Racial discrimination laws have led to the ''bizarre'' situation where members of a community can use racially loaded language against each other while outsiders can't, Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson has said.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Asked whether he was referring to the word ''nigger'', Mr Wilson said: ''I won't say it, but that's right.''
Mr Wilson told Fairfax that repealing the so-called ''Andrew Bolt'' provision of the act, which makes it unlawful to insult or offend people based on their race or ethnicity, would restore ''equality'' to discrimination laws.
''The provisions provide the basis for a good discussion about getting the balance right, and establish the correct test of equality before the law.''
Mr Wilson's comments put him on a collision course with the rest of the Human Rights Commission, to which Attorney-General George Brandis controversially appointed him late last year on a $325,000-a-year wage.
At the time, Senator Brandis made it clear that Mr Wilson's appointment was made on both political and ideological grounds.
''The appointment of Mr Wilson to this important position will help restore balance to the Australian Human Rights Commission which, during the period of the Labor government, has become increasingly narrow and selective in its view of human rights,'' he said.
Mr Wilson has long called for Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to be abolished.
Commission president Gillian Triggs told the ABC on Wednesday that Mr Wilson was ''on board'' with the rest of the commission on the removal of 18C, which she said would reduce the level of protections against racial abuse.
''It would be a shame for people to be denied the opportunity to use these processes,'' she said.
''Instead, they would have to rely upon defamation and other much more costly and inaccessible legal remedies''.
But Mr Wilson told Fairfax Media that while ''even petty and casual racism is unacceptable'', that did not mean people's freedom of speech should be curtailed. ''People have the right to freedom of thought and freedom of speech but both come with responsibilities, and that's not to engage in that sort of thing.''
Senator Brandis' changes to the act remove the provision that makes it unlawful for someone to ''offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate'' people because of their race or ethnicity, and replaces it with a new provision making it unlawful to ''vilify'' or ''intimidate'' people based on their race or ethnicity.
