Tony Abbott says Racial Discrimination Act 18C a bad law

Tony Abbott says the HRC is “crook’’ as he slams the investigation into a cartoon by The Australian’s Bill Leak.

Conservative MPs are increasing the pressure on Human Rights Commission chief Gillian Triggs. Picture: Hollie Adams

Tony Abbott has labelled the Human Rights Commission a “crook organisation” and slammed an investigation into a cartoon by The Australian’s Bill Leak as “just outrageous”, as the government ratchets up an attack on embattled president Gillian Triggs.

Mr Abbott dropped reform to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act when he was prime minister but insisted a case brought against three Queensland University of Technology students and a complaint made against Leak’s controversial cartoon depicting an Aboriginal man who has forgotten his son’s name proved change was now needed.

Under section 18C, it is illegal to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person because of their race.

“This is a bad law, it’s a bad, bad law. But you’ve also got frankly a pretty crook organisation, the Human Rights Commission, which is persecuting people based on this bad law,” Mr Abbott told ABC radio.

“What happened to those students in Queensland is just outrageous, what’s happening to Bill Leak right now is just outrageous.

“One of my colleagues who was rather less upset about this than I am told the partyroom the other day that there’d only been 280 or so actions under section 18C. Well that’s 280 or so Australians who have been called in before these thought police, have been interrogated, have been made to feel un-Australian because they’ve spoken their minds.

“We are not precious little flowers in this country, we have robust debate and the best antidote to something that you find offensive or even insulting is to point out exactly why it’s not true and not fair.”

Mr Abbott said there should “obviously” be appropriate laws against incitement of violence and hatred but section 18C was not stopping people from standing up and declaring “death to the infidel”.

“One of the reasons why I hesitated back in 2014 when it came to amending section 18C, and at that stage we really only knew about the (Andrew) Bolt case, but one of the reason why I hesitated was because I didn’t want to see people standing up in the prayer rooms of this country saying about Jewish people the sort of things that we are hearing regularly,” he said.

“This whole idea that it is okay to stand up and say ‘death to the infidel’ I think is just wrong and we need to stop that. But 18C is not stopping that, that’s going on and on and on. 18C is being used against Andrew Bolt, against Queensland university students who responded sarcastically to what they understandably thought was pretty over the top and now it’s being used against Bill Leak.”

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has accused Professor Triggs of “jamming some sort of language code” down people’s throats and yesterday renewed calls for her resignation, saying people would not “tolerate” Leak being “raked over the coals” for his cartoon.

Conservative MPs are increasing pressure on Professor Triggs and Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane after the duo split over whether to reform section 18C.

Professor Triggs declined to comment on Mr Dutton’s remarks but issued a statement on Monday seeking to clarify the commission’s role after Malcolm Turnbull warned it had done “a great deal of harm to its credibility” by pursuing the QUT case.

“At no stage does the commission initiate or prosecute a complaint. If the commission receives a complaint in writing alleging a discriminatory act, the Act provides that the commission must investigate the facts and attempt to conciliate the matter,” she said.

The government has asked a parliamentary committee to examine whether sections 18C and 18D of the RDA restrict freedom of speech. It will also look at the HRC’s complaints-handling process.

Federal Circuit Court judge Michael ­Jarrett ruled the QUT students had no case to ­answer in response to a $250,000 compensation claim by indigenous staffer Cindy Prior over social media comments they made in May 2013 after being asked to leave a computer lab for indigenous students.

Student Alex Wood wrote on Facebook at the time: “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT (is) stopping segregation with segregation.”

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg backed Mr Abbott, saying the former PM was “reflecting the broad frustration” people felt about the way in which the HRC was dealing with complaint cases.

“My view has been is that it’s more than process, there are some principles at stake: freedom of speech is totemic to a free society. People are now starting to be quite upset about the way the current law is being implemented and the way the Human Rights Commission have conducted themselves,” Mr Frydenberg told ABC radio.

“That frustration is growing, I think the awareness of the issue is growing and that’s why the government is responding.”

Mr Frydenberg said the human rights parliamentary committee would try to “build a consensus” ahead of any possible change to section 18C.