Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

He didn't win. The reality is that the complainant eventually withdrew the complaint—after huge costs were incurred in the process. In evidence to the Human Rights Subcommittee inquiry into freedom of religion in Australia, Professor George Williams pointed out that there is nothing in the Commonwealth laws, nothing in the federal laws of this country, that precludes someone such as Archbishop Porteous from being hauled before the tribunal. And that's the mischief that this particular amendment seeks to address.

The United Nations, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, set out as a fundamental freedom that of religion, conscience and belief. More than that, the United Nations bodies, and international jurisprudence in this respect, has always maintained that there is no hierarchy of rights—that universal human rights are equal and you can't rank one above the other, and, if necessary, you need to work out how you can respect all human rights, particularly those that are in tension with each other. But the problem here is that Australia, even though it is one of the countries that sought the universal declaration and has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has effectively incorporated into domestic law article 26, relating to discrimination, but we've not incorporated into the domestic law of Australia article 18—and some other articles for that matter—relating to freedom of religion, conscience and belief. (Time expired)

See this speech in context