Hundreds More Reasons to Detest 18C, by Tony Thomas.

People think Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act has only really caught Andrew Bolt, plus a few luckless students and staff at Queensland University of Technology. Not so. Right now the Human Rights Commission (HRC) is considering eighteen more complaints – a fact elicited by the Institute of Public Affairs via a Freedom of Information request. And in the past six years, as we now know, aggrieved citizens have lodged a stunning 832 complaints.

This extraordinary data was disclosed today (April 28) by IPA Policy Director Simon Breheny at the launch in Carlton of a new Connor Court book on Section 18c: No Offence Intended: Why 18C is Wrong (270pp, $29.95). The authors are Murdoch University trio Joshua Forrester (Ph.D candidate), Lorraine Finlay, (lecturer in constitutional law), and Dr Augusto Zimmerman (senior lecturer in constitutional law and a WA Law Reform Commissioner).

For those who need reminding, Section 18C makes unlawful any act reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group of people because of race, colour, nationality or ethnicity.

The Wentworth Report has anticipated the book in two posts: Section 18C may render all speech “inoffensive” and No Offence Intended: Why 18C is Wrong.

hat-tip Stephen Neil