The journalist Peter Greste says the law prohibiting insulting or offending people based on their race should be repealed, arguing it chips away at freedom of speech.

In an opinion piece for the Australian newspaper, Greste, who was jailed in Egypt for 400 days while on assignment with Al Jazeera, invoked his time in prison as an example of what can happen when freedom of the press is taken away, “damaging a vital part of our democracy”.

Greste claimed that section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act “criminalised” speech that is “reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate on the basis of race, colour or national or ethnic origin”. In fact, section 18C makes such speech unlawful but it is not a criminal offence.

Greste argued the law was “hopelessly malleable” and undefinable because it “cedes the definition of ‘offence’ to the complainant”. However, a court must find the speech is “reasonably likely to offend”, not that it did offend the complainant.

Greste said the section has been used to shut down political debate, such as the complaint against Bill Leak’s controversial cartoon about Indigenous parental responsibility. He welcomed the fact one complainant had decided to drop the case and the others intend to do likewise.

“But we ought to continue the push to have the section repealed or, at the very least, redrafted to make sure these kinds of cases are dealt with in the court of public opinion rather than the court of law,” he said.

The piece made no mention of section 18D, which provides exemptions, including if something was a fair and accurate report of an event or matter of public interest, a fair comment on a matter of public interest, or an artistic work.

The government has launched a parliamentary inquiry into section 18C. Some MPs favour amending or repealing the law but others believe improved processes for the Australian Human Rights Commission to reject cases where speech would be protected by section 18D are sufficient to prevent harms to free speech.

Bill Shorten has promised to fight any attempt to amend or repeal section 18C, arguing in an opinion piece for a string of non-English newspapers that such a move “risks creating a new foothold for divisive and hateful abuse”.

Greste recognised that free speech “isn’t always pretty” but invoked the schoolyard dictum that “sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never hurt me”.



“In a grown-up democracy we have to be able to have a good old-fashioned row about the merits of that view, without running to the headmaster for adjudication.”

Greste said that banning certain forms of speech drives them underground, “into corners of the internet where it bounces around in echo chambers, away from mainstream thought”. He said it was antithetical to democracy only to encounter views one agrees with.

Greste accepted the law should prohibit incitement to violence.

If section 18C were repealed, individuals who were offended by certain speech need not accept it but can argue that it crosses the line, he said.

“If we accept that speech must be legally protected, it does not mean that we must also accept that anything goes.”

Greste said that a free press is a vital part of democracy. “If we chip away at the freedom of speech, we risk damaging a vital part of our democracy,” he said. “And, as someone who went to prison for my reporting, I know what that can look like.”