Rita Panahi: Fiona Patten’s hate speech Bill another attack on our freedom

The last thing we need is another attack against free expression under the pretext of promoting diversity or fighting “hate speech”, writes Rita Panahi.

Free speech is under renewed assault in Victoria. Laws that extend the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act to include gender identity, disability and sexual orientation are being considered in the Victorian upper house. It’s bad enough that illiberal bullies regularly launch co-ordinated attacks to harass, deplatform and silence ideological opponents; now they will seek to punish them in the courts or the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for “wrongspeak”.

Under the guise of “anti-trolling” and “anti-hate speech”, the proposed laws will be used by crybullies to silence those who reject Leftist orthodoxy by banning speech that is “likely to incite hatred” or “severe ridicule”.

The Racial and Religious Tolerance Amendment Bill 2019 has been dubbed “Section 18C on steroids” and it’s easy to see why.

If these laws are passed, the big winners will be lawyers and vexatious litigants. By expanding the vilification laws to cover a broader range of “protected attributes” such as gender identity, it will see important debates and stories stifled. Contentious issues, like giving children who identify as transgender hormone treatment or allowing biological males into female-only spaces including bathrooms, shelters and prisons, will be harder to navigate, with those who oppose PC groupthink in danger of breaching the law.

Fiona Patten. Picture: Tony Gough

Fiona Patten is the sole MP from the ironically named Reason Party and is behind these laws that are as dangerous as they are harebrained.

Patten is a likeable woman and astute media performer whose party secured less than half of the votes of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party at the last state election. Her Bill is yet to win Labor’s support but there is every chance it will be, given they are fellow travellers.

In the interests of accuracy, the Bill should be called the Crybully Amendment; instead of tackling trolling and online hate, the proposed laws pander to the worst type of online troll: those who dish out endless bile but become indignant victims when called out.

Indeed, Patten unwittingly referred to a couple of crybullies in her comments to parliament. She really should research her subject matter a little more carefully.

Presenting as one of your victims a woman who attacked the great cartoonist Bill Leak, even as his family was mourning his tragic death, is a spectacular own goal.

One can argue that Patten herself is guilty of what she is seeking to outlaw. Recently, I blocked a Twitter troll who had sent a despicable tweet to me and, for reasons known only to herself, Patten chose to like the abuse, which referred to me and others as “Paedo” fans. Surely by liking a defamatory tweet that not only trolled a woman of colour but falsely and maliciously accused her of being a supporter of paedophiles, Patten would be guilty of engaging in hateful conduct that may “incite hatred” or “severe ridicule”.

Now, at the time I did wonder why she’d choose to like such an ugly tweet but not enough to message her privately or call her out publicly; not until I read her Bill and saw the hypocrisy as well the dangerous limits on free speech.

We do not need another attack against free expression under the pretext of promoting diversity.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Fiona and have had her as a panellist on The Friday Show on Sky News several times. She is good company and talented but her backing of a highly illiberal Bill cannot stand.

We have seen women in the UK and Canada targeted by authorities for questioning the extent of the transgender agenda. Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter has been subjected to a vicious campaign for being “trans-exclusionary” because it only assists biological females. The organisation, Canada’s oldest rape crisis centre, has had its city funding cut and says that it’s the victim of “discrimination against women in the name of inclusion”.

The centre has had a dead rat nailed to its door and vile graffiti accusing women helping rape victims of being bigots. In the UK, women and men have been arrested for “misgendering” trans activists during Twitter spats.

In Victoria, we already have mainstream conservatives who can’t give speeches at university campuses or launch a book without crippling security costs to protect attendees from feral protesters. We do not need another attack against free expression under the pretext of promoting diversity. As with Section 18C and the federal Racial Discrimination Act, the process is the punishment. Innocent people who are accused are dragged through a stressful, costly and time-consuming process that can be devastating.

The Queensland University of Technology students falsely accused of racism are among the victims of the Human Rights Commission along with their accuser, who is now bankrupt.

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If you want to see genuinely misogynistic trolling then look at what is said about conservative women, whether it’s columnists, politicians or fearless campaigners like Jacinta Price. Curiously, the normally supersensitive sisterhood that rails against sexism refuses to call out that misogyny.

Indeed, when I recently called out a disgusting sexist comment about Peta Credlin, I was admonished by an ABC comedian who asked: “Why send it out to your 176,000 followers??”

Patten’s ham-fisted amendment will do nothing to make the internet safer or more civilised. It only panders to hypocrites and haters who try to have their political foes sacked and silenced.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

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