© Lukas Coch/AAPThe attorney general, George Brandis, says it is a misconception that the present act prohibits racial vilification.
The draft amendments immediately gave rise to a fierce debate. The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said they were liable "to give a green light to some forms of racism". The amendments will be open for public comment for a month.
The prime minister, Tony Abbott, told parliament the government deplored racism. "We want to maintain the red light for bigotry but remove the amber light for free speech," Abbott said. "All of us deplore racism. We deplore bigotry. We want all of us to be our best selves."
The proposals have the support of the conservative commentator, Andrew Bolt, who said he was "relatively pleased" about the changes. The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a rightwing thinktank, also supports the proposed amendments.
Releasing the draft, the attorney general, George Brandis, said section 18C of the act had the effect of stifling public discussion and had resulted in censorship, as had been shown in the Bolt case.
"Those three words - offend, insult, humiliate - describe what has sometimes been called hurt feelings," Brandis said. "It is not, in the government's view, the role of the state to ban conduct merely because it might hurt the feelings of others. Our democracy should be robust enough for that."
Brandis is seeking to keep the existing provision that makes it an offence to intimidate, but to narrow the definition to "intimidate means to cause fear of physical harm".
"To intimidate a person is to cause them to be fearful," Brandis said. "That is an entirely different state of mind. People are right to go about their daily lives free of fear, including fear borne of intimidation because of their race, or colour, or national or ethnic origin."
The changes repeal 18B, C, D and E. They significantly widen the exemptions under 18D, removing the provisions that require public debate to be done "reasonably" and in "good faith".
Brandis said the overall changes would strengthen the act by including vilification as an offence. "One of the misconceptions in this debate is that the Racial Discrimination Act prohibits racial vilification. It does not," Brandis said.
"The term [vilification] is not used in the act; 18C does not cover incitement to racial hatred, which is the most commonly-accepted meaning of the term 'racial vilification'."
Dreyfus said the amendments reflected the results of the attorney general's views that "people have the right to be bigots".
"The changes reflect a significant watering down of the act that has served Australians well," he said.
Dreyfus said that by narrowing the definition of vilification in 18C and broadening the exemptions in 18D, the government risked allowing the kind of speech such as Holocaust denial, which was the basis of cases such as Jones v Toben.
Liberal backbencher Ken Wyatt, who has previously sounded a warning in the Coalition party room about amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act, said he hoped the changes would encourage people to give the government feedback on the matter.
"It doesn't pass all hurdles. It provides the opportunity for me to explore the changes, along with others," Wyatt said.
Bolt said he was "relatively pleased" by the proposed changes. "I am against racism and I am against limitations to free speech, so you have to say I am relatively pleased," he said.
A director of the IPA, Simon Breheny, said that while he would have preferred a full repeal of section 18C, the government's proposal went 95% of the way.
Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, said Brandis had gone too far and and failed to adequately safeguard important rights and values.
"To pass the amendments as they stand would risk emboldening racists, threatening the quality of life of ethnic minorities in Australia and seriously straining the fabric of our social cohesion and harmony," Rubenstein said.
An early analysis of the RDA changes by Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz of the AIJAC took issue with the limited definitions of "vilify" and "intimidation".
The council was also concerned about subsection three of the proposal which seeks to codify a "community standards" test for any cases, that specifically refers to "the standards of an ordinary reasonable member of the Australian community" as opposed to "the standards of any particular group within the Australian community".
"This suggests that there is a class of 'ordinary' Australians who are not members of 'any particular group' and, by implication, that members of particular groups might not be 'ordinary' Australians," Katz said.
He also raised concerns about the proposal to replace 18D which exempts any communication "in the course of participating in the public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic, or scientific matter".
"Unlike 18D or defamation defences such as 'fair comment', the proposed provision does not require any degree of factual accuracy or reasonableness in order for an act to be exempt.
"Consequently, any communication at all which purports to be a part of a public discussion on essentially any issue would be exempt. In virtually all previous decisions under 18C, the respondent could have claimed to have been engaging in public discussion on one of the included categories."
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