There is consensus among conservatives that section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, has been, and certainly is now, a threat to free speech, even a very modest version. (The Australian, March 1, 2017, p. 4). This is because, as shown by recent cases, this law makes it unlawful to make public statements that are offensive to ethnic minorities, and the question of offensiveness is decided not by consideration of the standards of the ordinary reasonable person, but by the ethnic community that has been offended. Talk about a conflict of interest!
How could one not get tyranny from such a result? What if the ethnic community in question, call them Martians, had done things, which were bad, harmful to the interests of another community? This, after all, is what ethnic conflict is all about. It becomes impossible to criticise that ethnic community because by definition, someone will be offended, because that is part of having an ethnic interest. So, freedom of speech becomes impossible because the bar of “offense” is impossibility low. What happens then when there is no longer a lawful method of dealing with conflict through words? Take an educated guess.