After a bad start, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull appears determined to keep on the same way, and to further alienate both conservatives and libertarians in the Liberal Party.

Tony Abbott lost a lot of that support, such as the influential Quadrant, when he refused to change or repeal Labor’s notorious Racial Discrimination Act, originally a legacy of Whitlam’s social engineering, and as it now stands one of the biggest threats to free speech in this country – as Turnbull, a former journalist and lawyer, should be well aware.

Abbott particularly disappointed both the Party’s conservatives and libertarians by going back on his word to repeal Section 18C of the Act, which makes it an offence to ‘offend’ or ‘insult’ any person based on their race. It has already, of course, been used in an outrageous manner against Andrew Bolt in 2011. While the Act provides for imprisonment for offenders, a more probable penalty will be in terms of time, energy, nervous strain and, unless the offender has corporate backing, costs.

Assuming those who drafted the legislation had good intentions, the draftsmanship is inexcusably shoddy. A first requirement of good law is precision. ‘Offend’ and ‘insult’ are terms which can be so widely interpreted at to mean anything.

The Law of Prarial in the French Revolutionary terror prescribed the guillotine for anyone found to have a ‘bad moral character’, and Section 18C is in that tradition. It is a disgrace to Australia. There is apparently a vague notion that, with 18C on the books, Muslim jihadists will be converted into patriotic Australians, but without it provocation will send them on the attack. Turnbull claimed: ‘We have to bear in mind that we have in our society, as in all free societies, to balance the demands of free speech, of which we’re all in favour, with also ensuring domestic harmony.’ In other words, cave in before those who are offended by an insult. Free societies don’t make ‘insult’ or ‘giving offence’ a crime.

The extent to which laws of this nature lend themselves to abuse and the destruction of free speech has been seen in Britain where primary-school children have been hauled before judges (not mere magistrates) for playground insults. One woman in Britain ran afoul of the law for a display of toy pigs in a window which might have offended passing Muslims, if there had been any.

British police recruits have been turned down if they have ‘intimidating’ Union Jack tattoos, even if they are in places where they are normally concealed under clothing (if they get hurt, ambulance workers tending them and cutting away their clothes might be offended by the sudden sight of the red, white and blue).

Servicemen have been banned from wearing uniforms to and from parades and when visiting comrades in hospitals, in case this gives ‘offence’. Crucifixes have been removed from crematoriums for the same reason. The list goes on and on. It is a path Australia should be at pains not to take.

Another Briton got into trouble for ‘offending’ that protected minority, the police, by putting a police constable’s helmet on a garden-gnome.

Turnbull told Andrew Bolt that he supported modest changes to the RDA when he was a cabinet Minister campaigning for the leadership, but has now gone back on this.

Showing the objectivity we have come to expect from Fairfax, Latika Bourke in the Sydney Morning Herald described the campaign for repeal as ‘backing bigot’s rights’.

The same addition of the Herald claimed Liberal politician Eric Abetz had made a ‘racist slur’ – which consisted of calling the conservative American jurist Clarence Thomas a ‘negro’. If this was a slur, it was certainly unintended, and Thomas, whose opinion he was quoting to support an argument of his own, was hardly likely to have heard it anyway, but the Herald’s treatment of the matter goes to show how such things can be used by those with an axe to grind.

Family First Senator Bob Day put forward a sensible compromise – to remove the vague words ‘offend’ and ‘insult’ from the Act but to retain the words ‘humiliate’ and ‘intimidate’ in the definition of offences – words which are at least relatively justiciable.

Despite his previous support of this, Turnbull said in Question Time recently that he would not be reopening the matter, and that ‘the government has no plans to change the Racial Discrimination Act at all’. This is the man who used his forensic skills in favour of freedom of speech and expression in the Spycatcher trial.

The Day amendment is supported by a number of government Senators, and was co-sponsored by Liberal Senators Cory Bernardi and Dean Smith as well as Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm. To have such a significant revolt right at the beginning of his prime ministership would be disastrous for Turnbull and would tar him further with the Rudd-Gillard image of unstable government.

That Turnbull has allowed such a situation to develop unnecessarily – the repeal would have been easy and popular, and would have done something to heal the Party’s wounds – hardly speaks well of his leadership.

Conservatives who might eventually have come to forgive him for knifing Abbott will be less inclined to do so now, and, with the left feeling its oats, any instances of rampant political correctness will further remind them of those wounds. They will remember major historic leaders, like Menzies and Howard, would not have given such notions time of day (If, on top of all the rest, he pushes ahead with the republic, despite the results of the referendum, it might be the last straw for the Federal Liberals).

John Roskam from the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs warned Turnbull to expect further damage to Liberal Party unity if 18C is allowed to stand.

‘Malcolm Turnbull must realise just how significant freedom of speech is to so many people in Australia and to so many in his party,’ he said. ‘He can’t kick fundamental liberties into the long grass without consequences.’