Labor to boost rights body to cut hate speech

A Shorten Labor government would ‘beef up’ enforcement of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Picture: AAP

A Shorten Labor government would “beef up” enforcement of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by giving more funding to the Australian Human Rights Commission in an effort to crack down on racist hate speech.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus has also backed calls for overhauling defam­ation law, including by restoring an effective cap on damages, and says reforming the family law system will be a “top priority”.

Mr Dreyfus, who will tomorrow announc­e an extra $20 million for community legal centres, said he did not believe free speech was at risk in Australia — but that hate speech was a problem and would become worse if there was a “continuatio­n of right-wing govern­ment in Australia”.

“We’ve seen, over the course of the two terms of government by the Liberal Party of Australia, very serious attempts made to allow more hate speech in our community in the form of their attacks on section 18C,” Mr Dreyfus told The Australian.

He said Labor would not only preserve section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act — which makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone because of their race — it would bolster the Human Rights Commission’s efforts to stamp out hate speech.

“We are going to do what we can to assist the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian race commissioner to renew campaigns against hate speech … which this government has defunded,” he said.

“We think that’s an area that should have resources put into it. We think it’s an area the national government should lead on and the opposite has occurred under the Liberal government.

“We are certainly going to be defending section 18C and I would propose to beef up the activities of the Human Rights Commission.”

However, he said Labor did not see the need for a religious freedoms commissioner — as promised by the Coalition — and would instead add an LGBTIQ commissioner to the commission’s ranks, taking the total number of commissioners from eight to nine.

Mr Dreyfus, who is running for the safe Melbourne seat of Isaacs and is poised to become attorney-general if Labor is elected, backed calls for reforming defamation law. He said the attempt to cap damages for defamation appeared not to have been successful, given recent large payouts, and this was “very much something” that needed to be looked at.

“There’s a reason for having a cap, so you don’t have wildly disparate amounts being awarded in different jurisdictions and perhaps so it’s also a known risk,” Mr Dreyfus said. “I think that unlimited damages is potentially a problem and I’m hoping the reform process (currently being led by NSW ­Attorney-General Mark Speakman) is going to be able to look at that.”

Mr Dreyfus said there was also a “crying need” to look at the question­ of a single publication in respect of material published online­, and at introducing a threshold to prevent neighbours and other members of the public suing each other over comments on Facebook “read by 10 people”.

“Suing on something that almost­ no one has seen … is something that we need to rethink,” he said.

He also nominated reform of the family law system as a “top prior­ity”, but did not have a single policy commitment in this area.

He said extra resources, whether in the form of more judges or court registrars, was “something that has to be considered” given the “level of overloading” being experienced by some judges.