Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

On 15 November, Australians voted overwhelmingly to change the law to allow same-sex couples to marry. It was not so in the electorate of Parramatta. My electorate voted in almost a mirror image of the national vote: 61.1 per cent of those who voted voted no. It's fair to say that on 16 November, the next morning, there were very few people in Parramatta feeling particularly good about the result. My LGBTIQ community was feeling more than a bit bruised about the process as a whole and about the local result, and some were wondering aloud with me if they should have reached out more to the broader community. The 'yes' voters were a bit shocked by the strength of the 'no' vote and the 'no' voters had lost the national vote and were feeling more than a little shocked themselves. No-one was feeling very good on 16 November in Parramatta, in spite of the fact that, for many LGBTIQ people all around the country and their families, this was a momentous day. To make matters worse, the media and the commentators seemed to think they had a right to make all sorts of assumptions about my community and who voted how and why and to lay the blame with various groups, without really understanding just how complex we are in Western Sydney. There isn't one community there; there are many. They really weren't great days and, for me, I felt quite depressed at the split in my community and that so many people were feeling that their views were no longer the majority view.

But we are a diverse community in Parramatta and we're a great one, and we get along and have done for decades. We are a success story and I want to talk directly to my extraordinary community tonight. To the LGBTIQ community and their friends, I am so pleased for you. I know it's been a really long journey for many of you. I know many of you remember the days when your love was illegal and I know that the last few months have dredged up some awful memories for some of you. What the parliament does this week will not remove all discrimination, but it's a huge step. I wish you well, and I wish for a wedding boom in Parramatta and I know we'll have one!

But my character at the moment, unfortunately for you guys, is to want to spend time with the people who are hurting the most. So I want to spend quite a bit of time tonight speaking to those who voted no and who have been rocked by the national result. Those of you in the LGBTIQ community know what it is to be a minority and to feel undervalued, but many people in my community are feeling that for the first time and it doesn't serve any of us well to leave those people behind. We have a job now to pull together and find a place for all of us in our community.

I have met and talked with many people in my community about this over several years. In fact, I've opened my office on several weekends in a row and had queues of people all day on Saturday coming in specifically to talk to me about this issue. So I am well aware of how my community feels about this and how split they are across the community. I went out before the last election and told my community that I would vote yes. I told them that because I wanted to give them the opportunity to take that into account in deciding whether to vote for me. As promised, I am going to vote yes tomorrow. I know for many of you that will be more than disappointing. I know that many of you have a profound religious belief that marriage is an institution and that it can only be between a man and a woman. But there are others whose reasons were different. I met some who voted no because they were tired of the debate and they'd had enough—they just voted no. There were others for whom the idea was a little alien to their world experience, but they're okay with the national result, even though they voted no personally. But, from my perspective, something unpleasant happened in my community during the postal survey process. It's as if the whole process turned this into a matter of winners and losers. I wouldn't be a member of parliament if I didn't believe that in most cases we can find space for reasonable people of good faith to live alongside each other on their own terms. That is our task now.

For those who are most concerned about religious freedom, I said before the election that I would vote yes. But I also said that I would not vote yes if I believed religious freedom would be harmed. I still hold this position. But from hours of asking advice, of talking to experts, of reading and of talking to religious leaders in my community, I am absolutely convinced that such freedoms are not at risk. I would very much like to explain why I believe that, in an attempt to take some in my community from the position that they now hold, of fearing the future, to a place that I consider to be a more realistic view of what the future holds. I know that people are concerned and worried and, in some cases, afraid of what the future holds. But we didn't go through this whole process—a process hurtful to many—over recent years and months to replace one group of people who felt left out, the LGBTI community, with another one, a group of people of strong religious faith who feel, either rightly or wrongly, that their right to practise the most important thing in their life is under threat. If this whole thing—the whole survey and this bill—is about respecting who people are, then we must respect all. It is now our job, as members of this place and community representatives, to walk away from the winner and loser situation and find a place for all. The 'no' voters in electorates that had majority votes are no less important than the 'no' voters in mine. We must now work through the issues of concern and either demonstrate that the fears are unfounded, and that religious freedom is protected, or respond to deficiencies in the law and find security for those of strong religious belief and a right to live without discrimination on the basis of sexuality or on the basis of religious belief.

I don't foresee the problems in terms of religious freedoms that many see. I believe our religious freedoms are protected and I believe this bill actually strengthens those protections. I believe we've been doing it for decades. Definitions of marriage are already different between church and state. In many cases there are religious groups that don't believe in contraception, divorce or living together before marriage, and we all coexist successfully and will continue to do so. The freedoms that now allow churches to define marriage on their own terms in a way that is different from secular law will continue to exist. I know that there are people in my community who are profoundly wounded, and we must work through these issues. We can't leave people behind on this.

I'm going to talk about three issues: the right of churches and religious organisations to define marriage on their terms; the right of religious organisations, particularly religious schools, to teach their view of marriage; and the protection of charities from loss of DGR status. Then I will talk about where we go from here—in particular, the review of religious freedom that's going to be chaired by the Hon. Philip Ruddock and what process we can go through in my own electorate to look at key areas of concern and work out together whether there actually is something to be afraid of here.

