Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about freedom. Yesterday's submissions to the Ruddock religious freedom review closed and today I want to re-affirm the Queensland Liberal National Party's commitment to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and freedom of association as core building blocks of a robust and fair Australian society.

The Labor Party demonstrated that they do not trust the Australian people with free speech, free expression and free association, by voting against reasonable human rights protections in this chamber during debate on the same-sex marriage bill, passed in December last year. They believe big government intervention is the solution to everything, whereas we, the coalition, do not believe expanding government into every area of people's lives is the answer. We believe government's job is to serve, not control, the Australian people. All Australians have the right to pursue a life they have reason to value. Living in accordance with your conscience is not only for a lucky few identify groups. Labor believes government by an elite group, denying even their own MPs a conscience vote, is superior to a smaller government for, by and of the people. We live in a magnificent country blessed with freedom. I don't know what the Ruddock review will recommend, but the question people in my electorate want to know is: will Labor and some of the Greens and the crossbench stand for liberty and support religious protections as I have outlined now in the future? (Time expired)

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