A YEAR OF SUCCESS
Alex Ryvchin on i24 News in New York discussing violence in Jerusalem
On 21 March 2017, the Federal government announced that it would introduce a Bill into the Senate which would remove the words “offend, insult and humiliate” from section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (RDA) in favour of “harass or intimidate”, and would introduce a “reasonable person” test to assess s.18C complaints. The ECAJ completely opposed these proposals, as they would have emasculated the legal protections that currently enable us to defend our community against antisemitic hate speech. The government also proposed changing the Australian Human Rights Commission Act (AHRC Act) by introducing new powers enabling the Commission to terminate at an early stage any complaint which it considers to be manifestly lacking in merit. The ECAJ agreed in principle with the proposals to reform the AHRC Act, although we felt that some of the
proposals needed refinement (and they were, in fact, subsequently refined). Ultimately, the government’s proposed changes to the RDA were defeated by a vote in the Senate on March 31. The proposed changes to the AHRC Act, after being amended in certain respects, were passed the following week. The final result accords with the position advocated by the ECAJ in its written submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry and in all our advocacy. The ECAJ was integral to the success of the national campaign in which we played a leading role with other ethnic communities to protect existing anti-racism laws. The outcome demonstrates our impact and effectiveness as advocates and thought leaders in major public policy debates.
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AUSTRALIAN JEWISH QUARTERLY
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