Updated January 13, 2015 01:23:52

Photo: Mr Bernardi has long campaigned for Section 18C to be revised, saying it would protect freedom of speech. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner has flatly rejected calls for possible changes to the nation's discrimination laws in the wake of the terrorist attacks in France.

Federal Government backbencher Senator Cory Bernardi has again called for changes to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, the section of the act that bans language that offends, insults or humiliates people.

Last year the Government wanted to remove the words "offend, insult and humiliate" from the act, but the Prime Minister abandoned those plans in an effort to garner widespread community support for tougher national security laws.

There were also concerns it was causing angst amongst the nation's Muslim community.

Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said he rejected Senator Bernardi's call as it was ill-founded and ill-informed.

"There's no cause for revisiting the Racial Discrimination Act debate. We had extensive, exhaustive debate about this issue last year and the overwhelming majority of the Australian public have made emphatically clear that the current law should be retained," he told PM's Naomi Woodley.

Mr Bernardi has long campaigned for the revisions, saying they protect freedom of speech.

He is supported by the likes of the New South Wales's Solicitor-General, who wrote in The Australian on Monday of the contradiction he sees in people who say they support Charlie Hebdo but campaigned against the 18C changes.

France's satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo was last week the target of a devastating terror attack that killed 17 people because it often published material that offended and insulted some people of the Muslim faith.

But Mr Soutphommasane said people could be both supporters of Charlie Hebdo and Section 18C as it currently stands.

"People can make complaints under the Racial Discrimination Act only about things which concern the attributes of race, colour, ethnicity and national origin," he said.

"There is complete and unfettered freedom to discuss and debate matters of religion, religious identity, religious belief and religious practise.

"There is in any case wide protection for anything that is artistic work or fair comment on matters of public interest, provided that it is done reasonably and in good faith."

He said offensive language and racial abuse did not add any rigor to genuine public debate.

"Debating values and beliefs is one thing, but there's very little that racial abuse and vilification adds to genuine public debate and that's what the Racial Discrimination Act and its provision under Section 18C and B deal with," he said.

"We need to ensure that we have open debates in a liberal democracy, but that does not mean causing gratuitous racial offence and insult."

Mr Soutphommasane said there was understandable anxiety within the Australian community about the threat of terrorism, but that the best response to the issue was to meet it with national unity and to remember civic values.

"Australia has a very good record when it comes to race relations and community harmony and there are distinctive differences between the French and Australian experiences which we should bear in mind, but we can never be complacent about these issues," he said.

"We need to ensure that there's leadership at all levels of society and be very careful to cast judgements about the many based on the fanaticism of a few."

Acting Prime Minister Warren Truss said while Australians should not be afraid to express themselves freely following the Paris attack, there was no need to scrap existing provisions in the Racial Discrimination Act.

He said Australians can freely express their views under the current laws.

"We do have a right to speak out strongly and in issues like this we need to speak certainly with clarity and assurance," he said.

Topics: community-and-society, race-relations, law-crime-and-justice, government-and-politics, social-policy, australia

First posted January 12, 2015 20:13:55