{"id":1063242,"date":"2023-05-14T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/castancentre.com\/?p=6038"},"modified":"2023-05-14T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T22:30:00","slug":"victoria-could-protect-lgbtqi-people-from-hate-why-wont-the-government-act-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/05\/14\/victoria-could-protect-lgbtqi-people-from-hate-why-wont-the-government-act-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria could protect LGBTQI people from hate. Why won\u2019t the government act now?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Liam Elphick <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The City of Monash last week became the latest Victorian council to cancel<\/a>an LGBTIQ+ event under the weight of a barrage of abuse, vilification and threats of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The council will no longer be running<\/a> a drag story-time event planned for the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersex discrimination and Transphobia on May 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the latest chapter in a worrying trend, imported from the United States<\/a> and disrupting at least 15 Victorian councils in recent months, of far-right groups intimidating local LGBTIQ+ communities. While the safety of local communities should always be paramount, giving in to the demands of extremists has clearly only emboldened them further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Councils have been put in a difficult position and need greater support to address these threats. There needs to be a co-ordinated effort across state government, councils and law enforcement, working with local communities to stop hate in its tracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But they are missing a major tool in their potential arsenal: vilification laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For more than 20 years in Victoria, it has been unlawful to vilify people on the basis of their race or religion<\/a>. Quite rightly, this means action can be taken against white supremacist speech, or hate speech which targets, for example, the Jewish or Muslim communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But other communities in Victoria have no such protection. It is lawful to vilify people on the basis of their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2019, then-Victorian MP Fiona Patten put a bill<\/a> to parliament that would rectify this gap, extending Victoria\u2019s vilification to apply to sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex characteristics and disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The state government sent the bill to a parliamentary inquiry, which I gave evidence to in early 2020 and which released its report<\/a> a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report provided bipartisan support for extending Victorian hate speech protections to the LGBTIQ+ community \u2013 and to women and people with disability. In September 2021, the government declared<\/a> in-principle support for 34 of the 36 recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Importantly, the government announced<\/a> it \u201cwill also extend the state\u2019s anti-vilification protections beyond race and religion to cover areas such as sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability and HIV\/AIDS status\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost two years later, the government has still not produced a bill to legislate that commitment. In response to a question in parliament last week, Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes re-committed to the reforms<\/a> \u2013 but only \u201cwithin the next 18 months\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no doubt the attorney-general and her department have a stacked legislative agenda this year. But these delays are unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While we wait, LGBTIQ+ people remain unprotected against an ever-growing barrage of abuse, threats and hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many had hoped that the horrific scenes<\/a> at the anti-trans rights protest outside state parliament on March 18, where far-right figures made Nazi salutes and held up hateful anti-trans signs, would lead to greater urgency on anti-vilification reform. Instead, the government responded by announcing it would ban the Nazi salute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While that is an important step, it does little to stop abuse targeted at the LGBTIQ+ community \u2013 or, indeed, at women or people with disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Extending Victoria\u2019s hate speech protections to the LGBTIQ+ community would do far more in helping respond to events like those we saw on March 18, and to the threats being levelled at councils and other LGBTIQ+ community events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, these protections would allow LGBTIQ+ people to bring legal action against individuals engaging in hate speech and, if they are successful, receive damages for the harm caused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, they would provide criminal offences for \u201cserious\u201d vilification, as we already have for race and religion. This would mean police have stronger powers to investigate, arrest and charge offenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And third, we should not underestimate the societal impact of our parliament publicly marking LGBTIQ+ hate speech as wrong by passing laws to that effect. Our laws have long had a moralising effect in marking certain conduct as wrongful and deterring actions which are against the standards set down by our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prohibiting LGBTIQ+ hate speech will not stop all vilification overnight. But it will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on those who are abusing the current gap in our hate speech laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not about stifling the kind of rigorous debate and free speech we should all expect to see protected in a liberal democracy such as ours. It is about stamping out that which crosses the line into hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The parliamentary inquiry into hate speech deemed this to be speech which is likely to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or serious ridicule of a particular person or group \u2013 or speech which a reasonable person would consider hateful, seriously contemptuous, or reviling or seriously ridiculing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This still sets a high bar to meet. It would not include the sort of everyday raising of concerns or disagreement that has long been a feature of local government meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Victoria, we have banned vilification based on race and religion for over two decades without the sky falling in. Many other jurisdictions in Australia go further and protect various other groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fiona Patten\u2019s bill, which gets the balance right<\/a>, is still sitting on a shelf and ready to be implemented. So, too, the parliamentary inquiry report into anti-vilification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much longer is the state government going to allow these extremist threats and abuse to continue? It\u2019s well and truly time Victoria protected its LGBTIQ+ community from hate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liam Elphick is an Academic Member of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law and a Lecturer in the Monash University Faculty of Law.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article was originally published in The Age<\/a><\/em><\/strong> 9 May 2023. You can read the original article here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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