Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I really want to implore the government: consider your position on this. I start with the words that were given by the Prime Minister when this bill was introduced, where he implied to the House that the antivilification protection was already in the bill. If it was important enough to be put in the speech, it's important enough to be put in the bill. The Prime Minister said this: 'the bill draws a clear line against harassment, vilification or intimidation of anyone.' No, it doesn't! And it should. Those words the Prime Minister said are right, because, let's face it: while a lot of the lobbying that happens in terms of religious discrimination happens in terms of the religious organisations, the lived experience of prejudice happens when people are abused on the street; the lived experience of prejudice happens when people are threatened, intimidated, harassed and vilified.

When I was here in my first term, which was before the Prime Minister arrived here, there was a riot in his electorate, largely about people who live in my electorate, and some of it was race based and a lot of it was faith based, and all of it was wrong—all of it was wrong. Yet, if a woman in Lakemba or Punchbowl is walking down the stairs at the station and is threatened, intimidated, harassed or vilified, because they say, 'You're Lebanese,' she has legal protection, but if it's because they say, 'You're a Muslim,' and they're having a go at her for wearing a hijab or a niqab, she has no legal protection.

There have been some passionate speeches about how wrong it is to discriminate against somebody simply because of their faith. The Prime Minister and others have spoken about the fact that, for people of faith, it is another issue of identity, and people, on a range of issues not about religion, have talked about horrific ways that people are vilified. We've all established the principle in the debate about this bill, but we haven't put the words into the bill. This amendment does it. The words have been deliberately chosen in a way that can achieve consensus for those opposite, not for everybody. But we've been through the 18C debates, and we know that, if we were to use the language of 18C, that would create a problem, within some of you, for your party room, and we are trying to find language that will work. But if we walk out of here at the end of the debate we've had and we walk away with no legal protection against people being harassed, intimidated, threatened or vilified because of their faith, then what on earth has this debate been about?

This can be fixed. We have not played games with the wording of this amendment. The Prime Minister in his speech made clear how important this is and implied it was already in the bill. It can be put in the bill tonight. As to the claim from the government in the minister's speech where he said: 'It's not appropriate for this sort of legislation'—then why did we all make the speeches we made?

I'm a person of faith. I will never be threatened or vilified for mine, because it's the majority faith in the country. But that's not true of my neighbours. It's not true of someone wearing a hijab, a niqab, a turban or a yarmulke, and it's not true of people who, because of their faith, want to display icons or wear a cross all the time. If you don't think they get abused and belittled, then you're not walking in their shoes. Prejudice and bigotry are wrong in every form. We are asking the government to do no more than to agree to the words of their own speeches. There is a way to support this amendment, and, if tonight we don't find it, it is a complete failure of this process.

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