Thursday, July 03, 2014


Australian State government  fails to toughen hate speech law

The state government has shied away from a long-planned crackdown on racist speech, prompting claims the dispute over changes to national anti-discrimination laws has stymied reform in NSW.

The government was this week due to respond to recommendations by a NSW parliamentary inquiry that would have removed obstacles to convicting people for racial vilification, but has delayed its response indefinitely.

Radio presenter Alan Jones had decried the inquiry as "beyond ludicrous", while conservative commentator Andrew Bolt said the idea was "straight out of the Leninist playbook".

The inquiry was referred by former premier Barry O'Farrell, who was concerned there had been no successful criminal prosecutions in the history of the laws.

The inquiry recommended that serious cases of racial vilification be referred to police for full investigation and possible criminal prosecution, rather than consent being sought from the Attorney-General.

It called for an increase in the period within which criminal complaints can be lodged to a year, a review of penalties for serious racial vilification, and police training about the offence.

The government was due to respond to the recommendations on Tuesday this week, more than six months after they were handed down. In a three-line response, it said it "continues to consider" the report and the issues raised.

NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Stephen Blanks said the government's response was "terribly unsatisfactory and sends a signal that it is not prepared to take appropriate action against racism".

SOURCE



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I despise hate speech laws. They are nothing more than thought laws.

People should be allowed to say what they feel. I want to know what you believe. if yo have blacks, whites, asians, muslims, I want to know. Easer to identify the kooks.

If your are offended don't listen. You might say something that offends me but, so what?

The only censorship I approve of is the right of people not to listen!

once we ban words we next ban/burn books and wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

consider this...

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 185

Anonymous said...

sorry meant to say:
" if you hate blacks, whites,..."

Anonymous said...

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. "

~John F. Kennedy

Anonymous said...

You can ban the words but not the ideas behind the words!

I live in America. I have the right to write whatever I want. And it's equaled by another right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people.


"When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."

-Harry S. Truman

Anonymous said...

"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air ñ that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave."

H. L. Mencken

Bird of Paradise said...

Fore sure Hitler,Stalin,Mao,Lennin, & Castro WERE ALL LIBERALS

stinky said...


They were Liberals in the modern North American sense of the term (top-down socialism) but not in the classical sense of the term as it is still used elsewhere in the world.

Modern North American Liberals appropriated the word long ago to hide the very opposite nature of their movement, much as other movements have done with other words (e.g. North Korea calling itself a "Democratic People's Republic" ... wrong on all three counts).

Anonymous said...

Civil libertarians in Australia don't support free speech, go figure. Anyone non-white or with leftist views gets their support to say what ever they like. If you are conservative you become a walking target. The left could never handle a level playing field just look at the crucifixions of anyone who disagrees with their global warming religion.

Go Away Bird said...

Anon 7:15, You got that right liberals totaly reject Free Speech ecsept for themselves only