'More free speech needed'

Australia's new human rights commissioner argues free speech has been pushed aside in favour of laws designed to stop people being offensive to each other.

The appointment of Tim Wilson, from the conservative think tank Institute of Public Affairs, is a deliberate move by the Abbott government to bring balance to the debate over individual liberty.

Attorney-General George Brandis, in making the appointment, described Mr Wilson as one of Australia's most prominent public advocates of the rights of the individual.

Mr Wilson says Australia's most fundamental human rights have been diluted over decades.

'Increasingly free speech has been pushed aside in favour of laws and regulations designed to stop people being offensive to each other,' he wrote in The Australian on Wednesday.

Mr Wilson blamed a steadily expanding corpus of anti-discrimination and defamation law, and the growing momentum towards restrictions on speech online.

As freedom commissioner he plans to reorient the human rights debate towards liberal democratic values and the philosophy of individual freedom.

Central to his plans will be to support a repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, used to successfully prosecute controversial conservative commentator Andrew Bolt.

'It is an unjustifiable limitation on free expression,' Mr Wilson said.

'The best way to undermine offensive or hateful language is not to shut it down, it is to challenge it, expose it for its flaws.'

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'More free speech needed'