When Senator George Brandis proclaimed on Monday that people had "a right to be bigots" he totally confused the message with appalling delivery and simplistic logic.

Senator Brandis was trying to defend the federal government's quite valid intention to change the Racial Discrimination Act in the name of free speech.

Unfortunately it became a defence of bigotry rather than the opposite.

The biggest problem for Prime Minister Tony Abbott is that Senator Brandis acts like he is in a court of law rather than in the court of public opinion where perception is reality.

And, the reality is that a perfectly legitimate change to Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act has been derailed and trivialised.

Senator Brandis is perfectly correct that any Australian citizen has the right to hold whatever personal views they want and be a bigot - the difference is when those views are aired in public.

Racial vilification and inciting hatred based on race is to be deplored in a modern Australia and the proposed changes entrench those standards rather than encourage bigotry.

The words that are proposed being removed from Section 18c are "that offends, insults or humiliates," based on race.

By nature many Australians have a robust sense of humour and a thick skin but we are all different and what offends or insults you may not offend someone else.

Increasingly, we have such a multicultural society that offending someone can often be part of a cultural divide.

The other sensible exclusion from Section 18c is that the liability should be judged from "the perspective of a reasonable member of the Australian community" rather than the existing judgment from the "perspective of a reasonable representative of the group that claims to be offended."

Breaching any of these laws must be based against an Australian standard rather than that of a minority.

The Examiner, for example, has been taken to task over the debate about the appropriateness of January 26 as the date for Australia Day.

We published dozens of letters to the editor on both sides of the debate this year and award- winning reporter Calla Wahlquist wrote a powerful column condemning January 26 as a divisive date.

Interestingly, we also published a letter to the editor pointing out that many of the protesters in Tasmania actually have some white heritage. It was claimed this letter was unlawful and inciting racial vilification.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is a matter of history that this is the case in Tasmania but it doesn't prevent or vilify a person with Aboriginal ancestry to identify and proudly embrace their background.

Once we get to a stage that we cannot have a factual debate about heritage and history and comments in a forum about the validity of January 26 as Australia Day as part of free speech in Australia then we have truly lost the plot. This was the point that Senator Brandis was attempting to make when he got sidetracked with his defence of bigots.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull was far more coherent when he said: "I am very, very strongly of the view that hate - you know, people that peddle racial hatred - seriously undermine the stability and the harmony of our country."