You would have seen how yesterday the Attorney-General released draft legislation that she claims 'harmonises' the federal government's anti-discrimination laws. But the draft legislation does much more than that. It dramatically expands the grounds on which people can claim that they have been discriminated against. The draft legislation will make it against the law to offend someone because of their political opinion in certain contexts, such as if you are at work.
The proposed laws say that you can't 'discriminate' against someone on the basis of their political opinions. And by 'discriminate' the government means 'conduct that offends, insults or intimidates' another person. Previously, it was unlawful to offend someone on grounds such as a person's race or religion. Now,
offending someone's political beliefs is an offence.
Under the new laws, you saying something while working that offends someone because of their political opinions is now 'discrimination' that should be censored. Make no mistake. This is an outrageous attack on our fundamental freedoms as Australians. It is a law that will be used to censor freedom of speech. Here's what could potentially happen under these laws. Someone who says they've been offended by a comment you've made at work about Julia Gillard's carbon tax can take you or your employer to court. Just like Andrew Bolt was taken to court.
A free exchange of political opinions is central to democracy. I'm afraid I can't put it any blunter than this - these proposed laws from the Gillard government are a threat to democracy.
For the first time in Australian history anti-discrimination laws will be used to censor the expression of political opinions.
This issue has been missed by the media. The draft legislation is 179 pages long and I doubt anyone (other than the IPA) has seriously analysed it. In today's coverage of the proposed legislation the focus has been on how Nicola Roxon wants to reverse the onus of proof, ie someone who is accused of discrimination will have to prove they're not guilty. Reversing the onus of proof is bad enough - and the IPA put out this press release yesterday condemning it - but censoring political opinion is much, much worse.
Please take the time to read the draft legislation for yourself. It's called the 'Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012'.
Here's the page that inserts political opinion as a new ground of discrimination. And
here is the page that says anything that offends, insults or intimidates someone is now discrimination and therefore must be censored.