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Race Discrimination

Australian sport and racial vilification

Speech to Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association Annual Conference Adelaide Check against delivery Most of us would agree that booing can be a healthy ritual in Australian sporting life. Every summer at the cricket in Melbourne, as the Mexican wave circles the vast arena of the MCG...

Category, Speech
Race Discrimination

Freedom, the sublime and the patriotic

Speech to Castan Centre for Human Rights Law During the past year or so, I have been constantly asked two questions with unerring predictability. One: Should the Racial Discrimination Act be amended? Two: How is everyone getting along at the Australian Human Rights Commission? Being among friends of...

Category, Speech
Race Discrimination

Religious freedom and the hard work of harmony in anxious times

Someone once said to me that the vehicle of social progress is like a car on a steep incline. You have to keep your foot on the throttle to prevent yourself from rolling back down the slope. We should be under no illusions about the task of maintaining our multicultural society today. We must keep...

Category, Opinion
Race Discrimination

Harmony and religious freedom in anxious times

Speech to Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference – National Conference on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees Australian Catholic University, Sydney Someone once said to me that the vehicle of social progress is like a car on a steep incline. You have to keep your foot on the throttle to...

Category, Speech
Race Discrimination

Our values define us not our race or religion

It is said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Today we have many reasons to be watchful. All of us are rightly disturbed by the prospect of terrorist acts on Australian soil. Counter-terror raids in Sydney and Brisbane, and the shooting of teenager Numan Haider in Melbourne, have...

Category, Opinion
Race Discrimination

Hate and the regulation of speech

University of Sydney Festival of Democracy 26 September 2014 Sydney I am grateful for the invitation from Professor John Keane to speak today. In talking about religion, hate and democracy we need to remember that we are not dealing here just with conceptual debates, but about a matter that has real...

Category, Speech
Race Discrimination

Racial Vilification Law Unites Australians

Few political debates have the effect of uniting Australians. Yet, in one sense, the contest over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act did precisely that. There has been an emphatic affirmation of our commitment to racial tolerance. Read the full article by following the link below.

Category, Opinion
Race Discrimination

Culture, talent and leadership

Speech at launch of Diversity Council Australia’s Cracking the Cultural Ceiling report

Category, Speech
Race Discrimination

PEN Essay 2014: Freedom of speech and Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act

It is said by many that freedom of expression means nothing if it doesn’t entail a freedom to offend others. The price of having free speech is that one may have to tolerate things that we may not like. As the writer Richard King suggests in his recent book On Offence, ‘the claim to find something hurtful or offensive should be the beginning of the debate, not the end of it’. But what if the burden of tolerance is not borne equally?

Category, Opinion