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Dignity and vigilance: Defending Australia's multicultural miracle

Tim Soutphommasane ABC Religion and Ethics 3 Dec 2013
We should not belittle the task of combating prejudice. Racial violence doesn't begin with violence: it begins with words; it breeds through indifference; and it explodes when it is given licence.



We are, I believe, at a critical juncture in the development of Australian multiculturalism. At such times, it is important to reflect on what it is that the multicultural project is meant to protect - and to reflect on our responsibility as a national community to defend that achievement.

In one sense, the triumph of a multicultural Australia would appear to be complete. Only a small minority would now believe that cultural diversity means social division. The vast majority of Australians endorse multiculturalism. Consider the recent Scanlon Foundation survey into social cohesion. That study, led by Andrew Markus of Monash University, found that 84% of respondents agreed that multiculturalism was a good thing. It is a resounding finding, about as unanimous as one can get on a contemporary social question.

Such approval is reflected in the everyday life of Australian society. How could it not, when more than 45% of Australians were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas? How could it not when about 30% of all couples in Australia comprise partners who are of different ancestries?

And how could there not be approval when on the criteria of social cohesion and social mobility, Australian multiculturalism has proven to function remarkably well? When it concerns social cohesion, Australia has been untainted by the considerable tensions that characterise Europe - the segregated towns and cities, the regular race riots. When it comes to social mobility, Australia is one of the very few OECD countries where the children of immigrants, on average, outperform children of native-born Australians with respect to education and employment.

Various reasons are put forward to explain just how it is that Australia has managed to embrace diversity - and do so with such grand success. Sometimes it is attributed to "the innate decency and tolerance of Australians." Sometimes to "a kind of benign indifference in the national character," which favours not making a fuss over expressing displeasure at things. Some historians suggest that our success reflects the deep civic memory of the social strategies that nineteenth-century Australians used to contain sectarian Protestant/Catholic divisions in the colonies.

Yet, one thing is curious. Relatively little is said about the contribution that multiculturalism as public policy has made over the past four decades to ensuring that mass migration has been accompanied by social cohesion rather than fragmentation. That there can be so much applause for our record of postwar migration, yet relative silence about the very policy that has guided social integration since the 1970s, seems odd.

It may be tempting to say that this may reveal what political historian Robert Manne has called a "particular kind of brittleness in Australia" when it comes to diversity. According to Manne, "just beneath the surface" it is as though "very little evidence is required to convince large swathes of the general public that one or another ethnic group will never fit it." I suspect there is some truth in Professor Manne's observation. Our multiculturalism contains a paradox: it is strong yet it is fragile.

But there may be another explanation for why so much of our multicultural project is considered without the kind of attention to its policy dimensions one might otherwise expect. Namely, success can create complacency; amnesia can accompany progress. In today's multicultural Australia, where more than one generation has now grown up with diversity, many may well believe that cultural harmony occurs organically. Many may well presume that politics and policy play little or no role in cultivating the kinds of attitudes that characterize our open and peaceful society. Many may well forget that an Australia where the cultural expectation of migrants was assimilation - where it was believed that new arrivals had to discard all their cultural baggage - involves a very different society to an Australia that prides itself on its diversity.

The result, though, is this. Not enough of us recognize that the social reality of diversity has only been possible because diversity has also been endorsed through public policy. This is the real achievement of our multicultural project. It is nothing less than an Australia where people are allowed to value and express their cultural identity, without stigma. An Australia where everyone can participate in the life of the nation on an equal footing - as a fellow member, who needn't feel apologetic about their name or where they are from.

Multiculturalism and the law

There is at the moment considerable public interest about the racial vilification provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act. The Government has made clear that it intends to repeal or amend Part IIA of the Act. We have seen the beginnings of what is likely to be extensive public debate about the issue. This is how it should be. We are dealing with important questions about the proper balance that is to be struck between freedom of speech and freedom from racial vilification.

But to date, there has been much polemic - too much polemic. If you were to believe some of the commentary about the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act, you may believe that the Act is an instrument of political correctness that serves to stifle free speech. That it goes too far in protecting people from being merely offended or insulted. Any debate must be well informed and based on the facts. And protagonists of the debate must not ignore the history of the legislation in question.

The Racial Discrimination Act exists, of course, as the legislative expression of Australian multiculturalism. Enacted in 1975, this legislation embodies our society's commitment to non-discrimination. It expresses our society's commitment to the notion that everyone can enjoy rights and freedoms on an equal footing, regardless of their colour, ethnicity or national origin. The Act is more than just an instrument for guaranteeing equal opportunity for all members of society, regardless of their race. Through the provisions of Part IIA, which were enacted in 1995, the Act also provides a statement about civility and tolerance.

