Will Zimmerman defend free speech now his is threatened?
Liberal MP Tent Zimmerman is a modern NSW LIberal - a machine man of the Left who's refused to fight for free speech.
Will that change now he himself faces a complaint under the Racial Discrimination Act for slurring "ethnics"?
LIBERAL MP Trent Zimmerman will be dragged to the Human Rights Commission by a colleague who accuses him of slurring migrants as “ethnic branch stackers’’ and engaging in “political apartheid’’.
The complaint is under the controversial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which Liberal MPs are pushing to be reviewed, arguing they are an assault on free speech after a string of controversial cases.
The Daily Telegraph has obtained a copy of the complaint lodged by branch delegate Magdi Mikhail that claims Mr Zimmerman discriminated against him during the NSW Liberal Party Council when he warned there was “evidence that different ethnic groups participate in branch stacking’’ and called for reforms to “preclude those groups, such as those from ethnic communities who are responsible for ethnic branch stacking”.
The complaint states Mr Mikhail interjected, saying Mr Zimmerman’s words were “offensive and discriminatory” and asked him to withdraw them but was ruled out of order.
“Intimidated and upset, I sat down and was reduced to silence,’’ he said in the complaint, which accuses Mr Zimmerman of “ethnic profiling’’ of migrant Liberal Party members to suggest they are engaged in “branch stacking’’ and “violence’’.
“I am insulted because as a long-term member of the (Liberal) party the message was clear: The direction being proposed by Mr Zimmerman is to predetermine along racial and religious lines who may be members of the party and who may not,’’ Mr Mikhail, a Coptic Egyptian who moved to Australia in 1988, said in the complaint.