A Bill Shorten Labor government wants to further restrict your free speech by “beefing up” enforcement of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Censorship of free speech is out of control under section 18C and the Conservative Party wants to repeal it.
Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said, “We are certainly going to be defending section 18C and I would propose to beef up the activities of the Human Rights Commission.”
However, he said Labor did not see the need for a religious freedoms commissioner – as promised by the Coalition – and would instead add an LGBTIQ commissioner to the commission’s ranks, taking the total number of commissioners from eight to nine.
Conservative Party leader Cory Bernardi has a bill before the Senate to remove the most problematic words,”offend” and “insult”, from section 18C.
The Conservative Party says the changes to section 18C are essential to prevent serial complainants exploiting complaints procedures to waste the time and money of perfectly innocent people who are merely expressing an opinion.
South Australian Senate candidate Rikki Lambert has told Adelaide’s Hills Radio, the tribunal process is not only repressive, it’s also very unfair and anti-Australian.
