NSW One Nation leader, Mark Latham, is taking on the ‘thought police’ with a bill to protect free speech online.
Mr Latham’s amendment seeks to (1) Empower/Make further provision for the President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board to decline certain complaints; and (2) Remove the requirement for the President to refer declined complaints to NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
According to a post on Facebook: “The bill also exempts interstate residents making their public comments interstate and ensures complaints cannot be accepted against people who have exemptions in other parts of the Act.”
Bernard Gaynor, a former Major in the Defence Force is one example of an ordinary citizen forced to engage in modern lawfare at the taxpayer’s expense.
Since 2014, the father of eight has had up to 37 complaints brought against him from just one LGBTQ activist.
Mr Gaynor told Caldron Pool that Mr Latham’s common-sense bill is a good first step to abolishing the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board.
“The NSW Anti-Discrimination Board has allowed a vexatious and self-described ‘anti-free speech activist’ to unleash a reign of legal terror on conservatives and Christians.
“This body should be abolished and Mark Latham’s common-sense bill to force it to dismiss vexatious complaints is a good first step.
“The Anti-Discrimination Board is a totalitarian, state-funded activist organisation that is hell-bent on using the coercive power of the state to silence mainstream conservative opinion,” Mr Gaynor added.
“These types of ‘Thought Police’ should have no place in Australia.”
Mr Latham said the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act needs to be amended because it’s being exploited by activists to score political points and financially destroy their opponents.
“Activists are using the legal system to try to score the political points they cannot achieve by democratic means, or even worse, they are using the legal system to try to destroy their opponents financially to break them with the cost of using lawyers and going through tribunals to defend themselves. This is not justice; it is a lawyer’s picnic.
“In the four decades since the Anti-Discrimination Act was legislated the political environment has changed substantially. We now live in an era of heightened political activism, much of it driven by the intense polarised and at times obsessive nature of social media, and tactics such as ‘de-platforming’ and ‘cancelling culture’ have become common.
“The board and NCAT should not be pawns in this game at taxpayers’ expense; therefore requiring under the provisions of this bill amendments to the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act,” he said.
Mr Latham has urged the public to issue a long or short submission in support of the bill. You can do so by clicking here.