Here is the wikipedia article on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. While the article is not perfect (I have noticed a contradiction there already) it makes a good starting point to familiarise oneself with what this thread is going to be talking about. In particular the article includes what exactly 18C says, what defences for it are allowed in 18D, some case law examples, some criticisms, and some details on controversies surrounding it.
Of particular note is that 1(a) and 1(b) of 18C are NOT connected in regards to the nature of the act. It is possible under the law as written for acts with no racial character to them to qualify if they were done for the criteria in 1(b). It really is a horribly imprecise bit of law and deserving of the thoughtcrime criticisms people have directed at it.
Here is the wikipedia article on hate speech law in the United States. This is extremely relevant because the US is a country that has the sort of constitutional protection for free speech that is current PPAU policy. The Supreme Court over there has consistently ruled that hate speech is protected speech, meaning that 18C would be ruled invalid under such protection. The latest ruling on the subject was in 2017 and was unanimous. The comments given by the court are worth reading.
In case anyone is wondering, the legal principle of implied repeal is the practical reason why constitutional protection is necessary instead of mere legislation. That principle is the reason why New Zealanders donât have the right to free speech, regardless of what their Bill of Rights Act says.
Current PPAU policy repeatedly and pervasively reaffirms commitment to upholding freedom of speech and being against the notion of hate speech laws. This can be seen in:
- The freedom of speech policy preamble, paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 6
- The bill of rights policy preamble, paragraph 2
- The bill of rights policy points on thought and belief, points 1, 1.1
- The bill of rights policy points on communication and expression, points 1, 1.4, 1.5
The position statement that the 2020 Pirate Congress voted to adopt on this subject indicates support for hate speech laws in no less than 5 separate places. This goes against PPAU policy as mentioned above and if such a position is adopted consistently it would represent a massive shift in policy on the subject. Would almost certainly scare away some current voters too.
Also, that position statement broadly places PPAU in agreement with the Turnbull governmentâs attempt to amend 18C in 2017 as mentioned in the second paragraph of this article. An attempt that was opposed by Labor and the Greens. So even if we stick to that statement, we can still expect criticism to come from that direction about it.
This is the Guardian article published prior to the 2019 election that mentioned PPAU policy to repeal 18C out of context. Given all of the above, as long as we retain policy to uphold freedom of speech, or even if we abandon that and merely seek to amend 18C as per the above position statement, we can still expect similar out of context statements in the future.
Thatâs why making position statements on the run is a dumb thing to do, by the way.
Voting numbers for PPAU in 2013, 2016, and 2019 do not support the notion of the policy costing us votes either. Voter numbers for PPAU in 2019 were at record highs across the board, even disregarding WA, despite the out of context Guardian article. There will always be voters from all directions who donât want to vote Pirate for one reason or another and compromising core party values to chase some of them is foolish.
However, it does turn out that I was wrong about my assumption that intimidation, harassment, etc, were already covered by existing law. They are covered sufficiently in NSW which is all I had time to look up during Congress, and WA certainly has very comprehensive law on the subject, but some other places not so much. The main problem is that such things fall under the crime of stalking in several states which usually requires either multiple instances or a single protracted instance. Details for each state and territory can be found in their respective criminal codes except for in NSW, which these days has a separate Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007.
Given all of the above, Iâd suggest a reasonable course of action to be policy to partially repeal 18C (the hate speech parts), tighten up the connection between 1(a) and 1(b) to remove the thoughtcrime, and predicate full repeal only upon sufficient statutory protection against general intimidation, harassment, etc at the state level since state level criminal codes is where those sorts of crimes are generally placed. That may be too detailed though, and in any case is roughly equivalent to replacing the phrase âpre-existing common law protectionsâ with âpre-existing common and statutory law protectionsâ in the current policy point on 18C.
We really need to get used to advocating for free speech in the face of unfair opposition. And the position statement as voted on by Congress, assuming it passes the member vote, really needs to be dropped. If we are to have a statement on the subject it needs to actually align with PPAU policy and core values.
So, thoughts? Suggestions? Yay on freedom of speech? Nay on freedom of speech? Something out of left field that Iâve missed entirely? I havenât conducted any review of past threads on this topic, so thereâs probably something there.