Residents of Melbournes South-East have reacted angrily to moves by Family First Senator Bob Day and Liberal Party Senator Cory Bernardi to resuscitate the Abbott Governments plan to remove Section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act.
Residents of Melbournes South-East have reacted angrily to moves by Family First Senator Bob Day and Liberal Party Senator Cory Bernardi to resuscitate the Abbott Governments plan to remove Section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act.
This move by Bob Day and Cory Bernardi is hugely disappointing, Member for Isaacs, Mark Dreyfus said.
As a community we thought we had put an end to this movement to allow racist hate speech.
It is now clear that there are members of the Abbott Government who still believe that the rights of racists and bigots are more important than the right of all Australians to live without fear of being abused or vilified because of their ethnic background.
Labor is vehemently opposed to this move by Senators Day and Bernardi and Labor will stand with the community to oppose this move to weaken protections again racist hate speech, Mr Dreyfus said.
People of Australia Ambassador, Mr Chap Chow said that Melbournes ethnic communities are frightened about these proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act.
We thought this issue had finally been taken off the table, Mr Chow said.
Debate on this bill is due in the Senate this Thursday, 2 September.
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act states that it is illegal to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people because of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin.
