The Human Rights Commission president, Gillian Triggs, has said any weakening of section 18C and 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act would be a seriously retrograde step and has criticised coverage of recent cases as distorted and one-sided.
Triggs called for perspective in the Queensland University of Technology case brought under the act.
Triggs told the parliamentary inquiry into freedom of speech – established to consider whether to amend the act – that the public and politicians were seeing only one side of the QUT case.
The case, which was thrown out last month, was brought by an Indigenous employee, Cindy Prior, against university students over Facebook comments after she asked them to leave a computer lab designated for Indigenous students.
“I suggest that to weaken section 18C in any way would be a seriously retrograde step,” Triggs said. “If anything this section should be strengthened and clarified.”
Triggs said in cases like the QUT matter and the complaint against the Australian’s cartoonist Bill Leak, it would be difficult to get conciliation because the parties were “fighting it out in the media”.
The Australian newspaper has been campaigning to change section 18C.
Triggs said as a result the two matters had sparked “justifiable” public concern because only some of the facts had been leaked to the media.
“Because the information that the public has is so distorted and so one-sided that it is very difficult for the public or parliamentarians to get a fair assessment,” Triggs said.
“Everyone views the [Human Rights Commission] process through the prism of the QUT case.”
Triggs has previously indicated she is open to overhauling the Racial Discrimination Act, including replacing the terms “offend” and “insult” with “vilify”.
But on Monday she refused to restate that position and said it was a matter for the government to draft proposed changes and the HRC and other parties to respond.
She told the committee – chaired by Liberal MP Ian Goodenough – that she would not go into details on the QUT case.
A supporter of amending 18C, Liberal senator James Paterson asked why Triggs gave the ABC’s 7.30 program details of the case if she could not canvass the issues.
In that interview, Triggs explained why the case had taken longer than most: “Some students had gone away on holidays, were difficult to connect and so on. So that was why it took much longer than usual.
“It was not my intention to do so,” Triggs told Paterson on Monday.
She said she appeared on the program because of the unremitting criticism about the work of the commission.
“A reasonable person would understand the criticism has been so misleading and so unremitting for weeks on end that I as president of course wanted to stand up for the reputation of the work of the highly trained staff of the commission,” Triggs said.
“So I was prompted to assure the interviewer that the work of the commission has been done in good faith according to our statute.”
Triggs said even though the commission had managed the Racial Discrimination Act for 30 years, the recent debate had become politicised after the coverage of the QUT and Bill Leak cases.
“I would suggest that sections 18C and D do send a message to us all that abusive race hate speech is not consistent with Australian values,” she said.
