tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/racial-vilification-3536/articlesRacial vilification – The Conversation2019-06-13T20:15:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1184012019-06-13T20:15:53Z2019-06-13T20:15:53Z6 actions Australia’s government can take right now to target online racism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279275/original/file-20190613-32342-1sxolha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Fletcher, Australia's recently appointed minister for communications, cyber safety and the arts, says he wants to make the internet safe for everyone. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/QsOEYVZvUiI">Markus Spiske / unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Paul Fletcher was recently appointed as Australia’s Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts. </p>
<p>One of his <a href="https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/media-releases/media-release-fletcher-deeply-honoured-to-be-appointed-minister-for-communications">stated priorities</a> is to:</p>
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<p>continue the Morrison Government’s work to make the internet a safer place for the millions of Australians who use it every day. </p>
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<p>Addressing <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-in-a-networked-world-how-groups-and-individuals-spread-racist-hate-online-109072">online racism</a> is a vital part of this goal. </p>
<p>And not just because racism online is hurtful and damaging – which it is. This is also important because sometimes online racism spills into the real world with deadly consequences. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-trial-of-alleged-perpetrator-of-christchurch-mosque-shootings-115041">Explainer: trial of alleged perpetrator of Christchurch mosque shootings</a>
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<p>An Australian man brought up in the Australian cyber environment is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-trial-of-alleged-perpetrator-of-christchurch-mosque-shootings-115041">alleged murderer of 50 Muslims at prayer</a> in Christchurch. Planning and live streaming of the event took place on the internet, and across international boundaries. </p>
<p>We must critically assess how this happened, and be clearheaded and non-ideological about actions to reduce the likelihood of such an event happening again. </p>
<p>There are six steps Australia’s government can take. </p>
<h2>1. Reconsider international racism convention</h2>
<p>Our government should remove its reservation on Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cerd.aspx">ICERD</a>). </p>
<p>In 1966 Australia <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/guide-law-international-convention-elimination-all-forms-racial#1">declined to sign up</a> to Article 4(a) of the ICERD. It was the only country that had signed the ICERD while deciding to <a href="https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-2&chapter=4&lang=en#EndDec">file a reservation on Article 4(a)</a>. It’s this section that mandates the criminalisation of race hate speech and racist propaganda. </p>
<p>The ICERD entered into Australian law, minus Article 4(a), through the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act (<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2014C00014">RDA</a>). </p>
<p>Article 4 concerns, such as they were, would enter the law as “<a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/racial-vilification-law-australia">unlawful</a>” harassment and intimidation, with no criminal sanctions, twenty years later. This occurred through the 1996 amendments that <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-01/what-is-section-18c-and-why-do-some-politicians-want-it-changed/7806240">produced Section 18 of the RDA</a>, with its right for complainants to seek civil solutions through the Human Rights Commission. </p>
<p>With Article 4 ratified, the criminal law could encompass the worst cases of online racism, and the police would have some framework to pursue the worst offenders.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-section-18c-and-why-do-some-politicians-want-it-changed-64660">Explainer: what is Section 18C and why do some politicians want it changed?</a>
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<h2>2. Extend international collaboration</h2>
<p>Our government should extend Australia’s participation in the European cybercrime convention by adopting the First Additional Protocol. </p>
<p>In 2001 the Council of Europe opened the <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/185">Budapest Convention on Cybercrime</a> to signatories, establishing the first international instrument to address crimes committed over the internet. The add-on <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/cyber-racism-and-council-europes-reply">First Additional Protocol</a> on criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature came into effect in 2002. </p>
<p>Australia’s government – Labor at the time – initially considered including the First Additional Protocol in cyber crime legislation in 2009, and then withdrew it soon after. Without it, our country is limited in the way we collaborate with other country signatories in tracking down cross border cyber racism.</p>
<h2>3. Amend the eSafety Act</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-the-office/legislation">Enhancing the Online Safety of Australians Act</a> (until 2017 Enhancing the Online Safety of Children Act) established the eSafety Commissioner’s Office to pursue acts which undercut the safe use of the internet, especially through bullying.</p>
<p>The eSafety Act should be amended by Communications Minister Fletcher to extend the options for those harassed and intimidated, to include <a href="http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0063/latest/whole.html">provisions similar to those found in NZ legislation</a>. In effect this would mean people harassed online could take action themselves, or require the commissioner to act to protect them. </p>