Section 18C of the Act makes it unlawful to commit an act that is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group of persons on the grounds of race, ethnicity or national origin. It is accompanied by Section 18D, which seeks to protect the fundamental importance of freedom of speech. Section 18D does this by ensuring that artistic works, scientific debate, and fair comment or reporting on a matter of public interest are exempt from being held in breach of Section 18C - provided that they are said or done reasonably and in good faith. It is one of the few legislative provisions in Australia that provides an explicit protection of freedom of speech.

The process of introducing these racial vilification provisions was neither hasty nor unconsidered. It came about as a result of rising concern about racism in Australian society during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It came about in response to a series of organised racist violence against ethnic communities, and serious complaints from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples about systemic discrimination.

For example, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which made its final report in 1991, called for legislation to recognize that language can itself be a form of violence. The National Inquiry into Racist Violence, concluded by my predecessor Irene Moss in 1991, similarly noted that "incitement to racial hostility is a significant element in creating a climate conducive to racist harassment, intimidation and violence." Echoing the recommendations of both the Royal Commission and the National Inquiry, the Law Reform Commission in 1992 published a report, "Multiculturalism and the Law", which recommended the introduction of legislation to deal with racial hatred.

It is perhaps a sign of social progress that the circumstances in which racial vilification laws were introduced can be so quickly forgotten. But we should be disabused of any notion that racism has disappeared - that any need for a legislative response to racial vilification is now gone.

In the past financial year, the Australian Human Rights Commission has received a 59% increase in the number of complaints lodged on the grounds of racial hatred under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The Scanlon Foundation's survey has also found a significant increase in the number of respondents who say they have experienced racial or religious discrimination during the past twelve months (19% of respondents compared to 12% in 2012). And as the apparent anti-Semitic attack in Bondi just last month should remind us, racial vilification today can still escalate to racial violence.

Let me say this. We would be foolish to ignore the lessons of history. We would be hasty to belittle the ongoing task of combating prejudice and intolerance. Racial violence doesn't begin with violence: it begins with words; it breeds through indifference; and it explodes when it is given licence.

Freedom and dignity

If the history of our federal racial vilification laws is not well known, the manner in which they operate is also subject to considerable misunderstanding. Consider how media commentary about the Andrew Bolt case in 2011 referred to Bolt being "convicted" or found "guilty" of a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. Not everyone understands that Part IIA involves only a civil provision and not a criminal one.

Nor does everyone understand that any complaint about a breach of the law under Section 18C leads not to a court case in the first instance, but in an attempt by the Australian Human Rights Commission to conciliate between the complainant and respondent parties. Only if conciliation fails, can the matter be referred to a federal court. This happens only rarely. For example, during 2012-13, the Commission successfully conciliated 53% of its complaints concerning racial vilification; only 3% of cases made it to court. The law is working the way it was intended: for the most part, allowing those subjected to racial vilification to access civil remedies without lengthy and expensive litigation.

Nor does everyone understand that it is very difficult to contravene racial vilification provisions. As one lawyer with many years' experience in anti-discrimination law has said to me, to be in breach, you really have to put your back into it. This is because the exemptions provided by Section 18D are broad in nature. Offensive cartoons have been found by the courts to be artistic work exempt from a breach of Section 18C. So have statements made in the course of political debate about the fairness of distribution of social welfare payments to people from a particular race or ethnic group. Publications that deal with the issue of racial identification, including challenging the genuineness of the identification of a group of people, may also be exempt from a breach of the law. But the requirements are that any such acts be done reasonably and in good faith.

Finally, not everyone understands that racial vilification laws cover only public acts that involve "profound and serious effects." It isn't enough merely to offend or insult someone, as some suggest: to fall foul of the law, one must offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone on the basis of race. The relevant test is an objective one, not a subjective one. And it is perhaps also worth noting that the courts have tended to regard the words "offend, insult, humiliate and intimidate" as a collocation, rather than severally.

This brings me to the purpose of racial vilification laws. As they currently exist in Australia, such laws seek to ensure that everyone in our society enjoys freedom from racial vilification as well as freedom of expression. In another respect, the law provides a statement about the civic or public harms caused by racial vilification. Covering only those acts that are done in public, they are not concerned with private purposes or with individual hurt as such. They are concerned, rather, with protecting the conditions necessary for justice in a multicultural society.

