Australian Left backing censorship

Protecting people from prejudice and hate speech is part of the Australian citizenship contract, according to Bill Shorten, who strongly rebuffed comments by the attorney general, George Brandis, that “people have a right to be bigots”.

“No one has a right to bigotry and racism has no place in the modern Australia,” Shorten told an audience at the Migration Council award dinner.

“Protecting people from prejudice and hate speech is part of the contract Australian citizenship promises all its citizens,” he said. “In this debate we need to put ourselves in the shoes of those who have come here fleeing persecution and bigotry in their own country.”

The opposition leader was responding to comments by Brandis in the Senate that “people have a right to be bigots”.

Freedom of speech, Brandis said, was about defending the right of people to express opinions, no matter how offensive.

Brandis is in the process of drafting changes to the Racial Discrimination Act, after the conservative commentator Andrew Bolt was found to have breached section 18C which outlaws the right “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” a person or group because of their “race, colour or national or ethnic origin”.

The attorney general has yet to reveal the changes, which have already caused disquiet in his party room.

Asked about Brandis’s comments in the lower house on Monday, Tony Abbott said free speech could sometimes “upset” and “offend” but it was important to remember freedom and democracy rested on the right of free speech.

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