In terms of the law, religious freedom has two faces: the right to hold a view and the right to express, or manifest, a view. The first one is universal; you can hold a view. In dictatorial countries you can't hold a view—you get killed for that—but in Australia you can. But when the manifestation of that view bumps up against another citizen, that is where antidiscrimination law cuts in. There are very real exemptions for religious organisations and schools, but if you are a layman, a motel owner, for example, who holds a religious view that people should not live together before marriage, you cannot refuse to rent a room to an unmarried couple on religious grounds. That would bump up against antidiscrimination law. You can hold the view, you can express it as part of public debate, you can argue against laws—the Fair Work Act protects you from being sacked for holding that view as a layman—but you can't discriminate as a layman.

But the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, which defines all those rules, provides religious exemptions in the act that already cover churches, religious organisations and religious schools. Section 37 already allows churches and religious organisations to employ, train or:

… any other act or practice of a body established for religious purposes, being an act or practice that conforms to the doctrines, …

Churches can define what marriage is to them now—whether it's between a man and a woman, whether it's for life with no divorce, whether it's only people of the church's faith—because the law allows them to do that, and nothing in this bill will do anything other than strengthen that.

There was a case recently of a church that cancelled the wedding of a couple because the bride supported marriage equality, and the church believed that showed that she didn't have an understanding of the true meaning of marriage. That's fine; that's the church's business. It's entirely the church's business, and most of us in this place would stand up here and fight for the right for the church to make that judgement. That is a matter for the church to define marriage in their terms. They do it now, and there is nothing in this bill that will change it. In fact, the Dean Smith bill strengthens that. It provides protection for ministers of religion in explicit and extensive terms; there is specific additional strengthening of those protections. It also provides protections for civil celebrants who have a religious belief. It allows a new category of marriage celebrant called a 'religious marriage celebrant'. It also provides further protection for religious bodies, including that a body established for religious purposes—which, by the way, includes schools—may refuse to make a facility available or to provide goods or services for the purposes of the solemnisation of a marriage et cetera or for purposes reasonably incidental to the solemnisation of a marriage et cetera. So it strengthens—it strengthens!—the current protection.

When it comes to religious schools, they can teach according to the beliefs of their church now. They'll still be able to do so after this amendment to the Marriage Act has passed. Schools can discriminate in employment practices now. Section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act specifically gives an exemption to religious schools. When it comes to the curriculum, there is no requirement for any particular curriculum in religious schools. That's a matter entirely for the school. State and federal governments and education departments do not define what is taught in religious schools, and the changes to the Marriage Act will not change that. It will have no impact on what children are taught in religious schools. I'm just going to say that again, because I know a lot of people in my community have heard the stories that are circulating that somehow this is going to change everything when it comes to schools: the passage of this legislation will not in any way prevent schools from establishing for religious purposes or from being able to teach according to their doctrine. Neither this bill nor any other existing Australian law requires any religious organisations to express or associate with or endorse a statement or opinion about marriage that is inconsistent with its doctrines, tenets or beliefs. In state schools, the minister for education has stated categorically that this change will have no impact on curriculum in state schools.

I know there is also a concern about charities, and there has been a fear campaign running out there that charities would lose their DGR tax deductable status if they expressed a view on marriage equality that is different from the definition of marriage included in this bill. I just want to say this: Senator Dean Smith is way ahead of you this on—not you, Deputy Speaker Claydon; those who believe that's a problem. He's written directly to both the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. In their responses, the respective commissioners confirmed that the amendments to the Marriage Act proposed in this bill will not affect a charity's charitable status or DGR status under Australian law. I've seen copies of those letters. The capacity for charities to engage in advocacy without endangering their charitable status was also confirmed in the High Court in the Aid/Watch decision. And if you think about it, there were charities that were advocating to retain the current Marriage Act, so they were already lobbying and working in various ways, and that was not a problem. Labor does not believe that anything in this bill makes it unlawful for people to hold and express their traditional views on marriage. People in organisations who continue to hold traditional views consistent with their religious convictions will not be discriminated against as a result of this bill.

The government has established an expert panel to conduct a review of legal protections for religious freedom in Australia, partly in response to the concern in the community, and I and Labor take that review very seriously. The panel will be chaired by Philip Ruddock and will include Australian Human Rights Commission President Rosalind Croucher, retired Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett and Jesuit priest Frank Brennan. Labor welcomes the establishment of the expert panel and looks forward to engaging with the review as it completes its important work.

For those in my electorate, I will be in contact with you again very shortly to explain how you can participate in that review. If you have things you want to say, things you want to add or questions to ask, we will make sure that you have every opportunity to do that. I'll also be organising forums with experts in discrimination law, religious freedom law and education to work through the specifics of concerns that people in my community have.

I want to reassure people out there who are worried that I'm not just leaving you out there. It doesn't serve anyone well when we have a section of our community that feels left out, ignored or undervalued because of their beliefs. I will work incredibly hard with you to make sure that your concerns, whatever they are, are addressed, either by finding out that they're not a problem or by working with the review to protect the freedoms that they value so greatly.

For many in my community, the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017 is a wonderful bill. Again, for those in the LGBTI community, congratulations. We will vote tomorrow. It's extremely likely that something you've worked on for decades and decades will finally come to fruition. Break out the champagne. This is your night. You've earned it; you've worked so hard. Congratulations.

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