Bachar Houli

[Red and Bluebeard 2,083]

Could add to the big questions

How do we best live our lives?

What constitutes a good life?

I would suggest the answers don't involve supporting the Dees.

Just to be a stirrer, one could add "Why do I support the Dees?"

[nutbean 8,838]

My guess is that if you were in a court case with say Fred Nile who claimed he was 'offended' by something you said that you might have a different opinion.

If you have well funded minority groups firing off legal claims left right and centre about being offended you are going to suffer from censorship everywhere. Frankly as we have in this thread. Its an expensive exercise defending a spurious lawsuit as I have done and most people will stay well away from it when faced with zealous, well funded groups that are easily 'offended' - whatever that means.

Its a terrible addition to what was a perfectly adequate existing law.

I need to clarify - what addition you are talking about ? The act came into being in 1975 - Keating amended it in 1994. To my knowledge there has been no movement on the legislation since then. This current Government have shelved plans to alter 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. The addition you are referring to is the Keating amendment in 1994 ?

I am not sure what Fred Nile has got to do with any of this. I'm not dealing in hypotheticals. Your statement was that it is hard to legislate - no, it isn't as there is legislation in place. Your statement is that is even harder to prosecute under the legislation - no it isn't - the Andrew Bolt case tells you otherwise ( for the record - not a fan of Andrew Bolt but I am not sure if I agreed with his conviction on the "Andrew Bolt case"). There have been numerous cases brought forward under this legislation ( albeit 2012-2013 - the greater majority did not make it court and were resolved by conciliation).

Edited September 12, 2014 by nutbean

[jnrmac 20,053]

I need to clarify - what addition you are talking about ? The act came into being in 1975 - Keating amended it in 1994. To my knowledge there has been no movement on the legislation since then. This current Government have shelved plans to alter 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. The addition you are referring to is the Keating amendment in 1994 ?

I am not sure what Fred Nile has got to do with any of this. I'm not dealing in hypotheticals. Your statement was that it is hard to legislate - no, it isn't as there is legislation in place. Your statement is that is even harder to prosecute under the legislation - no it isn't - the Andrew Bolt case tells you otherwise ( for the record - not a fan of Andrew Bolt but I am not sure if I agreed with his conviction on the "Andrew Bolt case"). There have been numerous cases brought forward under this legislation ( albeit 2012-2013 - the greater majority did not make it court and were resolved by conciliation).

Yes I was referring to the Part IIA amendments but I actually thought they had come in much later than 1994 so I learned something there.

Nonetheless I still believe the bar is set way too low if offend is now treated the way Justice Bromberg has done in the Bolt case which shocked many in the legal fraternity. It has never been used in this way before to my knowledge and I see it is as a dangerous precendent.