I am torn by this notion:
The Albanese government will expedite a new national racism strategy amid rising community tensions triggered by the war between Israel and Hamas, and the defeat of the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum last Saturday.
The minister for multicultural affairs, Andrew Giles, told Guardian Australia’s politics podcast there is a “renewed sense of urgency” about launching the new anti-racism campaign “given the events of recent weeks”.
Asked how concerned he was about social cohesion in Australia in the wake of the polarising referendum campaign and domestic anxieties about the Middle East conflict, Giles replied: “I’m very concerned.”
…The government has been working with the Australian Human Rights Commission to set the foundations of an anti-racism strategy. Giles said “some research has gone into how we best go about it and how we best engage Australians who, in the context of busy lives, may not have the bandwidth to think through some of these issues in detail”.
There is good reason for concern. The global autocratic bloc is probing the US liberal empire for weaknesses. To the extent that this is a strategy controlled by anybody, it is a two-pronged attack.
First, it seeks to promote proxy wars on the fringes of the US liberal imperium, such as those underway in Ukraine and Israel.
Second, it seeks to divide liberal communities from one another by using the strengths of freedom against itself. Online misinformation and other divisive digital techniques are the method of operation.
The goal is to stretch the military capability of the liberal powers abroad while draining support for the same at home, allowing greater freedom of movement for autocracies.
This is the context of recent ASIO warnings about local violence and “words matter”.
However, against this, we need to measure and support the normatives of civil society and freedom.
I have been through the AHRC’s 18c hate speech process. It is not reassuring.
There is already a very low bar for designated “hate speech”, so it is prone to vexatious claims.
Worse, the AHRC process is opaque, lacks due process, and lacks legal checks and balances most people assume to exist.
Basically, a faceless bureaucrat determines whether or not you’re a racist without the right to legal representation or appeal.
That said, the outcome of my case was reasonable, even if the process was dubious.
My conclusion is that the AHRC has enough power as is.
And let’s face it: Labor and Andrew Giles are more problems than solutions. It is the Albanese government that is stretching the immigration consensus and multicultural fabric with a mass immigration push that is crashing living standards, thereby generating anger.
The failed Voice vote is Exhibit A.
Finally, and ironically, the unedifying spectacle of local pollies rhetorically puking over the Israel war for personal gain has been disgraceful.
The last thing we need now is for the same lowlives to tell the polity who can speak and who can not.
