"Here in Australia we have no tolerance for anti-Semitism, no tolerance for racism, no tolerance for anybody who seeks to demean or de-legitimise or dehumanise somebody because of their race or their religion or their culture."

That was Malcolm Turnbull, speaking to Holocaust survivors in Sydney on Sunday, before his government released a statement reaffirming its commitment to a multicultural Australia "in which racism and discrimination have no place".

But now, suddenly, it is okay to "offend, insult and humiliate" someone on the basis of their race, so long as this does not amount to "harassment and intimidation".

Why? The Prime Minister justifies changing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by citing the lawsuit against three Queensland University of Technology students that should have been nipped in the bud, and a complaint against one of this country's pre-eminent cartoonists, the late Bill Leak, that was never going to succeed.