<p>Such changes should be supported by staff able to speak the languages and operate in the cultural frames of those who are the most vulnerable to online race hate. These include Aboriginal Australians, Muslims, Jews and people of African and Asian descent.</p>
<h2>4. Commit to retaining 18C</h2>
<p>Section <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/s18c.html">18C of the RDA</a>, known as the racial vilification provisions, allows individuals offended or intimidated by online race hate to seek redress. </p>
<p>The LNP government conducted <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/30/senate-blocks-governments-changes-to-section-18c-of-racial-discrimination-act">two failed attempts</a> over 2013-2019 to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-section-18c-and-why-do-some-politicians-want-it-changed-64660">remove or dilute section 18C</a> on grounds of free speech. </p>
<p>Rather than just leaving this dangling into the future, the government should commit itself to retaining 18C. </p>
<p>Even if this does happen, unless Article 4 of the (<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cerd.aspx">ICERD</a>) is ratified as mentioned above, Australia <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/7-are-current-regulatory-responses-sufficient-and-appropriate">will still have no effective laws</a> that target online race-hate speech by pushing back against perpetrators. </p>
<p>Legislation <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-livestreaming-legislation-fails-to-take-into-account-how-the-internet-actually-works-114911">introduced by the Australian government in April 2019</a> does make companies such as Facebook more accountable for hosting violent content online, but does not directly target perpetrators of race hate. It’s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/5/31/18646525/facebook-white-supremacist-ban-evasion-proud-boys-name-change">private online groups that can harbour and grow race hate</a> hidden from the law. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-livestreaming-legislation-fails-to-take-into-account-how-the-internet-actually-works-114911">New livestreaming legislation fails to take into account how the internet actually works</a>
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<h2>5. Review best practice in combating cyber racism</h2>
<p>Australia’s government should conduct a public review of best practice worldwide in relation to combating cyber racism. For example, it could plan for an options paper for public discussion by the end of 2020, and legislation where required in 2021. </p>
<p>European countries have now a good sense of how their <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/cyber-racism-and-council-europes-reply">protocol on cyber racism has worked</a>. In particular, it facilitates inter-country collaboration, and empowers the police to pursue organised race hate speech as a criminal enterprise.</p>
<p>Other countries such as New Zealand and Canada, with whom we often compare ourselves, have moved far beyond the very limited action taken by Australia. </p>
<h2>6. Provide funds to stop racism</h2>
<p>In conjunction with the states plus industry and civil society organisations, the Australian government should promote and resource “push back” against online racism. This can be addressed by reducing the online space in which <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/from-alt-right-to-alt-lite-naming-the-hate">racists currently pursue their goals of normalising racism</a>. </p>
<p>Civil society groups such as the <a href="https://ohpi.org.au/">Online Hate Prevention Institute</a> and <a href="https://alltogethernow.org.au/">All Together Now</a>, and interventions like the currently stalled NSW Government program on <a href="https://removehatefromthedebate.com/">Remove Hate from the Debate</a>, are good examples of strategies that could achieve far more with sustained support from the federal government. </p>
<p>Such action characterises many European societies. Another good example is the <a href="https://webfoundation.org/">World Wide Web Foundation (W3F)</a>) in North America, whose <a href="https://webfoundation.org/2018/11/join-us-and-fight-fortheweb/">#Fortheweb campaign</a> highlights safety issues for web users facing harassment and intimidation through hate speech.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-in-a-networked-world-how-groups-and-individuals-spread-racist-hate-online-109072">Racism in a networked world: how groups and individuals spread racist hate online</a>
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<h2>Slow change over time</h2>
<p>Speaking realistically, the aim through these mechanisms cannot be to “eliminate” racism, which has deep structural roots. Rather, our goal should be to contain racism, push it back into ever smaller pockets, target perpetrators and force publishers to be far more active in limiting their users’ impacts on vulnerable targets. </p>
<p>Without criminal provisions, infractions of civil law are essentially let “through to the keeper”. The main players know this very well. </p>
<p>Our government has a responsibility to ensure publishers and platforms know what the community standards are in Australia. Legislation and regulation should enshrine, promote and communicate these standards – otherwise the vulnerable remain unprotected, and the aggressors continue smirking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Jakubowicz with colleagues has received funding from ARC for a project on cyber racism. He has published a book with colleagues through Palgrave Macmillan (2017) "Cyber Racism and Community Resilience". He has received funding from the Australian Human Rights Commission and VicHealth for this research. </span></em></p>Racism online is hurtful and damaging. But it can also spill into the real world with deadly consequences – such as the Christchurch terrorism attack.Andrew Jakubowicz, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/622832016-07-18T20:06:16Z2016-07-18T20:06:16ZCan religious vilification laws protect religious freedoms?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130671/original/image-20160715-2110-sdun2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The car that was set ablaze outside Perth's Thornlie Mosque. Offensive graffiti was also scrawled on a wall nearby.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 28, the Thornlie Mosque and Australian Islamic College in Perth was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-29/ethnic-communities-council-warns-of-escalation-violence/7555034">targeted by vandals</a>. A vehicle was destroyed by fire, and offensive graffiti was sprayed on a nearby wall.</p>
