29 August 2019
Religious Discrimination Bill Has Many Problems And Could Be A Risk To Religious Freedom
“The federal government’s plan to prohibit religious discrimination is a welcome start, but more work is needed to avoid counter-productive and unintended consequences which may limit rather than strengthen religious freedom,” said Morgan Begg, Research Fellow at the free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Attorney-General Christian Porter this morning released the exposure draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill
28 September 2017
Why Abolish 18C? Consider This Vexatious Complaint’s Threat To Free Speech
When the legal affairs editor of this paper, Chris Merritt, sent a carefully worded reply on March 9 to an email he had received two days earlier, that should have been the end of a matter involving what can fairly be described as a mild-mannered response to abusive hate mail. Instead, the relevant series of emails is about to become
22 June 2017
Hello Triggs-Lite, Goodbye Free Speech
It’s clear now that the Coalition government is not only uninterested in the idea of restructuring the bureaucracy, but it also is not even interested in making decent appointments. The Commonwealth government has an almost untrammelled ability to appoint anyone it likes to powerful bureaucratic positions such as the AHRC presidency. The choice was for the government was to pick someone that would defend fundamental
20 June 2017
Triggs-Lite Appointment A Disgrace
“The federal government’s decision to appoint Rosalind Croucher as the next President of the Australian Human Rights Commission represents a failure to defend fundamental human rights in Australia,” said Morgan Begg, Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. “Rosalind Croucher will be a Triggs-lite appointment. Appointing a person with no apparent commitment to freedom of speech erases the government’s
18 June 2017
Hardly On The Hunt For Facts
The ABC and the Australian Human Rights Commission have teamed up with far-left student activists for a blatant propaganda campaign about campus sexual assault and harassment. Tomorrow the ABC is broadcasting a “documentary” called The Hunting Ground which, the ABC website says, “takes audiences to the heart of a shocking epidemic of violence and institutional cover-ups across college campuses in
3 June 2017
Filling Triggs’ Shoes
The Human Rights Commission’s selective agenda does not include the protection of fundamental human rights like freedom of speech. For that reason alone, it must be abolished. But while the Commission does exist, it is entirely reasonable to expect that a Coalition government should appoint to the Commission individuals who do believe in individual liberties. With the government considering who
4 May 2017
What Part Of Free Speech Doesn’t Liberty Victoria Understand?
Liberty Victoria’s decision to reward Gillian Triggs with its annual Voltaire Award is a perfect example of the left’s perverse interpretation of freedom of speech. Today, the Victorian “civil liberties” advocacy organisation had this to say about Gillian Triggs, who as President of the Australian Human Rights Commission since 2012 has overseen some of the worst known abuses of section
23 March 2017
Return of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill?
Chris Merritt in The Australian today reporting on the ALP’s plan to resurrect the Gillard government’s failed attempt to consolidate federal anti-discrimination laws in 2012: Mr Dreyfus has confirmed that if Labor is elected to government he will be considering imposing a general standard for speech that infringes anti-discrimination law. Under Labor’s proposal, advocates of same-sex marriage would be empowered, for example,
3 March 2017
Section 18C Of The Racial Discrimination Act Will Be Repealed
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act will be repealed. It won’t happen today, and it may not happen in this term of parliament. But section 18C has become such an iconic issue for such a broad group of Australians that its continuing presence on the statute books is utterly unsustainable – and calls to ignore section 18C and the
1 March 2017
Fake News Meets 18C
Earlier this month Professor Andrew Jakubowitz of the taxpayer-created Cyber Racism and Community Resilience Research Group attempted to debunk a poll commissioned by the IPA showing a plurality of Australians supported section 18C reform. As I explained on Flat White, his argument that the IPA was pushing loaded questions fell apart when exposed to minimal scrutiny. Professor Jakubowitz’s CRaCR later
