Anti-white racial slurs in Australia

Paige Taylor:

AN Aboriginal girl who kicked a woman and called her a "white slut" did not engage in racial vilification because the slur was common street language.

A magistrate from the West Australian goldfields threw out a landmark race-hate charge yesterday against the 16-year-old, saying the slur against Kalgoorlie woman Melissa Blackney was "the patois of the street".

Magistrate Kate Auty sentenced the girl to four months of intensive supervision, including 60 hours of community service, for kicking Ms Blackney during the April attack.

In a 90-minute address to the Kalgoorlie Children's Court, Dr Auty noted yesterday that the girl swore at least once during her recorded police video when she referred to a footpath as "that f..king thing there". "(F..k) is a fairly innocuous word in her argot," Dr Auty said.

The girl was 15 when in May she became the first person in the state to be charged under tough racial vilification laws brought in after white supremacists terrorised Perth with a racist poster and graffiti campaign.

Dr Auty found that the girl's one-off slur in a heated confrontation did not constitute "serious, substantial or severe" racial harassment as legally defined.

McGinty backs race case dismissmal