<p>True, the law courts can respond accordingly if the offenders are caught, given this attack involved criminal offences. But is there not also a role for anti-vilification legislation to bolster society’s defences against the more overt and worrisome displays of religious bigotry?</p>
<h2>What the law says now</h2>
<p>As a signatory to the <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20999/volume-999-I-14668-English.pdf">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>, Australia is obliged to enact laws prohibiting:</p>
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<p>… any advocacy or national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.</p>
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<p>To that end, there is a great deal of state and federal legislation now in place that grants civil remedies in the event of <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/198360150?selectedversion=NBD55509922">racial and religious discrimination</a>. Notable is the federal Racial Discrimination Act, enacted in 1975 and amended in 1995 to add the <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/projects/glance-racial-vilification-under-sections-18c-and-18d-racial">controversial Section 18C</a> (the “racial hatred” amendment). </p>
<p>The Coalition promised, during the 2013 election campaign, to rescind Section 18C. This promise was later abandoned by the Abbott government.</p>
<p>There is other legislation, too, that specifically criminalises acts of racial hatred, such as South Australia’s <a href="https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/RACIAL%20VILIFICATION%20ACT%201996.aspx">Racial Vilification Act</a>.</p>
<p>This legislation, however, does not protect those who have been vilified because of their religious beliefs. An observer might think that being a Jew, Muslim, Sikh, or Buddhist is as much an issue of religion as it is a matter of race or ethnicity, so it doesn’t really matter. </p>
<p>But that is not necessarily the case. In law, “race” is determined on the basis of a combination of genetics, shared history, and cultural traditions. This need not include religious observance.</p>
<p>This issue arose, somewhat obliquely, in the 2003 Jones v Toben case. Jeremy Jones, then-director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, claimed that Fredrick Toben’s Holocaust denial website was in breach of Section 18C. The Federal Court agreed, finding that some particularly egregious assertions on the website <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2003/137.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=title(Toben%20and%20Jones%20)">did breach the act</a>. </p>
<p>In an interesting twist, Toben had claimed that Judaism was a religion, thus the act didn’t apply. The court disagreed, finding that Judaism was sufficiently “racial” to be covered by the act. The court did not say, and it cannot follow in any event, that being Jewish means that one affirms the Judaic faith.</p>
<p>To further complicate matters, in some legislation, such as New South Wales’ <a href="http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/1977/48">Anti-Discrimination Act</a>, the definition of “race” includes “ethno-religious” origin. But the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal Appeal Panel has ruled that determining whether there has been discrimination on the basis of race cannot be done by referring to an aggrieved person’s religion.</p>
<p>So what does all this mean? It means, simply, that one cannot rely upon the laws that proscribe racial and religious discrimination to be protected from religious vilification.</p>
<h2>Should there be specific legislation?</h2>
<p>Yes and no. </p>
<p>Yes, all people have the right to be protected from religious vilification, especially in this post-election era. On July 2, a not-insignificant proportion of Australians indicated their strong preference for candidates advocating a ban on burqas, an end to the building of mosques, and the scrapping of halal certification.</p>
<p>On the other hand there should be no such legislation because we cherish our freedom of speech. Vilification laws are a serious limitation on that freedom.</p>
<p>Let’s look at the current state of the law. There are three pieces of legislation in Australia that address religious vilification. In Victoria, a person convicted of “<a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/rarta2001265/s25.html">serious religious vilification</a>” faces a fine or six months’ imprisonment. There is a similar penalty for a conviction under <a href="https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/legisltn/current/a/antidiscrima91.pdf">the law in Queensland</a>. A person convicted in Tasmania faces <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/tas/consol_act/aa1998204/s19.html">fines and orders for compensation</a>, but not imprisonment.</p>
<p>Other legislatures have been decidedly timid, and so, it seems, have the courts. Of the few complaints that have been taken up by prosecutors, the most highly publicised was the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/vic/VCAT/2004/2510.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=title(%222004%20VCAT%202510%22)">trial of Catch the Fire Ministries</a>. Outspoken Christian fundamentalist pastors <a href="http://riseupaustraliaparty.com/">Danny Nalliah</a> and Daniel Scot were found by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to have vilified the Muslim community during an anti-Islam seminar and in their writings. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2006/284.html">On appeal</a>, they succeeded in having the matter referred back to the tribunal, but it was settled by mediation en route.</p>
