DPA have made a submission on the Human Rights (Incitement on Grounds of Religious Belief) Amendment Bill. This Bill proposes that the Human Rights Act be amended to protect religious groups from hatred-inciting speech, but not other groups such as the queer community, women and disabled people.
Last year a discussion document proposed these other groups also be protected, and during that consultation DPA made it clear that we strongly supported the proposal.
DPA finds it beyond disappointing to find that suddenly, late in the process, these proposals have been withdrawn, leaving disabled people, women, and the queer community to continue to be exposed to hate speech without legal protection.
DPA strongly believes:
- that the language in the incitement provisions of the Human Rights Act should be changed to incorporate all protected groups, and;
- that the grounds in the Human Rights Act should be added to to clarify that trans, gender diverse and intersex people are protected from discrimination.
We also think that in order to avoid the need for repeated changes to the law whenever a new protected ground of discrimination is added to the Human Rights Act, the law is written in such a way that any new grounds can automatically be covered by incitement of hatred and discrimination.
Read the full DPA Submission on the Human Rights (Incitement on Grounds of Religious Belief) Amendment Bill [Word Doc]