In 1995, the Keating government tried to enact a criminal offence of inciting racial hatred, with a maximum penalty of one year’s prison. It was rejected in the Senate by a combination of the Coalition and the Western Australian Greens.

The Coalition criticised it as social engineering that unnecessarily limited freedom of speech by preventing people from expressing what they felt. It instead proposed a criminal offence for hate speech that incites violence. It considered it necessary to retain that link between what was said and the criminal consequence of violence.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The Greens, while accepting a concern that the proposed law crossed a threshold into the realm of thought police, were worried it would create a more racist and less tolerant society. They saw it as creating division and singling out groups by labelling them unacceptable. It would separate people rather than produce a positive sense of belonging in the community.

The criminal provision was defeated, but section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act was passed. It made it a civil offence for a person to do a public act that is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person or group on the ground of race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

That section continues to operate today, so it is difficult to understand why a criminal offence, which has a higher standard of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald