James Spigelman, the chairman of the ABC and former Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, has criticised the federal government’s proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill as a threat to free speech.
Spigelman says the bill tries to preserve the idea that no one should be offended by hate speech. He expressed concern that causing offence could be enough to break the law, not just on questions of race but in a range of areas such as age, gender and political opinion.