Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

The government does not support this set of amendments and the proposal to include within the bill a prohibition on religious vilification. I want to make it absolutely clear that the government does not condone vilification or hate speech and recognises the harmful effects that hate speech directed at people of faith can have on those individuals and their communities, but the fact is that any vilification provisions, such as these, are complex and require careful consideration in order to appropriately balance competing rights.

These proposed provisions would create further inconsistency across Commonwealth, state and territory laws. Their drafting is inconsistent with all existing civil prohibitions on vilification in state and territory laws. The proposed amendments cover a much lower standard of conduct than existing state and territory laws. They set a lower bar. Existing state and territory laws prohibit incitement to hatred and serious contempt for or severe ridicule of people on the basis of their religion. In addition, under the existing laws conduct that incites violence or threatens a person because of that person's religious belief or activity is a criminal standard, and it is not appropriate to be contained within a civil provision. The prohibition will also create internal inconsistencies and confusion within the bill.

In addition, the introduction of this prohibition would have the consequence of providing greater protection under Commonwealth law for religion than for other attributes such as sex, sexual orientation, age or disability. Prohibiting certain speech relating to religion presents unique and difficult problems for reconciling competing rights in a free society where beliefs and ideas of any kind should be able to be debated and criticised. It is important to ensure that any antivilification provision does not unnecessarily fetter legitimate forms of expression and does not operate in effect as a prohibition upon blasphemy. So, for those reasons, the government will not be supporting this set of amendments.

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