Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] When my brother and his fairly new wife walked into a bank to conduct some bank business, their bank assets were frozen. They weren't allowed access to their bank accounts. My brother's wife wears a traditional Islamic hijab, or head covering. My brother had gone in with his forms of identification—a passport and a driver's licence. Their bank assets were frozen, and the police were called. The police proceeded to come to the bank and pull them aside for questioning. Utterly confused, they asked what the purpose of the police questioning was. The response was that the bank teller had looked at my brother's wife—my sister-in-law—had looked at my brother and had made an assumption based on their names and based on their religious dress. It took them 24 hours to have their bank accounts unfrozen, after going through an hour of rigorous questioning by the police.

It was almost 20 years ago that that happened to my brother and my sister-in-law. At the time, I advised them that they should probably make a complaint, knowing full well that that would not yield anything for them, because religious discrimination—the kind of discrimination that they had faced, walking into the bank that day—was not covered by federal law. So suffice it to say that I think this law has been a long time coming. The kinds of protections for people of faith that would have prevented the experience that my brother and my sister-in-law went through have been needed for some time. One might argue that that was at a particular time in Australian history, a time after the 9/11 attacks, where there was heightened sensitivity and heightened wariness of people of Islamic faith. But we know that this kind of discrimination still exists. We know that Muslim women who wear the hijab are subjected to vilification, discrimination and Islamophobia almost every day of their lives, in public, in the workplace, in the media.

So I come to this bill with an understanding, personally, through my own experiences of discrimination, my own experiences of vilification and the experiences of my family, and through the journey of over 25 years of trying to have the law changed to recognise religious discrimination. I come to this bill with that experience behind me and with the experience of speaking to many members of Muslim communities and other faith groups about their experiences of religious discrimination.

I also come to this bill as someone who has been a beneficiary of religious pluralism in this country. Religious pluralism is not written into our Constitution, but it certainly underpins section 116 of our Constitution. I started my schooling in a Catholic school and I finished my schooling in an Anglican school, all the while being Muslim. I sent my children to Muslim schools so they could have a sense of their faith and their identity. When the floods hit Brisbane in 1974, where my family was living, it was the local church groups that reached out and embraced us.

Since becoming the member for Cowan, I've had the absolute privilege of being embraced by many more religious groups. I have worshipped with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my electorate. I have attended Baha'i events. I have been to temples, to synagogues and to mandalas and have had the absolute privilege of observing firsthand the richness of religious pluralism in this nation. I can certainly say that I have been a beneficiary of that religious pluralism and of religious freedom.

In all of my interactions with people of faith, the one thing that shines through to me is that people of faith know that if you are spreading hate, if you are attacking minorities, if you are discriminating then you are not doing God's work, regardless of what your faith is. They know that the tenets of faith are essentially about love for each other. That has been something that has truly come through in all my experiences with all of the faith groups that I have interacted with and, indeed, as a child at a Catholic school and at a Christian school, where I would practise my faith, where I would fast during Ramadan, attend Friday prayers when I could, and celebrate Eid-ul-Adha and Eid-ul-Fitr every year.

I guess the principle here is one of equality and understanding that equality is not a finite resource. It can't be a finite resource. If we want equality for ourselves, we must be prepared to extend equality to all others, because equality doesn't work if it's just for you. It's like having two children but only loving one of them. You just can't do that. So it is important that this bill be underpinned by the fundamental principle that all people are worthy of equality, all people are worthy of protection, all people are worthy of freedom and all people are worthy of respect.

I certainly do not claim that that's an easy thing to do. After 30 years of trying to fight for religious vilification laws, I know that that's not an easy thing to do. In fact, I see the member for Goldstein sitting there. I'll remind the member for Goldstein that, after the debate on section 18C, when I raised the issue of religious discrimination, he promptly accused me of wanting blasphemy laws, which led to quite a flurry of death threats that I had to fight against and am still dealing with to this day. I find it quite ironic that the member for Goldstein and I are here in this chamber today debating the very issue that I raised five years ago and that was promptly knocked back.

As I was saying, it is a very delicate balance that we seek to achieve when we seek to ensure that all rights are worthy of pursuing and pursuing with vigour; that all people are treated equally; and that all people should be free from discrimination, and deserve to be free from discrimination, and deserve protection.

I see that the member for Leichhardt earlier mentioned that this bill is not perfect. He's right. This bill is not perfect. I would hazard a guess that it would be nigh impossible to come to a perfect bill. But I do believe that the amendments that Labor has put forward significantly address the shortcomings in the bill as it exists. They significantly address those shortcomings because they do, to a large extent, find that balance. In particular, Labor's amendment to install an antivilification clause in the bill will go a long way to giving people of faith the kinds of protections that they need against offensive, humiliating vilification from members of the public in all parts of their lives—in public life, in work, and in other areas. So I commend that particular amendment to the House.

I also commend the work that has been done by the committee members on both sides and by Labor in improving this bill so that it does those things, so that it does protect our most vulnerable, our LGBTIQ community and children, as well as extending that protection to people of faith, who are most likely to be vilified and discriminated against with the kinds of discrimination that actually do have lasting impacts on one's wellbeing.

In closing, as many members on both sides have said and iterated before me, we do support religious freedom. I support religious freedom. I certainly support it because, as I mentioned earlier, I come from a minority religious background, and I have had the privilege of being exposed to the kind of religious freedom in this country that I probably wouldn't have had in many other countries. I support religious freedom, but I want a bill that is actually going to offer protections for people of faith, while also ensuring that LGBTIQ children, adults and all people are protected.

We are mature enough as a society to come to that conclusion. We are mature enough as a society to be the kind of nation where all people have access to equality and protection and live free from discrimination. But that starts right here in this place. To my mind, the amendments that Labor has put forward are a really great outcome for such a complex issue of balancing rights and protections for all people. I commend Labor's amendments to the House, and I urge the House to consider that those amendments improve this bill. They don't undermine the bill. They don't undermine the intent of the bill. Indeed, they uphold the intent of the bill, and they extend the provisions of the bill so that it does have a real impact and a real effect on people of faith, whilst also protecting LGBTIQ people, young people, children and adults.

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