Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll be very brief in my comments. It is a good opportunity, after all, to set down a consistent standard upon which to assess amendments that will be moved through the course of today. And I think it's entirely fair, when I'll be objecting to other ill-considered amendments which I have characterised as symbolic posturing, that I equally object strongly to these amendments. Can I make the very significant point that all of these Greens amendments are contrary to the Senate committee report which the Greens' own representative on that committee agreed to. The member conceded that the Senate committee process involved a compromise. Well, this bill is a compromise. This is the reality that we're dealing with, and most outcomes involve a compromise.

I want to draw out one of the compromises that I think will be a topic of conversation today. It is around the protections for organisations and bodies established for a religious purpose. What the Greens are proposing by way of their amendments is that a church cake stall or a church bookshop would have the same treatment as a commercial business. That proposition does not have broad community support. I have often wondered about the preoccupation on both sides of this debate with these mythical bakers and cake makers. Australia is not America. The search for fictitious homophobic bakers in Australia continues unfulfilled! Let's be honest here. For a case like that to arise in Australia it would require a gay couple who care more about activism than about the success of their own wedding to find a business operator who cares more about religious doctrine then the commercial success of their own small business and for both of them to commit to having a fight. Typical Australians would genuinely question the bona fides of the players in a case like that, and the slim prospect of that occurring doesn't warrant the pages and pages of commentary and debate that have been dedicated to it.

But this Greens amendment would actually significantly increase the prospects of that horror situation arising because we would be widening the net to include bodies who legitimately do put religious doctrine ahead of commercial business success. It would allow somebody genuinely looking for a fight to go knocking on the doors of some churchgoers organising fundraisers or bodies established for religious purposes, not business purposes. That's why I'll be opposing these amendments. It's important that we stay true here today to the compromise, the good balance, struck in this bill. It's a good bill. It's a strong bill. Let's get it done here today without going back to the Senate.

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