<p>Where should we go from here? I am of the view that we should be wary of legislative intervention. I agree with a number of academics, such as <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2790663">Fran Barber</a>, that passing such laws can create more problems than it solves. There are non-legal mechanisms – education, community programs, conciliation – that can better foster religious tolerance than the use of the adversarial legal system.</p>
<p>In the end, it’s a moot point. Given the muscles that the One Nation senators can now flex in Canberra, and given the campaign being waged by the <a href="http://ipa.org.au/publications/2319/charlie-hebdo-shows-why-section-18c-must-go">Institute of Public Affairs</a>, not to mention the simmering antipathy towards Section 18C of both <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-24/brandis-defends-right-to-be-a-bigot/5341552">Attorney-General George Brandis</a> and <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/andrew-bolt-x-racial-vilification-court-case/story-e6frg996-1226148919092">conservative columnist Andrew Bolt</a>, one can safely assume that the section will not be widened in the foreseeable future by any new “religious vilification” amendment. </p>
<p>That would simply be pouring petrol on the fire that Pauline Hanson is likely to start lighting under the Racial Discrimination Act very soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rick Sarre receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Labor Party and stood for a federal seat for Labor in the 2010 and 2013 elections.</span></em></p>Legislating against racial and religious vilification is highly fraught, as the ongoing debate around Section 18C has demonstrated, and unlikely to become less so any time soon.Rick Sarre, Professor of Law, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86802012-08-06T23:44:11Z2012-08-06T23:44:11ZLicensing hate: the possible consequences of Abbott’s racial vilification changes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13935/original/3t4hr6b2-1344289301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Was Tony Abbott's speech to the IPA a preview of the kind of government he and shadow Attorney General George Brandis will operate?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsivakis</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As politics heightens in the decreasing count down to the 2013 Federal election, the opposition is laying its cards on the table. </p>
<p>Always on the cards since the Institute for Public Affairs, a right-wing think tank, began a fund-raising campaign for Andrew Bolt in defense of his racial vilification case, Coalition Leader Tony Abbott has delivered to his ideological heartland with a commitment to remove key elements of <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/s18c.html">Section 18C</a> of the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/">Race Discrimination Act (RDA)</a>.</p>
<p>Section 18C, known as the racial vilification provision, was introduced in 1996 with opposition agreement in the dying days of the Keating government to make race hate speech unlawful (not illegal). Ever since 1966 when the Holt government signed onto the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) while filing a reservation on Article 4 (the outlawing of race hate speech), the position of vilifying speech on the Australian political agenda has been contentious and often murky. </p>
<p>The states and the Commonwealth have overlapping jurisdiction, and civil and criminal laws apply in differing ways in different states. It is a mess, and one that the Commonwealth alone cannot clean up. </p>
<p>The specific Commonwealth legislation requires the offended party (who has to be able to show that they are offended, vilified etc.) to seek conciliation with the offending party through the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). </p>
<p>The AHRC cannot act on its own bat in the public interest against racist materials. Only if no agreement can be reached does the AHRC declare it cannot conciliate and refers the case to the Federal Court for arbitration. When Andrew Bolt and the Herald Sun told Pat Eatock and her Aboriginal colleagues who sought conciliation to get lost, they had no other recourse but seek a court judgement. </p>
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<span class="caption">News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt arrives at court during his racial vilification case.</span>
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<p>Once they started down the RDA path (with little likelihood of anything other than an apology and costs), they had to put aside any common law actions for Mr Abbott’s preferred option of defamation (with the potential for serious damages). </p>
<p>Under the headline “<a href="http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8833/Address-to-the-Institute-of-Public-Affairs-Sydney.aspx">Freedom Wars</a>”, Abbott portrayed himself as a crusader facing the Saracens in the Holy Land. (Note, for hyperbolists, a war for freedom is being fought in Syria, not Australia). </p>
<p>He went on to argue that “Freedom of speech empowers Christians, Muslims, Jews, …. everyone and anyone publicly to affirm whatever it is that is important to their identity.” </p>
<p>True; but Section 18C only restrains them from saying anything they wish about each other, if what is important to them depends on discourses of vilification.</p>
<p>In making his attack on government plans to “regulate” the news media, <a href="http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8833/Address-to-the-Institute-of-Public-Affairs-Sydney.aspx">Mr Abbott argued</a>: “The more powerful people are, the more important the presumption must be that less powerful people should be able to say exactly what they think of them”. </p>
<p>Given this logic, the converse should also hold – “the less powerful people are, the more important the presumption that more powerful people should not be able to say exactly what they think of them”.</p>
