To The Age
Your latest report on the struggle for the return to Australians of unequivocally free speech on race (‘Senate to kill changes in race hate law’, 21/3) seems to indicate that the necessary significant reform of the Racial Discrimination Act will be largely or wholly stymied not by principled argument but by the desire of a majority of MPs to avoid ‘alienating ethnic communities’ - that is, to achieve electoral advantage.
There is an old saying: ‘Unhappy is the land that has no heroes.’ It seems that here, as in overseas nations such as Germany, France and Canada, honourable dissidents on controversies involving race are likely to be publicly pilloried, with their self-sacrifice needed to awaken the whole community eventually to the vital need of free speech to maintain political freedom for all.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic