Andrew Bolt and News Corp escape another brush with the Racial Discrimination Act

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In 2014, the race-obsessed Andrew Bolt bemoaned being branded “racist, racist, racist” after the Federal Court three years earlier found he’d breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

But the landmark decision doesn’t seem to have done much to deter him. Because more than a decade later, and Bolt, now a 66-year-old YouTuber perhaps best known for his low-budget Sky News talk show, has narrowly avoided another brush with the legislation.

The latest complaints came from three First Nations people in the Federal Court last month. The suit alleged Bolt’s commentary calling Indigenous knowledge “primitive” amounted to racial discrimination, and called for apologies and compensation for alleged contraventions of section 18C, which the applicants said “caused offence, insult, humiliation and intimidation”.

The suit was launched in mid-May by musician Adrian Burragubba, a Wangan and Jagalingou man, and Gomeroi people Cameron Manning and Gwenda Stanley, who were represented by the Racial Justice Centre. When CBD asked about the case last week, we were told the matter had been discontinued. Racial Justice Centre executive director Sarah Ibrahim wouldn’t be drawn on why.

At issue for the applicants was a television segment aired on Sky News in November 2023, along with two opinion pieces Bolt had written for the Herald Sun later that year.

On air, Bolt........

© The Sydney Morning Herald