At present, section 18C of the Act states that it is illegal to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people" on race or ethnicity grounds.

Firebrand conservative senator Cory Bernardi on Tuesday introduced a private member’s bill that called for the words  “offend” and “humiliate” to be removed.

The change was signed by all but one of the Coalition’s backbench senators, including Tasmanian senators Eric Abetz, David Bushby, and newly elected Jonathon Duniam

Senator Abetz said the bill would still retain strong protections against hate speech.

“Freedom of speech is one of our foremost and fundamental freedoms as a society and section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is an affront to that freedom,” Senator Abetz said 

“(We) have complete faith and confidence in our fellow Australians to have and to use that fundamental freedom.”

Senator Bushby described people facing criminal prosecutions for insulting or humiliating someone “a fundamental injustice”.

“We don’t need a law and threat of criminal prosecution to ensure Australians exercise commonsense,” Senator Bushby said.

Senator Duniam described the words “humiliate” and “offend” as highly subjective.

The push to freer speech under the law runs parallel to proposed changes recently introduced by the Tasmanian Government.

These changes would allow people to make insults or cause offence for religious reasons and give the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner the power to reject a complaint if offence could not have been predicted.

The commissioner’s office received 19 complaints in 2014-15 based on racial discrimination and four complaints based on religious belief.