The controversial cartoons depicted in Charlie Hebdo would not have been published in Australia due to restrictive discrimination laws, proponents of changes to the laws have said.



The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), which has links to the Liberal party, said clauses in the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) that make it unlawful to insult or offend people based on their race or ethnicity stifle freedom of speech.



“A publication such as Charlie Hebdo would struggle to survive in Australia, due to laws that censor offensive, insulting, humiliating and intimidating speech,” Simon Breheny, the director of the legal rights project at the IPA, said.

“Section 18C [of the RDA] could be used against the publishers of cartoons that satirise figures based on their race or ethnicity,” Breheny said.

The RDA does not cover religion and makes exemptions for artistic expression and for free expression on matters of public interest.

The Greens senator Richard Di Natale said on Tuesday: “There are no national laws that would prevent people from publishing cartoons that may cause others offence on the basis of religion.”

“It’s a red herring. I think we’re seeing crass opportunism from those people who support changes to the law.”

The government in August backed down on plans to remove the clauses of the RDA which make it unlawful to offend, insult or humiliate people on the basis of race, following outcry from community groups.

Di Natale said: “The Australian community expressed their view very loudly and very clearly that they do not want to see any change to 18C of the RDA.”

The human rights commissioner, Tim Wilson, who was formerly with the IPA, called for a “calm and reasonable discussion” on reintroducing the proposed changes.

“I think that was a battle, but the war to defend free speech and basic rights of our civilisation never ends and is ongoing and I think this issue was always going to come up,” he told ABC radio on Tuesday.

Wilson said he was committed to ensuring that public harassment based on race and ethnicity would continue to be unlawful.

“Are we going to do the sensible and pragmatic thing where we stop public harassment on the basis of a number of things, which is very different from merely being offended or insulted,” Wilson said.

Several community groups have rejected calls to revisit the proposed changes to section 18C.