Extract from ABC News website:
Updated
The man chosen by Prime Minister Tony Abbott to head
his Indigenous Advisory Council has warned against changing Australia's
racial discrimination laws.
Indigenous Advisory Council chairman Warren Mundine said Attorney-General George Brandis's recent comment about people "having the right to be bigots" was "quite bizarre".And he said the Goverment's planned changes to the Racial Discrimination Act would make no difference to the racial abuse suffered by him and others on a regular basis.
The Government wants to remove provisions making it unlawful for someone to publicly "offend, insult, or humiliate" another person or group based on their race.
But it intends to retain the offence of intimidating another person, and insert a new clause banning racial vilification.
Mr Abbott says the goal is to remove restrictions on "free speech".
But Mr Mundine says the changes are not necessary.
"There has been no curtailing of public comment in regard to a wide range of interests, there's been no curtailing of abuse," Mr Mundine told AM.
"I get racial abuse every day. I get comments made every day about my heritage and everything like that and the whole country still flows forward.
"We have thousands of years of history of bigotry, of racism, and how people have been treated - and I've been treated badly," he said.
"And we all know that from history, when you let people off the chain in regard to bigotry, then you start having problems.
"I just find it funny that we are quite accepting that no-one should swear in public, but it's OK for people to be bigots and I find that a bizarre situation.
"I can assure people, more people died from bigotry than people died from being swore at.
"Knowing George Brandis personally, I found it quite bizarre that he stood up in Parliament and said what he said."
Mr Mundine denies the current law restrains free speech.
"We had a Second World War about opinions," he said.
"We all agreed that we are against racism. We find it evil. We are against bigotry because we find that evil.
"And quite frankly under the law, the current law, you can still have those conversations.
"I just don't understand how it was stopping people from having conversations."
The Opposition and Greens say the changes will give the green light to bigotry in Australia.
But the Government's approach has been welcomed by conservative columnist Andrew Bolt - who was found to have breached the current Act in 2011.
Mr Mundine says Mr Bolt "could still have made his point" in the articles he wrote about light-skinned people who identify as Aboriginal.
"It was the way he made his point, and that's the problem," he said.
A federal court judge found Mr Bolt's articles would have offended a reasonable member of the Aboriginal community, that he had not written them in good faith and that there were factual errors.
The Government's draft proposal has been released for community consultation for one month.
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