Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Religious freedom is something that is important to many Australians, including myself. Freedom from discrimination in any form is important to us all. It is what we expect, but unfortunately discrimination still persists angrily throughout our community. It is difficult to underestimate the harm that religious intolerance and sectarian division can cause. In my mother's house there is an old upright piano. The piano was a gift from my great uncle Pip to my father. Our family story goes that Uncle Pip bought the piano for us as a token of his regret and deep sadness that my father's father had been disinherited and disconnected from his family and its modest English wealth because he—my grandfather George Harvie Morris—married my grandmother Ellen Higgins. Ellen Higgins was a Roman Catholic, and she was Irish. Ellen's decision to marry an Englishman caused her to pay a price, and she barely saw her Irish family ever again. So my dad and his sister grew up English Catholics, disconnected from both their Irish and English families, with only their faith to bind them together.

I married a Protestant, but, thankfully, times have moved on. We have become more tolerant, and I was able to marry Jamie in the Catholic chapel not far from my mum's home, where that piano still stands. The remarkable thing is that sectarian divisions between Catholics and Protestants exist within our living memory. This is a multigenerational, deeply historical conflict between parts of the same religion of Christianity. This conflict caused long-lasting prejudice and discrimination based on faith.

My community of Brand in Western Australia is host to a number of religious communities, including the Hindu temple in Mandogalup; the longstanding Catholic community, including the convents of the Sisters of St John of God in Shoalwater, down the road from my home, and the Sisters of St Joseph in Safety Bay, where I was married; a strong, growing Filipino Catholic community in Rockingham; as well as Baptists, Anglicans, evangelicals, Pentecostals, the Salvation Army, Sikhs, Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and, of course, those with no faith at all. I pay tribute to those communities of faith and the work they do to support each other in the wider community in accordance with their doctrine and practice.

Freedoms of religion have been hard fought and hard won, and it's worth us reflecting on the much longer context of the free practice of faith and the persecution of those who are different. Labor believes all Australians have the right to live their lives free of discrimination. We believe that religious organisations and people of faith have the right to act in accordance with the doctrines, beliefs or teachings of their traditions and faith. We don't want to see anyone treated unfairly, whether it's because of their gender, disability, sexuality, age or marital status or because they are pregnant, and we do not believe anyone should be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.

Questions of religious freedoms were behind the Crusades, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Huguenot refugees fleeing France for Britain and the pogroms and persecutions which changed the course of history. The practice of religion led to the Hundred Years War, which itself ended with the Westphalian settlement, often marked as the creation of the idea of the modern nation-state. Persons of faith seeking to practise their faith without persecution led to British colonies in America and the creation of modern Israel. Religion still divides Ireland. And that's just Europe. We still see in the news, with some regularity, tensions around religion in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. We are not the first, nor will we be the last, to debate the boundaries we draw around freedoms that we all support—not by a long shot.

But here we are today as representatives of our community, attempting to articulate a national position that balances the freedoms those of faith should enjoy to practise their faith with the freedom and rights of other groups, including vulnerable and marginalised groups and individuals. We are fortunate in Australia that we did not inherit from Britain a state church. Indeed, our Constitution prohibits the Commonwealth enforcing any religion on its citizens. This has long been read as an implied right to freedom of religion in Australia, however vague. It has been interesting to note the nuanced and textured response of different faith groups to this bill. Some have welcomed it. Some have criticised it. Some mainstream Christian denominations and other faith groups have opposed it entirely. The fact is that conscious freedoms like freedom of religion exist to protect individuals, particularly those at greater risk of persecution from the tyranny of the majority. We must bear that in mind as we consider the question before the House today.

The Prime Minister was meant to do this years ago. He said he'd consult widely with lawmakers and faith communities and that he wanted this process and outcome to be bipartisan. That would have been a great idea if he had actually done it. He has had 3½ years as Prime Minister, and he's left it to the last dying days of this government and this parliament. People would be forgiven for thinking that the timing is deliberate, a cynical attempt at striking a blow in the culture wars on the eve of an election. Some may wonder if the Prime Minister is exercising good faith by this timing. I think this behaviour is emblematic of the entire government's behaviour.

We've already seen the Prime Minister late to the party in so many ways over the last term of government. He promised a federal integrity commission, which he's failed to deliver. He failed to deliver vaccinations in an orderly and timely manner for Australians. He had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to support workers during the height of lockdowns in 2020, and even this summer he dragged his heels in responding to the challenges that omicron presented. It is still hard to get rapid antigen tests and N95 masks. In relation to rapid antigen tests, he actually made the problem worse by competing with pharmacies in bulk-purchasing the same imports. And people of all faiths struggle to find paracetamol on supermarket shelves. As they worry about when they can get their kids vaccinated and whether they should visit their elderly grandparents without access to a rapid antigen test, they may be wondering why the government is focused on religious discrimination this week of all weeks.

Instead of coming into this parliament, on one of the three sitting weeks before the election, to address the serious challenges we are facing in the midst of the global pandemic, the Prime Minister has brought up this bill again for debate because he didn't do his homework on time. At a time when Australians want leadership and unity from their government, we have a Prime Minister who is using his final weeks in this parliament on the government benches to play the politics of division, pitting faith groups against each other, putting the people of Australia that suffer discrimination in competing positions. He is sewing hatred and fear, making children's ability to live without persecution the political issue of the week, or perhaps the issue of the election. And to achieve what—to sandbag some seats? The Prime Minister has taken the Prayer of St Francis and reversed it. Where there was joy he is sowing sadness, and where there was hope he is sowing despair. I strongly support religious freedom, but this bill, and everything that's gone with it, is a wasted opportunity from a tired, desperate and angry government that has given up on actually governing.

To conclude, I want to confirm that I support the amendments Labor is moving in the House. I hope they are supported so that freedom from religious discrimination does not cause greater discrimination to other vulnerable people in this country. I thank the House.

See this speech in context