THE NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBOD) and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) have united in support of keeping Sections 18C and 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) in their present form.
Plenary meetings of the state roof bodies late last month unanimously passed identical resolutions backing the retention of the existing sections of the RDA, which prohibit the public promotion of racial hatred.
The moves come in response to a bill that was recently reintroduced into the Senate seeking to omit the words “offend” and “insult” from Section 18C of the Act.
The resolutions affirm that Sections 18C and 18D strike an “appropriate balance between freedom of expression and freedom from racial vilification”, and endorse the continuing efforts of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), in concert with its state constituent organisations and also organisations in the wider community, to defend the current legislation against attempts to repeal or water down its protections.
Read the article by Evan Zlatkis in the Australian Jewish News.