ACT Liberal leader Jeremy Hanson condemned ''bigotry'' on Wednesday, but stopped short of opposing the George Brandis changes to race discrimination law.
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Mr Hanson was speaking during an Assembly debate in which Labor backbencher Chris Bourke detailed the case of a Canberra family racially abused and intimidated over many years by neighbours.
Dr Bourke said the African family had lived in a Canberra suburb for eight years, but three years ago new neighbours moved in, and since then they had been on the receiving end of ''a constant outpouring of racial hatred''.
They were too frightened to use the garden for fear of being abused and getting food thrown at them. Wet cigarette butts were left at their door, their car tyres were let down and eggs were thrown over their car, he said.
On his suggestion, they had complained recently to police and other authorities and the abuse had stopped, he said, declining to reveal more details of the case.
''This is happening in our city,'' Dr Bourke said, calling on the Gallagher government to take a strong stand against racism.
Senator Brandis has proposed changing the Racial Discrimination Act so it will be illegal to intimidate or vilify someone on the grounds of race, but no longer illegal to insult, offend or humiliate.
Mr Hanson would not be drawn on whether insulting, offending or humiliating should remain illegal. He appeared to draw a distinction between behaviour that should be condemned and behaviour that should be outlawed.
''Certainly, we want to make sure that the effect of the legislation is very clear, that it's something that you cannot do, to go and intimidate somebody, to threaten them, to cause them harm and I don't want to see racial abuse. But the point at which that becomes an encroachment on free speech is the debate that we're having at the moment. So I don't want to rule particular words in or particular words out.''
Mr Hanson said offensive and insulting behaviour was not acceptable and people who sought to demean, offend or insult others on the basis of race should be condemned.
But he stopped short of suggesting such behaviour should remain illegal. ''As leaders we have a responsibility to fight intolerance and make it clear we will always stand up to the bigots, but as legislators we must be very careful to consider what speech we should make a crime and what we should not,'' he told the Assembly.
Mr Hanson did, however, suggest that the Brandis exemptions might be too wide. The federal changes will exempt a wide range of circumstances from the race vilification laws - covering ''words, sounds, images or writing'' used in public discussion ''of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, academic or scientific matter''. ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell said the exemptions were so broad that it was almost impossible to envisage a situation where a racist act would not fall within one of the exceptions.
Greens MP Shane Rattenbury will attempt to change ACT law to ensure it remains illegal to offend, insult or humiliate someone on the grounds of race - if the Commonwealth changes the federal law. He said Australia was becoming known as a country that was ''not as welcoming as it should be to people of different races, that is abusive and uncaring towards asylum seekers, that needs to do more to respect our first peoples'' and now as a country where people had the right to be bigots.
''I'm sure that the unattractive underbelly of Australian society where bigots [and] racists lurk are rejoicing and feel they have been given tacit approval,'' he said. ''I shudder to think of the result for the millions of ethnically diverse Australians and for Australian multiculturalism and for the quality of public debate if these proposals were to pass.''