This is so sinister:

Shut up, the Human Rights Commission explained. UPDATE: Liberals help to ban criticism of Islam

Andrew Bolt

The race industry denies you your freedom to speak your mind.

Now it also wants to deny you your freedom to tell it to its face what you think about its tyrannical ways:

The Human Rights Commission wants the public prevented from expressing views to an inquiry into the handling of a controversial ­racial hatred case against univer­sity students in Queensland.

The inquiry is examining complaints by three Queensland University of Technology students that their human rights were “flag­rantly” breached by the commission in a case brought by QUT administrative officer Cindy Prior under the Racial Discrimination Act’s controversial section 18C.

Commission president Gillian Triggs has appointed Sydney ­barrister Angus Stewart SC to run a rare inquiry into the internal workings of the organisation after the students’ lawyers Tony Morris QC and Michael Henry invoked a little-used legislative provision to trigger action and scrutiny.

The students are accused of ­racial hatred over Facebook posts which allegedly caused offence to Ms Prior, who is indigenous, after she had turned them away from an Aboriginal-only computer lab in QUT’s Oodgeroo Unit in May 2013. Ms Prior says she suffered significant stress and she is seeking more than $250,000 damages after not working for most of the past three years.

Mr Henry, the lawyer for stud­ent Alex Wood — who is being sued because he wrote on Facebook “just got kicked out of the ­unsigned ­indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation” — wants ­citizens to have the right to make public submissions to the inquiry…

But the Human Rights Commission’s lawyer John Howell told Mr Stewart that it would be wrong to “call for submissions from the ­public”… “Submissions of the kind envis­ioned in Mr Henry’s email would have no relevance to your ­inquiry.”

UPDATE

Let us hope the new crossbench in the Senate will shame more Liberals out of their cowed silence and into a defence of your free speech:

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm plans to introduce a bill to change racial discrimination laws, saying section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act should be removed.

“Free speech is free speech, there’s no qualification to it, let’s just remove 18C entirely and everything that goes with it,” Senator Leyonhjelm told Insiders.

The newly re-elected senator said Family First Senator Bob Day also planned to introduce more “modest” changes to the law… 

“Offence is always taken, not given. So if you don’t want to be offended, its up to you, don’t be offended, that’s it…”

New One Nation senator-elect Malcolm Roberts …  told reporters on Friday that Section 18C “needs to be addressed because [it is] curbing free speech…\

“You can call me short, you can me fat, you can call me a Queenslander, you can call me a cane toad,” he said.

“Whatever you want to call me, the only person who decides whether I’m upset is me.” 

Then there’s Derryn Hinch:

Senator and former broadcaster Derryn Hinch … said he would push to amend 18C of the Federal Racial Discrimination Act.

“It should not be a crime to offend or insult somebody. I am offended and insulted by a law that can put you in jail for offending or insulting somebody,” he said.

This morning on ABC Radio Breakfast, pundit Michelle Grattan bizarrely claimed these laws weren’t really stopping people from speaking their mind, only to immediately qualify that in the case of the two articles of mine which were banned. But how can she know that these were the only cases, when the Human Rights Commission settles hundreds of other cases in secrecy, and when it is now engaged in a legal case that has left the students above too scared to repeat their arguments?

Grattan is simply saying something untrue to avoid having to change her mind and defend free speech.

Do Liberals really want to be seen as equally weak on free speech – and certainly too weak to repeat what the likes of Hinch, Lleyonhjelm, Day, Roberts and Pauline Hanson so freely say? That is a very quick way to persuade conservative voters of the need to vote for braver representatives in the Senate – and maybe not just there.

UPDATE

This is so sinister:

Vilification on the grounds of religion is now illegal and in serious cases could result in a criminal conviction with a fine of up to $7500, under laws passed by the ACT parliament on Thursday.

Both Labor and Liberal supported the move put by the Greens Shane Rattenbury, who said the display of hatred, intolerance and offensive behaviour towards Muslims was one of the biggest intolerance issues in Australia today.

How dare the Liberals pass laws to intimidate people out of criticising a creed and an ideology. What a debased political party.

UPDATE:

Should Hanson really be bashed into silence?

This sounds far too much like victim blaming:

PAULINE Hanson cost taxpayers an estimated $1 million in police protectionwhen she was last a federal MP and will again qualify for security if threats are made against her in her new role as a Senate powerbroker.

It’s not Hanson who is costing us that $1 million in police protection. It’s the Islamists and Leftist who threaten to bash and kill her.

Amanda Vanstone, now the kind of Liberal only the ABC (her employer) would like, is so stupid as to say this:

Former Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone said yesterday it was her view that the police protection only emboldens Ms Hanson at ugly rallies because she knew that whatever she said the Federal Police were offering around-the-clock protection.

“She had close personal police protection. And I think that only made her comments stronger.

“Quite simply, it emboldened her,’’ Ms Vanstone said.

Is Vanstone seriously suggesting that violent Leftists should be allowed to determine what Hanson says in public? That sparing her from a violent mob is a mistake?

And which of Hanson’s comments does she specifically believe were made only because police were there to stop her from getting assaulted?