Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: The stated object of the bill is to make amendments to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 to promote religious tolerance. As honourable members would be aware, we have received an enormous volume of petitions and mail on this issue. There is no doubt that immutable changes were brought into this continent upon European settlement in 1788. European settlement signalled the genesis of a phenomenon—migration—that has transformed the economic, social, cultural, religious and ideological landscape of this great southland. Even those who are the traditional owners of this land and those who came to the north of Australia from Indonesia and other islands came as migrants. Our Australian history is coloured by the influx of people from different nations. In the mid 1800s a large number of Chinese and people of other European origins came to Australia in the hope that they would strike it rich through gold. In the post-war era and the Second World War era migrants came primarily from the United Kingdom, the southern areas of Europe and Eastern Europe. Eventually they came from Northern Europe and the great countries of the Mediterranean such as Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia.

The 2001 census revealed that 22 per cent, or one in five, of all Australian residents were born in one of four countries—the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy and Vietnam. A further 26 per cent of people born in Australia had at least one overseas-born parent, making them second-generation Australians. Migrants from around 200 countries have added to, and enriched, this country. We are truly a nation of diverse cultures. We are a polyglot community and we are a multiracial community. One leading aspect of a multicultural society is that the traditions and beliefs held, and customs practised overseas, by individuals within such a society may become more diverse. Christianity was the typical religion among European settlers. The 2001 census showed that close to 70 per cent of Australians adhere to, or affiliate with, Christianity. But it is also clear that affiliates of other religions have increased, primarily due to recent migration. Although the common religious affiliation of immigrants is Christianity, affiliates of other religions are more highly represented among recent immigrants than the total population.

Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and adherents to Judaism constitute approximately 1.9 per cent, 0.5 per cent 1.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent of the Australian population respectively. It is interesting to note that 15 per cent of the Australian population describe themselves as having no religion. One significant aspect of multiculturalism is the recognition that although one is free to hold and practice a religion there must be an accompanying commitment to respect other religions. The Department of Immigration said, “The Government’s multicultural policies operated to ensure an environment where freedom of religion is observed and community harmony is maintained.” In this post September 11 society atrocities committed in the name of religion have become ever more salient in the public eye, a much-needed sense to cultivate intercultural, interracial and interreligious harmony, especially in a nation as diverse as ours, has emerged. In some ways we are living in the shadow of what occurred in the United States of America on September 11—we have not fully recovered.

Collective morale has been eroded and our perceived sense of security has been threatened. Western civilisation, as we know it, has changed dramatically with the events that occurred in New York, Madrid, Moscow, Bali and London in the past few years. The message of fear and mistrust that has permeated many aspects of our lives has led some in our community to wonder whether we are still safe in the presence of other Australians, Australians who have very different beliefs and views to our own. There is the collective apprehension about negotiating life amidst other cultures and followers of minority religions. Calls for the need to be tolerant of other religions in this not-so-safe climate have surfaced. Fear and mistrust have the capacity to engender violence. On an international level, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called for interreligious dialogue and education. In the United Kingdom the House of Lords debated the Racial and Religious Hate Bill at the behest of the United Kingdom Muslim contingency, even though the bill had been thrown out as unworkable prior to the most recent elections in the United Kingdom.

Religious satirist and actor Mr Bean—in other words, Rowan Atkinson—commented at a briefing in the Jubilee Room in the Commons that the subject laws would lead to a chilling of the climate of free expression. We have witnessed debates in our Federal Parliament in Canberra, at some State levels and among the Australian community on how we should negotiate the theme of religious tolerance. For example, on 20 June 2005 debate ensued in the House of Representatives on racial and religious tolerance at the prompting of the Hon. Bruce Baird, the member for Cook. As a foundational aspect of this discussion honourable members may be interested to know that section 116 of the Australian Constitution states:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Some say that this section implicitly endorses a right of freedom of religion, arguably weighing against any action to restrict freedom of religion in any capacity and at any level. Others say that the context and wording of the section pointed to the fact that it is merely a restraint on Commonwealth legislative power. However, it is clear that section 116 applies only to the Federal Government, leaving State parliaments clear scope to introduce legislation that establishes any religion, imposes any religious observance or, importantly, prohibits the free exercise of any religion.

Further, the interplay between church, religion and State is not defined in our State Constitution. This position has led Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria to pass legislation to enforce religious tolerance in the face of much public opposition and disapproval. It is interesting to note that both the Queensland and Victorian Council for Civil Liberties have very vocally opposed such legislation. They have respectively expressed that, although they do not in any way support religious vilification, they believe that the best armoury that society can give itself against authoritarian ideas is freedom of discussion and education, and that legislation is not the appropriate response to the problem of religious vilification.