<p>Abbott’s initiative, licensing as it does people who wish to have no limit on their opportunities “to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate”, has the apparent full support of his communications spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull’s office told The Conversation that Turnbull was “fully behind the statement” and that he had previewed and approved it.</p>
<p>When John Howard managed to alienate much of the Asian and Muslim communities of Sydney with his perceived support for Pauline Hanson, it took the Liberals under Barry O’Farrell many years to draw them back towards the Coalition. It paid off as the March 2011 state election demonstrated. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13937/original/828x7x37-1344290450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13937/original/828x7x37-1344290450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13937/original/828x7x37-1344290450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13937/original/828x7x37-1344290450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13937/original/828x7x37-1344290450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13937/original/828x7x37-1344290450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13937/original/828x7x37-1344290450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1021&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pauline Hanson created massive community disruption with her comments about Asians and Indigenous Australians when elected to parliament in 1996.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian Parliament</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet Mr Abbott seems to have decided to potentially alienate these same groups once more. He has offered the added bonus of the Jewish community, the backbone of Turnbull’s Wentworth electorate, who have been the main users of 18C against Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites and racist agitators. </p>
<p>In the Executive Council of Australian Jewry submissions to the Attorney General Roxon’s consolidation review of human rights legislation, and to Race Discrimination Commissioner Helen Szoke’s Anti-Racism strategy, the ECAJ has pointed to the rising waves of anti-Semitism in Australia, the use of the internet for the dissemination of racist propaganda, and the insufficiency of Commonwealth legislation as it stands.</p>
<p>The government’s consolidation process appears rather disconnected and unfocused, with major problems still evident; a significant worry was that 18C would be dissolved [behind a word-wall of obfuscation](https://theconversation.com/a-flawed-and-limited-plan-australias-human-rights-failures-to-continue-5510](https://theconversation.com/a-flawed-and-limited-plan-australias-human-rights-failures-to-continue-5510). </p>
<p>However, in response to Abbott’s speech, <a href="http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/Transcripts/Pages/2012/Third%20Quarter/5-August-2012---Transcript-of-interview-on-Sky-Austraian-Agenda.aspx">Roxon has said</a> that the consolidated human rights legislation will be raised to the “highest possible standard”. </p>
<p>However her government recently withdrew its planned accession to the European Cybercrime Optional Protocol on Cyberracism, despite clear evidence Australia’s current regimes were inadequate, <a href="http://www.fecca.org.au/mosaic/articles/cyber-racism-australias-weird-position-of-ensuring-it-can-do-nothing">suggesting</a> that the standards would not be quite as high as many might have hoped.</p>
<p>While Abbott’s speech is clearly a pay-off to the IPA, it also appears as a double-wedge: it places Turnbull in an invidious situation with his own constituency, and it seeks to wedge the government on freedom of speech issues just as the regulation of media debate reaches the boil. It may or may not represent his own viewpoint. It is also not clear whether this is a core promise, or simply rising chatter directed towards the hard edge of the conservative support. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13938/original/nm9mgxzs-1344291120.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13938/original/nm9mgxzs-1344291120.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13938/original/nm9mgxzs-1344291120.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13938/original/nm9mgxzs-1344291120.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13938/original/nm9mgxzs-1344291120.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13938/original/nm9mgxzs-1344291120.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13938/original/nm9mgxzs-1344291120.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is Tony Abbott’s move on racial discrimination an attempt to wedge his erstwhile - and potentially future - leadership rival Malcolm Turnbull?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP?Lukas Koch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Removing Section 18C without any replacement will open Australia to an even more thorough critique than that offered in 2011 by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Of course, as under the Howard government, an Abbott government may well tell the UN to butt out. </p>
<p>What the IPA speech does is to direct public attention to what the rhetoric and the reality of human rights would look like under a returned Coalition government, with Senator Brandis as the potential Attorney General. </p>
<p>This is not something we’ve really seen displayed, and it adds an important dimension to the emerging Australian future being planned by the opposition. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Jakubowicz receives funding from the ARC for a project on Cyber-racism and Community Resilience (CRACR). </span></em></p>As politics heightens in the decreasing count down to the 2013 Federal election, the opposition is laying its cards on the table. Always on the cards since the Institute for Public Affairs, a right-wing…Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology and Codirector of Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.