CRAIG COMMENTS

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Social engineering
Wednesday 6 July 2005

It has not taken long for the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act to live up to the expectations of those of us who opposed it four years ago. It is not only those with strong religious convictions who may become victims of this outrageous piece of social engineering by the Victorian Labor Government. There are many people in the community, particularly in businesses dealing with the public, who are vulnerable to being accused of some contravention of this legislation by some vindictive or malicious person. The prospect of being dragged through the courts on some perceived insulting remark could destroy their business.

The difficulty is that even the way words are spoken can change their meaning. A well-known Australian expression can be highly insulting but also be used as an expression of friendship – and it can sometimes difficult to decide which meaning was intended.

Although many Liberals spoke strongly against the legislation, they did not vote against it where it could have stopped it or amended, in the Legislative Council.

The Liberals therefore are as much to blame for this mess as the Labor Party.

There is no disagreement that there is a need to discourage abuse and discrimination in the many forms it takes including discrimination based on where we live. This should not be through legal processes, but by education and example.

Our parliamentary processes are scarcely examples of toleration of differing opinions. The acrimony in which many debates take place does not demonstrate a high awareness of tolerance. To a large extent, this is generated by the party political system with insults being hurled across the chamber and more heat than enlightenment being generated.

Some politicians seem to believe that their primary responsibility is to ridicule or demean others with differing political opinions instead of trying to understand and accommodate the views of minority groups. Question time in the Commonwealth Parliament is a first class example. State Parliament is not quite as bad, but this is probably because there is not a television audience for the prima donnas of politics to impress.

If the government want to promote tolerance and understanding between people of differing backgrounds and opinions, it should lead by example and practise it in the way it runs the country.

Many of the rules of debate, particularly the practise of never addressing another Member directly in the course of a debate, were designed to limit the risk of causing offence to another Member.