I would have thought that the Hon. Peter Breen would have noted those various council objections. They can be found in the article “Racial and Religious Tolerance: A Response to the Discussion Paper”, dated March 2001. The intended object of this bill is to enforce religious tolerance, but at the expense of freedom of speech and freedom to exercise religion. Professor of law at the University of Sydney, Patrick Parkinson, put the matter well when he said:

At the heart of the debate about these laws is religious freedom: not the freedom to be intolerant and certainly not the freedom to vilify—neither of these are expressions of religious freedom. Rather, at issue is the freedom to express views about truth and falsehood, right and wrong, good and evil, which may offend others who have a different view on these matters.

The Western Australian Attorney General, the Hon. Jim McGinty, in declining earlier this year to adopt religious tolerance provisions similar to those that are before this House, stated:

The threats to freedom of speech about religious matters and to the established religious organisations in this state would have been greater than any solution provided to other problems.

I also note that the former Premier, the Hon. Bob Carr, who has been quoted at length by my colleague Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile, said that “religious vilification laws can easily be used to curb legitimate social comment and free speech”. The argument of the suspension of religious freedom is a trite but important one. In saying this, I am also mindful of the argument that one must be conscious of the views that one may express at the risk of the expression of those views harming others. However, the central consideration that I urge honourable members to think about is that the whole objective of the Hon. Peter Breen’s legislation is to promote religious tolerance. The thing that this legislation upholds as the ultimate aim is the very thing that has not been accomplished in jurisdictions where it has become law. Experience shows that such laws have promoted intolerance, rather than tolerance, divisiveness, rather than harmony, and tension, rather than peace. Certainly this is true in Victoria.

Wisdom dictates that bad law in one State, say, in Victoria, will not become a good law, say, in New South Wales, if it is proven to be bad law. We must learn from experience. Legislators must weigh the costs and benefits of any law they seek to implement. If, in other jurisdictions, the costs far outweigh any benefits, that is conclusive evidence that the potential law should not be realised. I have received more letters on this issue than on any others from constituents in New South Wales. A law is a bad law when it cannot in any way achieve the objectives that it sets out to achieve. A former prominent supporter of the law that is currently in place in Victoria, Amir Butler, who is the executive director of the Australian Public Affairs Committee, now states:

All these anti-vilification laws have achieved is to provide a legalistic weapon by which religious groups can silence their ideological opponents.

How can this bill be considered to promote religious tolerance when in fact it promotes State-sanctioned censure of religious groups? It has also bred distrust among religions. Many honourable members would be familiar with the seminal Victorian decision on religious vilification, Islamic Council of Victoria v Catch the Fire Ministries. My colleague Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile spoke about this at some length and I will not traverse exactly the same material, nor speak about the two Christian pastors, Danny Nalliah and Danny Scot, whom I have met and with whom I have had discussions. Pastor Scot is a Pakistani who faced a death sentence in Muslim Pakistan for simply being a Christian. He was not only familiar with Muslim countries but had studied the Qur’an extensively in its original languages. Pastor Nalliah also travelled through many Muslim countries and is of Sri Lankan origin. Honourable members may note that the reason the case came before Victorian courts was that a female Muslim convert was encouraged to attend a conference by May Helou, who at that time was employed by the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission. Ms Helou was also involved with the Islamic Council of Victoria as its women’s education officer.

The Muslim converts who attended parts of the seminar by the two pastors did so incognito and later lodged a complaint, claiming that it incited hatred against Muslims in Australia. The Islamic Council of Australia became involved in the case. A conciliation session was held by the Equal Opportunity Commission but was unsuccessful, and the case eventually went to a hearing at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The judgment that was delivered by Judge Higgins is very long and complex and cannot be examined at length, nor in detail. But the errors made in it, as indicated by my colleague Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile in his speech, are salient, to say the least. In summary, the judge found the defendants guilty of vilifying people of the Muslim faith under the racial and religious tolerance law. That case has dragged on now for almost three years. It has cost the defendants more than $1 million. My understanding is that those who raised the case against them have had their court costs paid for by the Victorian Government.

On Friday 19 August 2005 the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria granted the defendants leave to appeal against the decision of Judge Higgins. What were the statements that were made by the pastors that vilified Muslims under the Victorian law? They were simply statements from the Qur’an and other texts referred to by Muslims, such as the Hadith. The crime of which they were found guilty was simply reading verses from the Qur’an to 300 Christians in a church setting. Strangely enough, Pastor Nalliah said:

... during the case when we wanted to simply quote a verse from the Koran in response to questions put to them by the Islamic Council’s legal team, we were stopped [by the Islamic Council’s legal team] on the grounds that [even quoting] the Koran [would] vilify Muslims…

The Hon. Peter Breen: Rubbish!

