Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

This motion to denigrate and vilify a lawful religious minority is a shameful act. That act is all the more shameful when one realises what has motivated it. This is no ordinary motion, and I urge all honourable senators to vote against it, including those Green senators who are willing to vote on conscience and not on the say-so of their misguided leader.

Some people in the community overlook the excessive and kooky policies of the Greens, believing that by voting for them they will do the environment a favour and will not do too much other harm. On this occasion, the Greens have so overstepped the mark that people can no longer ignore what the Greens actually stand for. You see, on 9 May, the Leader of the Australian Greens sought an inquiry into the religious organisation the Exclusive Brethren, a lawful religious minority with views that, chances are, none of us in this chamber would fully agree with. But that is the great thing about our society: our tolerance and acceptance of those whose views do not necessarily coincide with ours. All we ask as a community is that they abide by the rule of law, and there is no evidence that the Exclusive Brethren do not. By all means, engage in debate; but do not scapegoat. Nothing in the motion or in Senator Brown’s 20 minutes of pitiful self-justification of his unfair abuse of the parliamentary processes has suggested any illegality by the Exclusive Brethren.

The simple fact is that this anti Exclusive Brethren motion has its genesis in the Tasmanian election result earlier this year, when the Greens, after foolishly bragging about how many seats they would win, suffered another humiliating backlash from the people of Tasmania. Part of the election campaign did involve individual members of the Exclusive Brethren exposing Greens policies, such as their drugs policy. Senator Brown says that that was done not only by individuals but also by the whole religious organisation. In the absence of any shred of evidence to the contrary, I am willing to believe the Exclusive Brethren, but it is not a material point. The sheer fact that some or all were engaged in our democratic processes by campaigning ought to be welcomed. Instead, the Greens have brought on this motion of religious vilification against all Exclusive Brethren.

Senator Brown is on record about his proposed inquiry in the Sunday Tasmanian last Sunday, 13 August. He said:

... my beef with the Exclusive Brethren is not about religious belief. It is about them venturing into politics ...

It needs to be recalled that the Greens leader in Tasmania, Peg Putt, vilified the Exclusive Brethren in the most disgraceful and undignified election-night speech I have ever witnessed. I was willing to overlook the ugliness of that outburst as a fit of temper in the face of public humiliation. I note, as an aside, that she did later give a limp apology. I naively thought that the scapegoating of a religious minority for a lack of political success was not part of the body politic or culture in this great country. How wrong I was! The Greens motion that we are debating today is a steely, cold and calculated motion designed to intimidate, scapegoat and vilify a lawful religious minority—and their only sin is that they ‘ventured into politics’.

When the leader of a political party starts scapegoating religious minorities the alarm bells of history should be ringing loud and clear. The parallels with other periods of history are spookily familiar. This is especially so when the Greens leader in concert with his vile motion called for a public register of all Exclusive Brethren businesses. I table the document from the Greens website. Why not be done with it and make the Exclusive Brethren wear not exactly the Star of David, but something similar? Why the register? To marginalise, to scapegoat and to vilify. There is no other reason for this suggestion other than sheer nastiness and vindictiveness. Indeed, as the document heading stated when Senator Brown made this public call for a register of all Exclusive Brethren workplaces: ‘Exclusive Brethren’s payback’. There was no shame. He let it be known to the Australian people what this was all about. It was ‘payback’ on the Exclusive Brethren for daring to ‘venture into politics’.

Apart from such a proposal being anathema to every sense of decency and offensive to the most basic of human rights, it of course offends section 116 of our great Constitution which says, in part:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law ... prohibiting free exercise of any religion ...

Thank goodness for the foresight of our founding fathers. Thank goodness for the Australian people that voted for the Constitution. I have a very strong view that if the Australian people were given the opportunity to vote for section 116 again today they would be voting for it with 99.9 per cent support and the 0.1 per cent would undoubtedly be informal. I have no doubt that overwhelmingly the Australian people support freedom of religion and freedom of association in our great country.

But in case any honourable senator was left in any doubt as to Senator Brown’s motives in moving the motion before us, you only have to look at this heading: ‘Exclusive Brethren’s payback’. That is what it is all about—nasty, callous, vindictive payback. Senator Brown has sought to avoid the fundamental principles of this debate—and Senator Chris Evans covered those very well—by hiding behind the cases of disgruntled ex-Exclusive Brethren. I have personally spoken to many of them and I understand their concerns. But every single one I spoke to was personally horrified and had not heard of Senator Brown’s suggestion for a public register of Exclusive Brethren businesses. Many then felt they were being used to get his call for an inquiry some respectability, and they are right to think so. Senator Brown admits he would not be seeking this inquiry and would not be concerned with the issues of former Exclusive Brethren but for the entry by some into the political arena.

But nothing in their complaints suggested illegality. There was disagreement, hurt for family split-ups and especially hurt about the harshness of excommunication policies. I understand all of that and I sympathise with the ex-Exclusive Brethren about that. But let us not be unrealistic about this. The Labor Party and the Liberal Party have excommunication provisions, called expulsion in our constitutions. Indeed, you only have to see what happened when the hapless Mr Peter Garrett switched from the Greens faith to the Labor Party and the vilification that flowed his way from—guess who? Not a single shred of evidence has been produced to justify this intrusive and offensive call for an inquiry. The motion is full of snide innuendo but no actual facts have been presented.

In the time remaining let us go through the motion. First of all, there is the inquiry into ‘family breakdown and psychological and emotional effects related to the practice of excommunication’—and that wonderful catch-all phrase—‘or other practices’, whatever that might mean. These practices are not enumerated and there are no hints as to what these might be. It is just thrown out there that there are other practices—just smear and innuendo but nothing to support the claim. If Senator Brown is genuinely concerned about the excommunication practices of the Exclusive Brethren, can he tell us why he is not concerned about similar or identical practices by Muslims when they leave the faith, or by Orthodox Jews when they leave the faith, or Christadelphians or Jehovah’s Witnesses? Why does he simply pick on the Exclusive Brethren? This is about nasty ‘payback’ and vilification.

In my former life as a lawyer I represented many people in the Family Court. Family breakdown is nearly always hurtful and emotionally traumatic and family members refuse to talk to one another, without any religious belief motivating that separation. It is unfortunately part and parcel of the interaction. But to seek to single out the Exclusive Brethren and to scapegoat them is not something that this Senate should be condoning. When there are allegations and counterallegations of Mr Such-and-Such and Mrs Such-and-Such, for example, that is not for this Senate to be debating. I have been around long enough to know that with such tit-for-tat arguments the chances are there are two sides to the story. There is no need for the Senate to take a side on this unless there are accusations and allegations of actual illegality. The great thing about the Australian society is that people have the right to join and leave the Exclusive Brethren if they want to. People are going to continue to join and continue to leave the Exclusive Brethren, as you would expect in a free and democratic society. Nobody forces them to join and I would trust that nobody would force them to leave. It will ultimately be their independent decision.

Let us go to section (b) of the motion, which is about the involvement of the Exclusive Brethren in Australian politics and political activities. What a hide from a person who personally accepts anonymous donations and international donations! The sheer duplicity and gall of the senator is grotesque.