Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called ethnic and community leaders to try to contain a growing backlash against sweeping changes to Australia's race-hate laws, while terrorism experts have warned they could play into the hands of violent extremists.
Mr Turnbull on Tuesday said the laws had lost credibility and that fixing them would require the removal of legal prohibitions on people's right to "offend, insult or humiliate", contained in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, while making it illegal to "harass" or "intimidate" a person.
According to people familiar with the phone calls, Mr Turnbull explained why his government had proposed the changes, its commitment to multiculturalism in Australia, its support for strong laws prohibiting vilification and the need to strengthen freedom of speech protections.
But a broad array of ethnic groups, united under the banner of the Coalition to Advance Multiculturalism, released a letter condemning the changes as "utterly shameful and at odds with the principles of multicultural Australia".
A separate joint statement from Chinese, Jewish, Arab, Aboriginal, Indian, Greek and Armenian community leaders warned the changes to 18C could "give a free pass to ugly and damaging forms of racial vilification".
Mr Turnbull claimed they would strengthen freedom of speech in Australia and ensure protection from racism.
"We need to restore confidence to the Racial Discrimination Act and to the Human Rights Commission's administration of it."
But Mr Turnbull would not say if it would now be acceptable to call someone a "wog", for example, and declined to repeat the term when put to him.
The proposed change to section 18C is all but certain to be killed off by the Senate, where it will be introduced this week, with Labor, the Greens and the three Xenophon senators having enough votes to kill it off.
Hass Dellal, director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, which has run counter-extremism programs, said that if the government did not properly define what kind of speech was now illegal and how the law worked, it could "play into the hands of violent extremists to potentially manipulate the gaps or the subjectivity" of the changes. This, in turn, could have an impact on community cohesion.
But he said Mr Turnbull still enjoyed a good standing with Muslim communities because he had generally stuck to moderate language when discussion Islam and extremism.
Terrorism expert Greg Barton of Deakin University similarly said Muslim communities were less likely to see the 18C change as an attack under Mr Turnbull as they would have under his predecessor, Tony Abbott, but stressed that Mr Turnbull still needed to be careful.
"The real danger is losing support of moderates," he said. "People who were previously prepared ??? to go out on a limb for you to counter more extremist voices ??? just won't want to do that any more."
Changes to the processes of the Human Rights Commission, the body handling complaints under the RDA, are also on the table and will likely win support in the Senate.
The Commission will have to rule early on whether a complaint has merit and should proceed; complaints will have to be lodged within six months of an incident, and then dealt with more quickly - within 12 months - under process changs likely to win support in the Senate. Neither Mr Turnbull nor Attorney-General George Brandis could say what the current law prevented people from being able to say that the revised wording of 18C would allow.
The amendment of section 18C delighted libertarians in the Coalition, who for years have campaigned for change, but dismayed marginal seat MPs who fear a backlash from ethnic communities, Labor, GetUp and the union movement.
During an hour-long debate in the Coalition party room, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce warned that dragging out debate on the issue could cost the Coalition votes.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott praised Mr Turnbull and Senator Brandis for proposing change, while Development Minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells warned changing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act would be very unpopular with multicultural communities.
