Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

They are indeed; Senator Abetz and I agree. The ex Exclusive Brethren are fantastic folk. But you only have to talk to them to realise how suborned the people who remain in the clamps of this sect are. Are they going to join a union? They would be excommunicated—and one has to have had a religious avocation at some time in life to know what that means. Of course, that is not going to happen.

I ask Senator Abetz: how would it be if we put into that conscience clause which says that you do not have to vote that you do have to attend a polling place? But you do not have to vote, according to our Electoral Act. What if it said, ‘But if you are going to exercise this you have to join a union first’? What a nonsense. Or you have to join a movement for democracy before you can uphold your use of a conscience clause?

A conscience clause is simply that; it is on a moral and ethical issue of a very high order which is going to cause a person to be greatly affronted when a law related to that issue is imposed on them. But this is not of that order. This is simply an excuse for Exclusive Brethren businesspeople to have special clauses to deny people in their workplaces the rights they should have. There is nothing at all about conscience in this matter; it is all to do with business. It is all to do with business, potentially at the expense of workers’ rights, and that is why I brought forward this amendment.