released its final report. But before the report was made public, some MPs leaked details of it to the media, in an attempt to put further pressure on Malcolm Turnbull to amend the law.

One MP who has been the most vocal in his opposition to Section 18C is Victorian Liberal Tim Wilson. In his submission to the inquiry he called for 18C to be fully repealed.

So What Did The Inquiry Actually Recommend?

Not much! The irony is that after such a torturous process to get an inquiry up and running, the final report fails to make any concrete recommendations around changing Section 18C. Instead, it suggests a bunch of options the government could consider if it wants to reform the laws, and recommendations for how the procedures used to implement the laws could change.

The person most upset by the report is probably Malcolm Turnbull. He set up the inquiry as a way to deal with pressure from Liberal conservatives. The fact that it failed to make concrete recommendations around Section 18C means that the ball is back in his court and, as we’ve already seen today, Liberal backbenchers are already agitating for reform.

Cory Bernardi is also really unhappy, describing the inquiry on Twitter as a “huge FAIL”, because it failed to recommend any changes to the law.

Process & bureaucracy. No reform to 18c/18d. No real defence of freedom of speech. Huge FAIL. We need #ABetterWay @AUConservatives @TheIPA

— Cory Bernardi (@corybernardi) February 28, 2017

Meanwhile National Party MPs have told their Liberal colleagues to pull their heads in. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told the Liberals to stop talking about the issue and Damian Drum, a Nationals MP from Victoria, said the issue was “just not on [his] radar at all”.

Coalition MP @Damiandrumnat says constant chatter about #18C is frustrating. Current law doesn't bother his constituents. #auspol pic.twitter.com/uXmmxsi3iO

— Jesse Dorsett (@jessedorsett) February 27, 2017

It’s easy to sympathise with the Nationals. There’s no evidence that the public is greatly concerned about Section 18C. The only people who seem to care are about are Andrew Bolt, Bill Leak and their mates in the conservative wing of the Liberal Party.

Today’s inquiry report suggests that there isn’t much of a mood in parliament, in any party, to reform the laws. It might be a good time for the government to move on and deal with more important issues like housing, jobs, fixing Centrelink, and the dozens of other things that could do with fixing.

Unfortunately it seems like Turnbull is more beholden to the right-wing of his own party than ever before, so expect the the debate over Section 18C to keep rolling on.