18C is not what keeps us civil

The Abbott Government’s attempt to remove Section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) was politically doomed the moment Senator George Brandis uttered his now infamous statement about people having ‘the right to be bigots’.

Unfortunately, the Attorney-General could not have done a better job of confirming the worst fears about the potentially divisive impact on community harmony publicised by opponents of amending the RDA.

The association this has created in the public mind means those who still want to amend Section 18C will need to walk the case for change back through some treacherous cultural terrain.

The first step is to recognise why this was such a disaster, not only in PR terms, but also in terms of understanding the kind of social values that make a multi-racial society like modern Australia a success.Section 18C should be amended because it undermines the democratic rights of all Australians.

In the wake of the Andrew Bolt case, I fear that the RDA will have a chilling effect on important national debates including Indigenous identity and Muslim integration.But if I believed that this meant giving people the right to be bigots I too would be opposed.

Yet some Libertarians have suggested that people should simply harden up and ‘choose not to take offence’ at what people say. Doubling down on idea that bigotry is somehow a right both misses the point and lowers the stakes, while amplifying the issue that should be neutralized.

To argue like the old anti-PC brigade that some people are too sensitive, and appear  to  suggest that the use of discredited derogatory speech should be shrugged off, is to put at risk one of our greatest national achievements.

The amazing transformation over the last half century from a White Australia to a remarkably harmonious multi-racial society, an achievement partly measured by how truly ugly and unacceptable racial epithets now sound to our ears.

But does this mean we need to keep Section 18C? No, it does not. The idea that the RDA keeps ‘race relations’ civil in this country profoundly misunderstands the way the nation has actually worked to overcome its racist heritage – which is, by promoting a culture of tolerance in tune with the pre-existing egalitarian values of Australian society.

Dr Jeremy Sammut is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies. This piece is based on his opening remarks at the CIS Freedom of Speech Symposium on Monday night. His full speech and those of the other speakers will be published in the special forthcoming edition of Policy Magazine.