Under the current laws if you say something that offends a group you get called to mediate with said group about what you said.
Said group needs to prove they have been attacked and that is has caused offense.
This is done through the AUstralian human right commission.
When Andrew Bolt was called regarding his comments both he and his newspaper rejected having to speak to the people he offended and from there legal action occured.
Sort of like ignoring the local council when a dispute with your neighbour needs to be discussed.
The Australian Humans rights commission only steps in when not agreement can be reached by both parties and has no power to act and take it to the Federal Court for arbitration.
this occured with Pat Eatock and her Aboriginal colleagues.
Of course Mr bolt not only played this out as an attack of freedom of speech, but he was well funded for his court case by right wing think tank 'Institute for Public Affairs' who suggested a few years back to remove key element section 18C of the Race Discrimination act.
Section 18C, known as the racial vilification provision, was introduced in 1996 with opposition agreement in the dying days of the Keating government to make race hate speech unlawful (not illegal). Ever since 1966 when the Holt government signed onto the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) while filing a reservation on Article 4 (the outlawing of race hate speech), the position of vilifying speech on the Australian political agenda has been contentious and often murky.
It is worth noting that the biggest users of section 18C have been the Jewish communities in Austraia when it came to Holocaust deniers and anti semites.
Read more
http://theconversation.com/licensing-hate-the-possible-consequences-of-abbotts-racial-vilification-c...