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: That is not rubbish. It is true. It is in the evidence. I have read it. Mr Breen, you are wrong and you should acknowledge you are wrong. Go back to stage one. Do not pass go.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Patricia Forsythe): Order! I ask Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes to address his comments through the Chair.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I would be pleased to, Madam Deputy-President.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Patricia Forsythe): Order! I ask all members to refrain from interjecting.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: Judge Higgins made many findings of fact. On the basis of those findings, he ruled out that Pastor Scot was not a credible witness. In the view of many close observers of the case, the findings of fact were entirely wrong and unfounded, and will be tested on appeal. To give just one example, His Honour reported Scot as stating that “Muslims are demons”. Such a statement, if it were true, would paint a very poor picture of Scot’s credibility, but Dr Mark Durie, who holds a PhD in linguistics at the Australian National University has stated:

In reality Scot had reported that according to the Qur’an … a group of demons—in Arabic it’s called a “jinn” became Muslim… In fact, Scot said nothing of the sort. If His Honour had not been silent about the fact that Scot was speaking about the Qur’an, public vilification [of Scot] might have been avoided.

Another finding of fact was that Muslims intend to take over Australia and declare it as an Islamic nation. Whether or not this is true is a matter for debate, although I have seen in Muslim publications maps of Australia and Indonesia joined with the words “Islamic nation” printed right across them. Marion Maddox has insinuated that Christians are desirous of the same thing. In her article entitled “God visits the house of the people” in the Australian, she refers to links held by a Christian speaker who spoke at the Great Hall of Parliament in Canberra, that apparently indicate Christians must take over the world through its governments. Most people would see these types of statements as part of public opinion, not as provoking vilification of any kind.

Like Professor Patrick Parkinson, I believe that although legislation defines legality and illegality, legitimacy is something that is completely different. It is the legitimacy of law and not its constitutional legality that matters most for stable and harmonious societies. Like Professor Patrick Parkinson of the University of Sydney’s school of law, I believe that although legislation defines legality and illegality, what we need is legitimacy of law, and not its constitutional legality, and that is what matters most. One of the main problems with this type of legislation is that it is statutorily a construction that is purely subjective. What is meant by the phrases “inciting hatred towards”, “serious contempt for” or “severe ridicule of” is subject to very wide interpretation. That makes for bad legislation.

Consequently, Victoria has seen a spate of spurious claims. One convicted pagan sex offender, Robin Fletcher, took cause with the Salvation Army because a course it offered to Christians made negative statements about witchcraft. In another case, a secretive international society linked to the occult, is using Victoria’s laws to sue a Christian anti-child abuse activist, Dr Reina Michaelson, over Internet claims that the society is a paedophile cult. Dr Michaelson won the Young Australian of the Year Award in 1997 for founding the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program. Clearly those scenarios are a misuse of the court’s time.

In my opinion we must be tolerant of other religions and engender interfaith harmony, but legislation is not the way to do it. Legislation enforces the rightness of particular beliefs and creates divisiveness instead of promoting tolerance, accommodation and acceptance. Education is the answer. Critical examination and assessment of belief systems in general are crucial in an authentic democracy, and cannot simply be done away with by the State. Good and erroneous thoughts should be allowed to circulate. As a parting comment: some have asked whether political vilification, which would certainly encourage acts of violence, will be the next target of the anti-vilification lobby. What would that mean for question time in this House? I believe that the Hon. Peter Breen is sincere, but his approach in this bill is sincerely wrong.

Debate adjourned until 12th October 2005 on motion by Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: In the brief time available to me to speak in this debate I remind members that on the previous occasion when this bill was debated I indicated my opposition to this bill, which was introduced by the Hon. Peter Breen. I have with me a copy of the letter written on 29 September 2005 by the Hon. Peter Breen to Mr Samir Haq Yosofzai of the Nepean’s Arabic Community Language School. The Hon. Peter Breen acknowledges in the letter that he is not familiar with the Koran and stated:

The Reverend Fred Nile in his contribution makes the claim “that the Koran contains the statement that any person who believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God is a corrupt or perverted unbeliever. I am not too familiar with the Koran and I have been unable to locate such a statement.”

The Hon. Peter Breen went on to state, “If you can counter what Mr Nile had to say about the Koran, this would be most helpful.” According to Mr Sameer Habashy, who telephoned the Christian Democratic Party, the Hon. Peter Breen also stated in a telephone conversation with Mr Habashy that he needed all the help that he could get to defeat Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile. [Time expired.]

Thursday, 22nd September, 2005, 3:11 pm | Articles