This is a letter I wrote to the West Australian Newspaper. It relates to the Coalition attacks on Labor regarding the Anti Semitism and Anti Racism issues going on at the moment.
"4/02/2025
It is entirely farcical to hear Opposition Leader Dutton and his team of Spokespersons trumpeting their credentials in the Anti-Semitic/Racism space. Their contention is that they are far stronger on these matters than are the Labor party led by PM Albanese.
It is this same Liberal party, who under the stewardship pf Tony Abbott and with George Brandis in place as the Attorney General, who decided to repeal Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA). Section 18c in its current form made it unlawful to say or do anything that is reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” a person because of the person’s race, colour or national or ethnic origin. At the time before the 2013 Federal election the Federal Liberal-Country Party Coalition promised that, if elected, it would repeal this provision.
The reasoning at that time from the LNP was that the proposed provisions would have removed the words “offend,” “insult” and “humiliate,” added a provision against vilification, and tightened the definition of “intimidate.” This would have neutered the operation to such an extent that some of the acts of Anti-Semitism that we are witnessing today would have been seen as the exercising of political opinion and therefore within the realms of Brandis and Abbott’s definition of “Free Speech” that they were protecting! These mooted changes were primarily designed to exonerate Andrew Bolt from legal action as a result of his racist pronouncements in his newspaper column.
Fortunately due to the actions of a number of people including myself and the many culturally and linguistically diverse communities (Including the various State Jewish Councils) who presented extremely cogent arguments against the repeal, that the Coalition abandoned that foolhardy and potential dangerous approach. I know that we presented a document signed by people representing the views of well over 250,000 community members, asking for the provisions to be retained and not removed.
Suresh Rajan"
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