Australia is by no means alone as a society that has enacted legislation against racial vilification. The United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and Denmark, to name a few, also have laws aimed at curbing racist hate speech. The formulations in these jurisdictions, of course, vary. In all cases, though, the rationale of laws against racial vilification is basically the same: the law in a liberal democratic society must make an assurance that members will enjoy a right to equal dignity.

Some may well say that dignity is too vague a concept. That sulky nineteenth century pessimist Schopenhauer once wrote that dignity is "the shibboleth of all perplexed and empty-headed moralists." But all of us know enough to know what dignity is and when it is being denied to another. When racial vilification does occur, we know the effect that it has on a target's self-worth. Those who say that victims of racist speech should simply develop a thicker skin - that confronting it will only make them stronger - are almost inevitably those who have never felt the sting of being treated like a second-class citizen. They do not understand the wound of being denigrated, not because of one's character or merit, but because of the immutable qualities of one's race, the markers of one's ancestry.

The distinguished legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron explains dignity in the following way:

"It is a matter of status - one's status as a member of society in good standing - and it generates demands for recognition and for treatment that accords with that status. Philosophically, we may say that dignity is inherent in the human person - and so it is. But as a social and legal status, it has to be established, upheld, maintained, and vindicated by society and the law, and this ... is something in which we are all required to play a part. At the very least, we are required in our public dealings with one another to refrain from acting in a way that is calculated to undermine the dignity of other people."

Clearly, dignity is not only about status. It is also about treatment: to treat someone with dignity is to treat that person with the proper respect. When a society does enact laws against vilification based on race, it provides its members with an assurance: an assurance that everyone can be assume they will be treated fairly and justly. That they needn't walk down the street with a lowered gaze, in fear of abuse or assault. That they have every right to enjoy the security and freedom that all others may enjoy. It provides an assurance that society will not accept those acts that besmirch the reputation of others and undermine their social standing.

Such a response counters the menacing threat contained in racist vilification. I am referring here to the message that is sent to targets of racist speech: that regardless of any formal equality, exclusion, indignity, degradation and indeed violence may just be around the corner if you don't tread carefully or if you don't know your place.


Eternal vigilance, as we all know, is the price of liberty. The remarkable success of Australia's experiment as an immigrant nation and multicultural society - which is nothing short of a social miracle - can always be undone by complacency. We can take our racial harmony and tolerance for granted.

Some would say, of course, that we should also not take for granted our freedom of speech. That this is one freedom we must not forget. We certainly should not take this freedom for granted. But it is fair to say that the Racial Discrimination Act recognises - through Section 18D - the fundamental importance of freedom of speech. If, as a society, we were to identify areas of the law that may seriously impinge on our freedom of speech, we may arguably be more troubled by the impact of the law of defamation, the law concerning trades practices, or even laws concerning public order - namely, summary offences that cover offensive language.

We are entitled to ask: why is such disproportionate attention being paid to a law that protects people from being vilified on the grounds of race? To be sure, there will always be some who will argue that when it concerns racist speech, the best answer is to respond not through the law, but through the marketplace of ideas. Fight bad speech with good speech. Educate opinion rather than censure opinion.

I understand this view. The quality of a society is no doubt determined by the quality of its citizens. But this is no reason for believing that a good society, one that treats all its members with respect according with their human dignity, can be maintained without the law's expressive power. The law, in making a statement about civility and tolerance, within reasonable limits, sends some powerful signals. On the matter of racism, let us be eternally vigilant about the signals we send as a society.

Tim Soutphommasane is Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner and the author of, most recently, The Virtuous Citizen: Patriotism in a Multicultural Society and Don't go back to where you came from. This is an edited version of his speech to the Annual General Meeting of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry on 24 November 2013.

Comments (8)

Add your comment

  • jl :

    05 Dec 2013 9:30:45pm

    We are a nation of people who are migrants or descend from migrants however far back one looks into our history.

  • Ibrahim :

    04 Dec 2013 10:19:06am

    The combination of state-sanctioned and state-punished views, will ensure that state-sanctioned views win out in the world of words. And you will have triumphed against what you don't like and disagree with, if only in the world of words.

    You mention "race riots" in Europe. They are often "religion riots", and the Europeans have wonderful false words to deny the reality, so as not to offend religion. In Britain they attribute Islamic practices to "Asians". Accordingly, their words are all fine and reflect a world that doesn't exist, while the world that does exist may not be spoken of. Accordingly, they do not have religious violence. Win/win.

  • Anne L Plurabelle :

    03 Dec 2013 10:10:43pm


    I would be very careful about rubbing that one in if I were you.

  • Jim KABLE :

    03 Dec 2013 7:44:10pm

    Beautifully expressed - the how and why of our successful culturally diverse society. It takes me back to a childhood in the 1950s/early 1960s - before I headed off to tertiary studies - with a step-father who railed most nights at the dinner table about the reffos, the Balts (sounded like bolts - ironically), the wops, the wogs, the dagoes … all those nasty words delivered in sneering monologues - in the face of which my brother and I remained silent - thinking of our neighbours and friends of Chinese and Italian and German - and Scottish and English and Irish - and Indigenous (Aboriginal we thought/said then) backgrounds - neighbours and friends - and playmates. Determined NOT to be like that step-father. As our lives went on - we both - my brother and I - spent time living abroad - and in other ways inter-linking our lives with people from around the world - not only abroad - but also within this society. When people speak ill of any identifiable ethnic or Indigenous group within our society - I think of my friends, of my neighbours, of my colleagues - of my students - of my family in truth - who are being denigrated - and I do my best to alter that misguided perception. But how good it is to know that there are national and state social policies and legal conventions and protections to ensure that such negatives can be tested. Thank you Tim S. for this reminder.

  • paul griffin :

    03 Dec 2013 3:57:49pm

    Just like directness and honesty, tolerance is an Australian national characteristic. Public policy arises from and is an expression of these characteristics, not something independent. Social factors are secondary to and spring from the national ethos. Those in regional areas find this easier to understand because they are in contact with it every day. It's not necessary to dwell on public policy, because it's an inevitable outcome of ethos.
    Australians are not naive, however. Like a parent with a child, they know that while there is a general atmosphere of welcome, incoming groups may also require guidance from time to time, as they are new to the Australian ethos. Adaptation should not be underestimated, but often is in the current climate of global movement. People assume they can settle into another country without a period of adaptation, but this is a mistake. Adaptation may, in fact, take the rest of the life.

      • Brendan :

        11 Dec 2013 9:35:26am


        I agree that the Austrlaian 'ethos' has a spirit of tolerance, but I would also assert that tolerance is pretty shallow, and easily manipulated for political gain.

        As much as Australians will subscribe to the idea that 'everyone deserves a fair go', that idea can often come with certain conditions (E.g. unless you're an asylum seeker, a First Australian, someone who lives on state welfare payments, a chronic drug user etc etc), in which case you can either accept your lot in life, work a bit harder to sort yourself out, or shove off and be someone else's problem.

        I would also suggest that the other condition placed on Australia's ethos of tolerance is that we will only tolerate that which does not impact on civic life (E.g. you can be a Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/whatever, as long as you do it privately, I dont have to see it/hear it, and in the public square you act just like me).

        We are the intolerant tolerant.

  • Michael C. Sweedman :

    03 Dec 2013 1:52:30pm

    An excellent article. Personally I agree with an observation in the fifth paragraph that our success at being multi-cultural possibly derives from "a kind of benign indifference in the national character". A lot of this indifference is a symptom of being a young country with a short history of rapid development, rather than longstanding identifying traditions. We are relatively open to new ideas, and not as threatened by them as are more established cultures.

    It is interesting that the best example offered for a time when social cohesion was threatened was during sectarian divisions between religious groups. Clashes like that are normally a battle between two sides with higher certainty in their own traditional views than is supported by the available evidence.

  • Angus :

    03 Dec 2013 1:36:11pm

    Thanks for your thoughtful piece, Tim. I’m reminded of remarks by British poet Ben Okri, who lamented that words are often devalued because they seem less material. He wrote:
    *If only words were a kind of fluid that collects in the ears, if only they turned into visible chemical equivalent of their true value, an acid, or something curative then we might be more careful. Words do collect in us anyway. They collect in the blood, in the soul, and either transform or poison people’s lives. Bitter or thoughtless words poured into the ears of the young have blighted many lives in advance. We all know people whose unhappy lives twist on a set of words uttered to them on a certain unforgotten day at school, in childhood, or at university. We seem to think that words aren’t things. A bump on the head may pass away, but a cutting remark grows with the mind. But then it is possible that we know all too well the awesome power of words – which is why we use them in such deadly and accurate cruelty.*
    We accept the law’s role to restrict damaging actions, why not harmful words?

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