The Media is Offended by the new Discrimination Bill

A draft bill could make it illegal for the media to offend certain groups of people, or so some opponents warn. In a piece first posted on The Conversation, human rights professor Sarah Joseph asks how realistic that fear is.

The federal Attorney General has put forward a proposed new draft anti-discrimination bill. An enquiry into the Bill by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee has attracted over 500 submissions. Submission 484 is from “Joint Media Organisations”, unusually a joint submission by the major media providers in Australia; it is very critical of the Bill.

So what is this new bill for? It is designed to consolidate and simplify existing federal anti-discrimination laws, which currently cover the grounds of race, sex, disability and age. It will roll them up into “one great big new law”. It also adds new protected grounds of discrimination (known as “protected attributes”), such as religion, sexual orientation and nationality (see draft s. 17).

The most controversial aspect of the proposed new law is that “discrimination” in draft section 19 is defined as the “unfavourable treatment” of someone because of their protected attribute. Unfavourable treatment is further defined in s 19(2)(a) as including “harassing” of “the other person” and, in 19(2)(b), “other conduct that offends, insults or intimidates” a person. It is s 19(2)(b) which has the media up in arms. And rightly so.