Sunol seems genuinely upset when asked why he has not taken down the video, claiming he has done so and it has been reposted by third parties.
To understand the genesis of all this legal activity, it is necessary to step back to 1988, to Bondi’s Marks Park, one of the venues for an epidemic of gay-hate crimes across Sydney. Burns says three youths dragged him towards the cliffs and almost murdered him. This and other gay-hate crimes have left him with post-traumatic shock disorder.
“When you believe you’re going to be thrown over the clifftop to your death, and you piss your pants, and you manage to get away, what it does is it puts you in a direction you didn’t think you’d necessarily be in,” Burns says.
“That direction was that I have to do something to ensure hatred and vilification are not part of the Australian psyche.”
Burns says all his litigation is in the public interest, and he has not received a cent, other than $35 in “conduct money” from Radio 2UE. Any money from his targets has been paid to charity, he says.
Institute of Public Affairs director of policy Simon Breheny says the threshold for anti-discrimination action has been set far too low.
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman last week announced a new law that will impose a jail term of up to three years on those who threaten or incite violence against others based on their sexuality, race or religion.
Breheny says this should be the bar set for anti-discrimination laws. “Lifting the threshold substantially to the level of a crime and allowing the police to investigate would be a good resolution as it would virtually eliminate the problem of serial complainants,” he says.
He argues no-cost legal regimes should be abolished. They “encourage the initiation of frivolous legal disputes”, he says, because there is little downside and a potentially significant upside. There is always a cost; it is just that it is to the taxpayer, he adds.
Gaynor feeds his large family by writing a blog espousing his conservative Catholic values. Readers donate to the cause.
His views are provocative, but a tribunal has yet to rule on whether anything he has said constitutes vilification. To do so, it would have to find his comments could incite or encourage hatred, serious contempt or severe ridicule towards a person on the basis of certain characteristics. Gaynor says it is lawful in Australia to say you do not support same-sex marriage, but not to say why. Anyone who tries to explain their reasons is vulnerable to legal action by the “thought police”.
He is supportive of the new NSW laws that criminalise incitement to violence but says the grounds on which the incitement is made should be irrelevant. “Whether you incite violence because someone loves cats or for some other reason, it shouldn’t matter,” he says.
Gaynor says Burns has bombarded him and his solicitor with menacing emails and has sent vulgar statements about Gaynor to the Attorney-General. But he says he cannot complain because he is white, male and Catholic.
In April, Burns had a major setback when the High Court ruled NCAT had no jurisdiction to resolve disputes between interstate residents. It threw out Burns’s complaints against Brisbane-based Gaynor, and Tess Corbett, a former Katter’s Australia Party candidate from Victoria.
Corbett had told a newspaper in 2013 she did not want “gays, lesbians or pedophiles” in her kindergarten and said pedophiles would be next to get rights after gays. Gaynor tweeted: “I wouldn’t let a gay person teach my children.” Both had been held to account already — by receiving public criticism and a poor showing at the ballot box.
But the High Court decision has not ended the matter. The NSW government passed legislation giving the local court powers to resolve NCAT disputes between interstate residents, because of concerns the High Court ruling would have affected landlords and tenants.
Burns’s targets Laws, Kennett and Mills managed to settle their disputes with him — although in Laws’s case, only after he had a tribunal loss. In Mills’s case, Burns had complained about an Instagram image Mills re-posted after the 2014 AFL grand final, of a Hawthorn Hawks figurine standing against a bent-over Sydney Swans character. Burns said that by publishing the “pernicious image”, Mills had “publicly ridiculed homosexual men and portrayed them as being sick, perverted and dirty”.
Mills says he was shocked by the complaint because he is outspoken in championing LGBTI rights and it was a “silly retweet”.
He says the complaint process was “pretty stressful” for a few months, but he resolved it with legal advice from a friend, and by writing a letter of apology to Burns.
Nevertheless, he thinks there must be “a better way” to resolve such issues, because of the money and time wasted.
Video: The Great Boylover 666 Garry Burns vs Sasha Baron Cohen aka "Bruno" and yes they settled and paid him $$$
