ABC chairman warns: this government will restrict your free speech like no other country

by Andrew Bolt
December 11, 2012

The Gillard Government’s assault on our free speech is a disgrace. For me, this issue alone makes this vengeful Government’s defeat critical, and it is a relief to finally hear prominent figures speak out:

ABC chairman and former top jurist Jim Spigelman has warned that a planned overhaul of discrimination law will impose unprecedented restrictions on free speech, including making it unlawful to offend people, leaving the nation isolated from international norms.
The Gillard government’s planned consolidation of all federal discrimination laws would significantly redraw the line between permissible and unlawful speech and open the way for the banning of publications, said Mr Spigelman, the immediate past chief justice of NSW.
If the government’s draft bill were enacted, discrimination in all areas would be affected by provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act that were used last year against newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt so that merely offending people would amount to unlawful discrimination.
“I am not aware of any international human rights instrument or national anti-discrimination statute in another liberal democracy that extends to conduct which is merely offensive,” Mr Spigelman said.
“We would be pretty much on our own in declaring conduct which does no more than offend to be unlawful. The freedom to offend is an integral component of freedom of speech. There is no right not to be offended.”

So it turns out Usain isn’t the only Bolt to have set a world record. Wish I were happier about it.
From Spigelman’s speech:

However, so far as I have been able to determine, we would be pretty much on our own in declaring conduct which does no more than offend, to be unlawful. In a context where human rights protection draws on a global jurisprudence, this should give us pause when we re-enact s 18C and before we extend such protection to other contexts.
Section 19(2)(b) of the proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012, introduces “offending” into the definition of discrimination for all purposes, not just for racial vilification… The new s19 defines, for the first time, discrimination by unfavourable treatment to include “conduct that offends, insults or intimidates” another person. As has always been the case with s 18C, the relevant conduct must occur “because the other person has a particular protected attribute”....
There are 18 separate “protected attributes” set out in section 17 of the draft Bill, seven of which apply only in the employment context. These are wide ranging and, in a number of respects, novel. One such attribute is “race"…
The inclusion of “religion” as a “protected attribute” in the workplace, appears to me, in effect, to make blasphemy unlawful at work, but not elsewhere. The controversial Danish cartoons could be published, but not taken to work. Similar anomalies could arise with other workplace protected attributes, eg. “political opinion”, “social origin”, “nationality"…
The new Bill proposes a significant redrawing of the line between permissible and unlawful speech. This is so, notwithstanding the ability to establish that relevant conduct falls within a statutory exception. A freedom that is contingent on proving, after the event, that it was exercised reasonably or on some other exculpatory basis, is a much reduced freedom. Further, as is well known, the chilling effect of the mere possibility of legal processes will prevent speech that could have satisfied an exception.
When rights conflict, drawing the line too far in favour of one, degrades the other right. Words such as “offend” and “insult”, impinge on freedom of speech in a way that words such as “humiliate”, “denigrate,” “intimidate”, “incite hostility” or “hatred” or “contempt”, do not. To go beyond language of the latter character, in my opinion, goes too far.
None of Australia’s international treaty obligations require us to protect any person or group from being offended. We are, however, obliged to protect freedom of speech.

All this is plainly true. It is truly astonishing that such arguments now need to be made to protect one of our most critical freedoms from this government.
The question for me is why I heard so few prominent figures mount them in response to my own ordeal. Spigelman gives a clue:

There may now have elapsed sufficient time for us to debate the issue dispassionately, and not on the basis of whether or not you like Andrew Bolt.

Spigelman seems to suggest that the principle of free speech was surrendered by those only too glad to have a conservative silenced.
Contemptible. Many of our “human rights” warriors have exposed themselves to me for what they are. As Bertrand Russell famously put it:

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

UPDATE
Chris Merritt:

JIM Spigelman’s human rights day oration marks the beginning of the end for Nicola Roxon’s botched plan to consolidate federal discrimination laws.
That scheme was already in trouble because of the growing concern about the Attorney-General’s decision to reverse the onus of proof in discrimination law - thereby destroying one of the bulwarks of liberty.
Spigelman has delivered the coup de grace by exposing the nanny-state policy that lies at the heart of this plan..
[Roxon] put forward a scheme that treats the community like naughty children… Publications could be banned. Liability for religious slights at work would be assumed - unless the accused could prove otherwise.

This Government first insults Australians as either too-tender petals and too-nasty ferals, and then insults them double by stripping them of their freedom.
I know good Labor Ministers - not least Martin Ferguson, of course - are resisting those in the Government such as Stephen Conroy who are trashing our free speech and free media.
But we cannot be sure they will win out in the end, and especially not if Gillard wins the next election. So those who value free speech have no option: throw this Labor baggage out before they do serious harm.

UPDATE:

Add Kelvin Thomson to the list of Labor MPs trying to save Australia - and Labor - from the worst excesses of Labor’s authoritarians: