Having learned precisely nothing in 2023 from its failed Voice culture war, the Albanese Government is readying round two to distract from tumbling living standards and enrage the polity further:
Labor’s new religious discrimination bill will fail unless it allows freedom of speech but also protects against vilification, the nation’s religious leaders warn as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war grow in Australia.
After receiving a long-awaited framework for a new religious freedoms regime that was due on New Year’s Eve, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has told faith leaders he is working on a draft bill that will be ready before July.
But Jewish and Muslim leaders want to see how any bill will shield their constituents from hate speech before giving it their backing, with one senior Jewish figure saying vilification could stall the process by adding “another layer of complexity and controversy to the debate”.
We already have hate speech laws that are close to unworkable in the 18c provisions of the Human Rights Commission.
It is an administrative process with a very low bar that prosecutes “hate speech” via the judgement of faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats.
The words “law” or “process” should only be used loosely here. This is a procedure that terrifies with its opacity.
I went through it after the HRC received a vexatious complaint against my 2015 campaign to highlight the role of Chinese property buyers in pricing out locals.
Like all such MB policy lobbying, the campaign was factual, but it ended up in kangaroo court anyway.
The last thing Australia and Australians need today is stricter hate speech laws, especially since it is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by a fake left government to distract from falling living standards.
Fake left media is already a willing censor on gender, ethnicity and immigration.
Fake right media is the whacko dead hand of religious hypocrisy.
We need to liberate their discussions. Do not polarise them further.
Australians are admirably pragmatic on this. Let people protest. They’ll soon lose mainstream support if they get extreme.
