Racial discrimination law can't fix 'feelings', says David Leyonhjelm
|
Version 0 of 1. People who feel offended by other people’s comments should just choose another feeling, the Liberal Democrat senator, David Leyonhjelm, has said. Leyonhjelm, who is one of the co-sponsors of a bill to water down the Racial Discrimination Act, has defended freedom of speech as “the bedrock of all other freedoms”. The law should just get out of it, it is not a matter for the law He told the Bolt Report on Sunday that it was not possible to create laws that stopped people from feeling offended because emotions were a personal choice. “We are responsible for our own feelings,” he told the conservative commentator Andrew Bolt. “We don’t feel love or hate or grievance caused by other people. If we feel like we are offended, we have the option of choosing another feeling and I think that the law should just get out of it, it is not a matter for the law.” Bolt has campaigned heavily to weaken section 18C of the act after he was found to have breached it in 2011 for comments he made about light-skinned Indigenous Australians. Leyonhjelm and the Family First senator, Bob Day, have a bill before the Senate that would remove the words “offend” and “insult” from the act. It would still be an offence to “humiliate” and “intimidate” someone on the basis of their race. Related: Proposed bill to tone down Australia's Racial Discrimination Act set to fail The crossbench bill was debated in the Senate last week and has the support of a few Coalition senators. Despite that, it looks set to fail, as both Labor and the Coalition oppose it. Liberal backbenchers have threatened to cross the floor if it comes to a vote. Last year, following an outcry from ethnic and religious groups, the former prime minister Tony Abbott dropped proposed changes to the act, which had been Coalition policy since before the 2013 federal election. The changes would have resulted in the repeal of clauses that would make it an offence to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone based on their race. |