Australia’s leading Anglo-Celtic advocacy group has called for Victoria’s controversial new anti-vilification laws to be repealed immediately.
The “hate speech” legislation, which comes with five year jail terms, passed last week after Labor agreed to a Greens amendment designed to stop White Australians from being able to make vilification claims against minority groups.
The change means that courts must consider “social, historical and cultural context” when making rulings in both criminal and civil cases, and was dubbed the “Sam Kerr clause” after the half-Indian homosexual female soccer player who was charged and cleared of racially vilifying a White police officer in London.
British Australian Community (BAC) President Harry Richardson told Noticer News the new laws were an attack on both freedom of speech and the rule of law, and that the “Sam Kerr clause” revealed their true purpose.
“The latest Victorian hate speech legislation confirms the British Australian Community’s firm belief that once a government is allowed to prohibit any opinion, it will shortly be outlawing all opinions it does not like. It will silence those it wishes to oppress while allowing friends and allies to say whatever they like,” he said.
“The Victorian legislation seeks to ensure that a future Sam Kerr could never be prosecuted because despite being a star female soccer player and one of the highest paid in the UK, she should be considered marginalised and oppressed whilst the London bobby she insulted is viewed as historically privileged.
“This twisted perversion of Australian law isn’t just two-tier justice, it is multi-tier, with White Christian men firmly subordinated at the bottom of the Anglophobic, ethnic hierarchy. If this weren’t the case then they could never get away with such brutal double standards.
“This law is a disgrace which shatters the principles of both free speech and the rule of law in our once law governed society. It should be repealed immediately, because whilst we agree that Sam Kerr should not have been prosecuted for expressing odious opinions, neither should anyone else – ever.”
The anti-vilification laws have also been criticised by pro-freedom and women’s rights groups, which have planned separate rallies for April 26.
Women’s Voices Australia, who fear the new laws will be used to prosecute anyone who tried to keep men who claim to be women out of female spaces, will hold their demonstration outside Parliament House, while the freedom rally location is yet to be determined.
The new laws create two new criminal offences, one that makes it an offence to “incite hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule against another person or group based on their protected attribute”, and another that makes it an offence to “threaten physical harm or property damage against a person or a group based on their protected attribute”.
The protected attributes are disability, “gender identity”, race, religious belief or activity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, and “personal association with a person who is identified by reference to any of the above attributes”.
The incitement offence carries a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment, and the threat offence has maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
Two additional civil protections have also been added to the Equal Opportunity Act – a modified incitement-based protection and a harm-based protection, both intended to “capture public conduct (including online) that is hateful or incites hate”.
Public conduct includes any form of communication (including speaking, writing, displaying notices, playing of recorded material, broadcasting and communicating through social media and other electronic methods) to the public; actions and gestures, and the wearing or display of clothing, signs, flags, emblems and insignia, observable by the public; and the distribution or dissemination of any matter to the public.
Exceptions remain in the bill to protect activities done reasonably and in good faith for artistic, academic, public interest, religious (including worship, observance, practice, teaching, preaching and proselytising), and scientific purposes, as well as the making or publishing of a fair report of any event or matter in the public interest.
The criminal elements of the bill come into effect in September, followed by the civil provisions in June next year.
NSW also passed tough new hate speech laws this year in order to combat anti-Semitism, with Labor Premier Chris Minns rejecting calls to repeal them after it was revealed that a series of alleged attacks and a bomb plot were carried out by criminals for personal gain.
But last month the Northern Territory government said it would reverse controversial anti-discrimination laws, saying residents should not have their speech policed by bureaucrats.
Header image: Left, Sam Kerr and her lesbian lover. Right, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan at a state-sponsored homosexual parade (Facebook).
