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| Pic courtesy Holocaust Encyclopedia |
No doubt, gentle reader, if you are interested at all in local (Australian) politics, you're across the controversy about Pauline Hanson's appeal against her conviction for a breach of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975. That law makes it unlawful to act in public in a manner that is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person or group based on their race, colour, or national or ethnic origin.
There's no doubt that she is in breach of that law. It's only necessary to read what she posted on X (formerly Twitter) in September 2022 telling Senator Faruqi to "pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan".
That evidence is clear, as is the likelihood that those words were designed to offend, insult or humiliate migrants like Senator Faruqi. No court could find otherwise. Appealing that verdict in the High Court would be either an attempt to keep the issue in the news cycle or to keep lawyers in business.
Hanson's supporters claim that the senator was simply exercising free speech. The term "free speech" can be used to cover a multitude of sins, but it does not include a call to violence or hate. Telling a senator belonging to a religious group hated by a minority that she should leave her country of citizenship is precisely that - hate speech.
It resembles closely the kind of speech directed against minorities throughout the last century which invariably led to episodes of institutional violence towards that minority. That's simply history.
Calling what Hanson wrote in September 2022 "free speech" is the same as calling arson a barbecue.
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