I am an Australian of mixed European descent. On my father's
side I am descended from a convict who ran a tavern in Van
Diemen’s Land and a Swiss musician, and on my mother's side I have
Welsh and Romany forebears. I was born in England in 1956 to an English
mother and Australian father. I remember how growing up in a suburb of south London we children were told not to play with the
kids of the only Indian family in the street. I also remember household items
we had featuring Aboriginal motifs and figures of hunters and that my dad used
to refer to indigenous Australians as 'boongs'. This level of racism was commonplace in the
1950s and 60s.
When my family arrived in Australia in 1968 we settled in the
Sutherland Shire. It was quite monocultural in those days – I don't know if the one Dutch, one
Italian and one Taiwanese kid in my year suffered racial taunts but I was
relentlessly teased as a ‘pommy.’ There were also a lot of disparaging remarks
made about anyone from the western suburbs with special derision reserved for
‘Bankstowners’. At the time I didn’t realise that ‘Bankstowner’ was virtually
synonymous with ‘wog’ but the ethnicity of these ‘intruders’ on Cronulla’s
golden sands was definitely an issue, one addressed with both verbal and
physical attacks. As the Cronulla riots proved several decades later race
hatred is still thriving amongst some in the Shire.
When I joined the workforce in the 1980s I encountered
discrimination of many kinds. Sexism was prevalent and very few people not born
in this country and of Anglo-Celtic background made it into supervisory or
management jobs also very few jobs of
any kind went to indigenous Australians.
When equal employment opportunity legislation was introduced in 1987 I
was a trainer in the public service responsible for getting recruiters and
decisions makers to question their prejudicial beliefs about women and migrants and to adopt the merit principal in
all areas of employment.
It wasn’t until I worked in the arts sector for a number of years that I (knowingly) met any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Later I saw the establishment of units set up in government agencies to attract and retain indigenous recruits. In the same era I was involved in setting up career development and mentoring programs for people with disabilities and of CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) backgrounds. I have also been involved in Access and Equity committees in two agencies.
Throughout the 40 plus years I have been in Australia I have seen ours become a more inclusive society and much of the overt
racism that was common in the 1960s and 70s has stopped. I am firmly convinced
that the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 has made a major contribution to this
situation. Having been involved in
training to change preconceptions about and antagonism towards various groups
within the workplace I realise that to affect change we need both positive laws
and programs such as equal employment opportunity and affirmative action
and also sanctions against injurious
speech and behaviour. Section 18B provides such a sanction by focussing on the
racial dimensions of racist speech and conduct – its removal would make it harder
to prove racial vilification if other slurs or insults are involved in the
behaviour. Section 18E provides incentives for employers to protect employees
from racial harassment and vilification – its removal could have the effect of
diluting their commitment and vigilance.
It is completely appropriate to review racial vilification
legislation from time to time to assess its effectiveness. The facts are
that the Racial Discrimination Act as it
is currently worded achieves a good balance between defining as unlawful public
conduct that is reasonably likely to offend insult, humiliate or intimidate
people on the basis of their race, colour, nationality or ethnicity and
exempting discourse, art work or performance that proceeds reasonably and in
good faith. That is, the Act as it stands embodies ample defence of freedom of
speech. The records of cases taken to court under the Act show that this
balance has been maintained in outcomes as well as in intent.
It is hard to see how the proposed changes to Section 18C
and the revoking of sections 18B and 18E do anything to strengthen the Racial
Discrimination Act ; they patently do
not provide “the strongest protections against racism that have ever appeared
in any Commonwealth Act” as the Attorney General George Brandis has claimed.
Our existing clear and well articulated racial vilification
laws and the accessibility of an effective mediation process they afford have
helped to promote the racially tolerant society we want in Australia and
have addressed the harms - social, psychological and physical - that acts of race hate can cause. I am most strongly opposed to their dilution.
