Hate speech laws are not the solution to ensuring social cohesion.
That’s the view of John Steenhoff, Principal Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Alliance who’s on the front line of the battle for freedom of religion, thought and conscience.
He told Vision Radio: “We’re living in a fracturing world. We’re seeing the fracturing of Australian society and governments looking to respond to that polarisation and the eruptions of violence we’ve seen, not least the Bondi shootings,”
“The peace on the international scene that we’ve been so used to in the last 70-80 years since World War II is starting to unravel and we’re seeing a lot more of these regional conflicts.”
“That echoes in Australia as that unrest comes here as well.”|
CHRISTIAN FABRIC OF AUSTRALIA HAS DISAPPEARED
“One of the key dimensions that no one really talks about is that the Christian fabric of Australia has disappeared.”
“We saw ourselves as a primarily Christian nation at the 1971 census when 86% of Australians ticked Christian in the census.”
Half a century later that had plunged to just 44% in 2021 and is set to be even lower in this year’s census.
“We now call ourselves a secular nation, a multicultural nation,” observed John Steenhof.
“WE HAVE LOST THE MORAL CLARITY THAT DROVE AUSTRALIA’S IDENTITY”
“We have largely lost connection with the fertile moral clarity that we used to have that drove our identity as an Australian nation.”
“We were indeed Christian and we held to Christian principles that underpinned the freedoms, the laws, the tradition that we had.”
“That’s left a vacuum that has been filled by hostile voices of deconstruction that you see on all fronts have led to the unravelling of our social cohesion.”
“HATE SPEECH LAWS HAVE NEVER HELPED SOCIAL COHESION”
“A natural response of governments has been to say a lot of these elements are being driven by public speech.”
“Speech where people have been promoting ideas that are hateful, ideas that are contrary to what they would call Australian values.”
“And yet, if you look hate speech laws, never have hate speech laws where the government gets to police what people say, actually contributed to social cohesion,” John Steenhof told Vision Radio.
“Neither have they been effective at dealing with these kinds of extreme groups promoting violence and the destruction of our Australian way of life.”
“HATE SPEECH LAWS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION”
“Many regimes have imposed hate speech laws.”
“They’re not the solution to dealing with our problems with social cohesion.”
“We already have laws that effectively police dangerous speech — speech that constitutes threats to life or property, or speech that is an ncitement or urging to violence.”
“The difficult thing about these new hate speech laws, which are being reflexively passed with a very great speed, is that there are likely to be unforeseen consequences.
“UK ENFORCES HATE SPEECH LAWS AS BACKDOOR BLASPHEMY LAWS”
“Much of the speech that’s going to come under pressure is going to be the kind of speech that Christians do, the kinds of political movements that Christians are part of. “
“That’s a danger to our social cohesion that I think is going to inflame matters, rather than start to settle some of the troubles that we’ve seen in Australia.”
“One only needs to look to the UK to see how these laws have been used as backdoor blasphemy laws.”
“The UK is way ahead of Australia in this regard. It’s got significant clampdowns on free speech.”
“There are many who have made political statements by burning copies of the Quran as a political protest and then been arrested and charged by the UK police for offensive behaviour towards Islam. “
LAWS GIVE FEELINGS-BASED PROTECTION
Equally in Australia we have those who are critical of the nation of Israel, whose speech has been censored because it is deemed to be anti-Semitic and hateful towards Jews.”
“So it’s interesting that this is a threat not just for one side of politics, but for both sides and indeed perhaps has the danger of becoming a backdoor blasphemy law.”
“Certainly, a lot of the complaints that we’ve seen in the West internationally have been from those who are adherents to Islam who are trying to use these laws to shut down valid criticisms of radical Islam.”
“But we’re seeing it with all political movements that each side is going to use this laws, particularly where the laws are structured in a way that gives feelings-based protection.”
THE DANGER OF HATE SPEECH LAWS
The real danger with these laws is when they say you cannot say something which a person from one group is going to find offensive or which is going to make them feel a certain way.”
“That means that the truth of the statement or the genuineness of the statement is completely irrelevant and you can be investigated and charged because what you said was deemed to be offensive by a particular person.”
“We’re seeing this in the UK where here’s lots and lots of footage of police coming to people’s doors and saying we need to take you down to the police station because you said something that a person deemed offensive on the internet and we are going to investigate it under our public order laws.”
“We’ve had laws on the Australia books for a long time now which are directed towards how someone feels, particularly laws around offence.
“They’re very much a threat to people speaking openly and exchanging within a well-established set of principles of freedom of speech.
“EVERYDAY AUSTRALIANS ARE BEING SILENCED, BUT OUR LEGAL SYSTEM IS ROBUST”
“We’re seeing everyday Australians who are being shut down from speaking and living the truth.”
“If you’re going to have laws which police people’s speech, they’re going be turned back on you.”
“In the court system at the moment, sadly, we do see sometimes judges which have some ideological leanings.”
“However, we have a system that’s very robust that’s been built up over hundreds of years.”
“That still has some resilience in it.”
WHY HRLA FIGHTS FOR FREEDOM
The HRLA’s Principal Lawyer explained to Vision Radio: “We run court cases because we ultimately think that the underlying principles that formed our legal system are going to give us some good results.”
“That they give a good forum for truth to come out and for justice to be served.”
“And for these laws which get passed very, very quickly in parliaments to be tested and given proper limits.”
“High limits which don’t infringe on Christian freedoms and on freedoms of speech.”
“And that’s our aim: To protect. Australians who want to live and speak the truth.”
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