18C and the rest.... stifling free speech.

[Outlaw Yogi]

You've probably seen/heard/read the story about an Aboriginal staff member at QUT discriminating against some white students for not being Aboriginal, and then seeking $250k compo via AHRC under 18C for their anti-discrimination comments on Face Book.

Well now the tide has turned ...

(Tried getting the Australian's version but that pay wall blocked me, so it's ABC)

President of the Australian Human Rights Commission facing possible defamation action

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-09/p ... qc/8008606

The president of the Australian Human Rights Commission is facing possible defamation action from two Queensland University of Technology students who had been accused of racial vilification.

The students were being sued under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act over social media posts relating to a computer lab reserved for Indigenous students.

Last week a judge threw the case out, ruling it had no reasonable prospect of success.

Professor Gillian Triggs defended the commission's handling of the case on the ABC's 7:30 program this week, saying the complaint had "a level of substance".

But lawyer Tony Morris QC, who represents the students, has since written to Professor Triggs demanding that she retract some of her comments.

"On behalf of my clients, I've raised the possibility of defamation proceedings.

"Amongst other things, she implied the boys had made statements which were racist and which were, as she put it, causes for concern and troubling and worrying," he said.

"They've been cleared by a Federal Circuit Court judge."

Racist word in Facebook post

Mr Morris said there was one racist word in one of the Facebook posts, but the judge said there was no evidence that the young man actually made that post.

"And yet she goes on national television and says we had to take this seriously because what the boys had done was a matter of concern," he said.

Mr Morris asked Professor Triggs to apologise to his clients.

"My clients have not had a single communication, either directly or indirectly from Triggs saying in effect, we could've handled this better, we're sorry," he said.

Mr Morris said Professor Triggs sat on the complaint for 14 months and was to blame for the case making it to court.

[Outlaw Yogi]

The ABC has down played this considerably. Here's the Australian's version hand typed from the paper >

The Australian - Wednesday November 9 2016
Defamation suit looms for Triggs
Gillian Triggs is under renewed fire and facing a defamation action from Queensland University of Technology students who
accused her yesterday of making false and damaging statements implying they and their Face book posts were racist.

The Human Rights Commission president was asked by the students' barrister Tony Morris QC yesterday to publish a retraction and apology, make no further "defamatory"
comments about the students, and pay damages and costs. The warning to Professor Triggs that she faces being sued comes after she told Fairfax Media and the ABC's 730
that the human rights body had acterd "in good faith" and in consultation with the students during a 14 month investigation into Facebook posts from May 2014.

QUT staffer Cindy Prior had named seven students in May 2014 in her complaint to the commission of racial hatred under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act
over posts they wrote after being told they could not use an indigenous-only computer lab at QUT. In one post, Alex Wood said: "Qut stopping segregation with
segregation?"

The claims by Professor Triggs are contradicted by the commission's own internal documents and its acknowledgment in legal letters that it did not tell the stidents
at any stage that they were the subject of a complaint for the 14 months from its lodgement by Ms Prior to soon before it was finalised by the rights body.

Internal documents obtained under Freedom of Information show the commission never advised the students or engaged them in any way, despite official guidlines
requiring such disclosures to people accused of racial vilication. That was left to QUT and meant the students were not made aware until late July last year,
three business days before the commission ran a conciliation conference with Ms Prior.

The students accuse the commission of breaching their human rights by not telling them of the complaint until it was too late to prepare, obtain legal advice and
potentially prevent it being escalated to the Federal Circuit Court as a $250,000 damages claim. The claim was thrown out last week, 3&1/2 years after the Facebook
posts.

"Much of what you said was knowingly and demonstrably false" Mr Morris wrote yesterday in a defamation "concerns notice" to Professor Triggs about her interview
on the ABC's 730 with Leigh Sales.

"you said 'what we did was do what we normally do which is investigate the facts, get a sense of what each of the parties is saying, and then attempt to conciliate
the matter'. There was no investigation. There was no attempt to 'get a sense of what each of the parties is saying'. The truth is that the (commission) sat on the
complaint for 14 months, without contacting any of the students or even telling them that a complaint had been made against them.

Only two of the seven students were present at the purported 'conciliation conference', and those two students had no more than three business days' notice to attend.

"you said 'for 14 months or at least 12 of those months we believed that in good faith we were going to get a conciliation. It is impossible that the (AHRC) held any
such belief - let alone it held such belief in 'good faith' - when it had no even made contact with (the students)."

Mr Morris said Professor Triggs defamed the students when she said on 730 that while some cases were vexatious or frivolous, "this was one that had a level of
substance'. "The complaints were ones that attracted a certain measure of concern about the nature of the comments that were made," she said. "I won't repeat the
language but it was worrying and troubling."

He said her statement meant the students wrote Facebook posts that were "so abhorrently racist that it could not with propriety or dignity be repeated on a mid-evening
television program run by the national broadcaster". Mr Morris said the claim was "palpably false" and that there was no basis for the accusation his clients used
language of such racist character that she felt it unseemly to repeat on air.

The latter asks Professor Triggs to pay compensation and cost 'given that you explicitly claimed on two occasions to be speaking 'in good faith', even though you
either knew that what you were saying was untrue, or spoke with reckless indifference to the truth or falsity of your remarks".

One of the students , Calum Thwaites, told the Australian: "I never received one piece of corresponence from the commission. There is absolutely no truth in what she
said about that (on Monday night) on 730 and to Fairfax Media. She was claiming the students were being consulted from the start by the commission and that there was this
'good faith' dialogue but that is completely false."

The documents include a contemporaneous diary note by a commission officer managing the complaint, showing that less than a week before the conciliation conference
she told QUT's solicitor "it would not be possible to postpone" it; that QUT should have contacted the students; and that "if a student is notified and wants to attend
next week, they will have to make time".

Professor Triggs did not respond to a request for comment.

[Rorschach]

Triggs needs to go, Turnbull said she will not be returned to her position after it becomes vacant.
Soutphommanse needs to go too he's an idiot as well.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Agreed, but really the AHRC should be abolished so Labor can't appoint more comrades in hypocrisy without resurrecting or recreating HRC, and 18C of RDA should be repealed so agenda driven lawyers can't persecute people for what they say.

I agree with Abbetz or Brandis (forget which) comment that "people have the right to be bigots".

Shutting down debate and/or criminalising dissent sends the animosities underground, where they fester until exploding into civil war or populist fascist coups/takeovers.