Maverick conservative senator Cory Bernardi will reintroduce legislation to water down section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act when Parliament returns at the end of August and has called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to honour previous support for the changes.
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Senator Bernardi said the bill would be the same as one previously introduced but never voted on, which sought to remove the words "offend" and "insult" from the section rather than completely repeal it.
"In the first week back in Parliament, I'll be reintroducing the same bill with the expectation that this Parliament will finally get a vote and expose very clearly who among your elected representatives is interested in protecting our freedoms and way of life," he wrote on his blog.
According to the outspoken backbencher, section 18C is "used as a tool to stifle speech on the basis it may offend or insult someone - not necessarily the person complaining" and is a "pervasive" step towards Newspeak, the totalitarian language of George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four.
As it stands, the section makes it illegal to "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people" on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Section 18D does provide broad exemptions for "any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose", as long as it is done "reasonably and in good faith".
Famously used to prosecute conservative columnist Andrew Bolt, 18C remains a much maligned part of the law for free speech advocates inside and outside the Coalition.
In an interview with Bolt on Sky News on Wednesday night, Senator Bernardi said he was encouraged by the immediate response to his announcement from backbenchers and crossbenchers.
"I'm going to hold the Prime Minister to what he said, that he backed this very modest change [to] remove 'insult' and 'offend' from 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act," he said.
"It should be led from the front. If the Prime Minister means what he said, then actions speak much, much louder than words."
Senator Bernardi said that if Mr Turnbull made deals with Liberal conservatives on 18C to receive their support for him to take the leadership, then they should be respected.
On Monday, libertarian senator David Leyonhjelm referred a column by Fairfax Media journalist Mark Kenny to the Human Rights Commission as an RDA "test case" because it referred to him as an "angry white male".
Senator Leyonhjelm is not the only staunch crossbench critic of the measure. Bob Day has previously sought to legislate against it, the four One Nation senators are opposed and newly elected Derryn Hinch recently said he "1000 per cent" wanted to scrap it.
Liberal MPs James Paterson and Anne Ruston also expressed support for change in recent days.
However, an alliance of Labor, the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team - constituting the 38 seats needed to block legislation in the 76-seat Senate - opposes any moves to change 18C.
Senator Day's legislation - introduced last year but never reaching a vote - was co-sponsored by Senator Bernardi, Senator Leyonhjelm and Liberal backbench senator Dean Smith.
In May last year, as communications minister, Mr Turnbull said he was "very comfortable" with the proposal and expressed confidence it would eventually receive required support in Parliament.
The bill was intended as a compromise following the Abbott government's retreat from its 2013 election promise to abolish the laws.
Following a divisive debate - in which Attorney-General George Brandis notoriously observed "people do have a right to be bigots" - the former prime minister withdrew the legislation in 2014 to preserve "national unity" as the government pursued counter-terrorism legislation.
