'Team Australia' dumps free speech promise

The Attorney's statement "promoting" bigotry gave the pro-s 18C alliance a huge propaganda boost. Australians were urged to deluge the public consultation process with submissions condemning the draft Bill. Lo and behold! More than 5,000 submissions were received, and a clear majority opposed the draft amendment.

The gloating of the pro-s 18C alliance - "the Australian people have now spoken" - was the predictable response to a one-sided, hysterical campaign in which the government effectively repudiated its commitment to the principle that the essence of genuine individual free speech is protection for the expression of opinions which the majority of people find offensive.

Then there was an all-pervasive irony in the fact that the s 18C cheer squad led by the AHRC have been, by their silence in recent years, content to condone violent public displays of fanatical ethno-politico-religious hatred occasionally laced with direct calls for dissenters to be put to death.

The pro-s 18C censorship alliance deals with this embarrassment to their cause of "inclusiveness" either by airily side-stepping it or by engaging in the most tortured sophistry to deny or greatly discount the root (religious) causes. One prominent ABC commentator outdid himself in the forelock-tugging deference department by asserting that recent media reporting of facts about murderous ethno-religious fanaticism beyond Australia's shores bespoke the Australian media's complicity in such ethno-religious terrorism.

Regrettably, in the context of post-2001 public policy on national security and ethno-religious inspired terrorism, the Abbott government's dumping of its pro-free speech promise is not all that surprising.

The bizarre postmodern obsession with not giving "offence" to minority ethno-religious beliefs, has facilitated a systematic weakening of Australia's status as a secular society contrary to the spirit of s116 of the Australian Constitution. That status is either ignored or sneered at whilst there have been steady and ongoing officially supported efforts to intrude religiosity into the machinery of Australian government.

Successive governments with the urging of the AHRC have acknowledged that there is a religious problem in Australia manifested in ethno-religious, rabble-rousing violence and the imprisonment of individuals for related terrorism offences. Sacks of taxpayers' money have been emptied in misguided direct participation in, or promotion of, activities entangling the Australian Commonwealth in matters of religious belief and practices (particularly, via the very enterprising "multifaith" movement) which should be of no concern whatsoever to it.

If a case could be made for government action beyond the routine enforcement of the general criminal law, all that should be required is an occasional straightforward public reminder that Australia is a secular society which has a long peaceful history of successive patterns of welcoming migrants, that trenchant criticism of religious beliefs and practices – and of the very concept of religion – is an integral democratic right, and that a basic requirement of citizenship or residence is an acceptance that violence will not be tolerated.

The future of s 18C

Perhaps, despite Justice Bromberg's decision and despite the Abbott's government's volte-face on repeal, s 18C has been dealt a death blow because of the ongoing free speech versus censorship controversy. It is at least arguable that the controversy has removed two taboos on vigorous public debate, as opposed to "respectful/inclusive conversation", the first concerning the welfare and the role in Australian society generally of those Australians who are descendants of the people who inhabited the continent before the arrival of the European colonizers, and the second concerning the nature and extent of the threat presented by domestic ethno-religious/politico-religious violence.

Or, perhaps s 18C will be revived. In October 2014, Senators Day (South Australia), Bernardi (South Australia), Leyonhjelm (New South Wales) and Smith (Western Australia) introduced a Bill which, if enacted, will omit the words "offend, insult" from s 18C(1)(a) of the RDA.

It is odd that erstwhile supporters of repeal of s 18C now consider that amending it will advance the cause of individual free speech. That which was formerly denounced as offensive and/or insulting would be denounced as humiliating and/or intimidating. The allocation of shades of meaning between the present four overlapping words will not alter the s 18C censorship regime. The AHRC, which has never been a protector of the individual right to dissent, can be expected to use it complaints resolution and related powers to attempt to suppress controversy of which it disapproves.