Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this very important matter. I think we can all agree that Australia is the greatest country in the world. It didn't become that by accident and it will not remain this way by accident either. We as Australians must continually make active decisions to fight for, protect and defend our freedoms.

Someone who understood this in their time was German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was well known for his resistance to the Nazi regime in World War II. He was a key figure in the Confessing Church, which opposed Adolf Hitler's control over the German Church. Bonhoeffer was eventually imprisoned and executed. In his influential book The Cost of Discipleship, he introduced the concept of cheap grace. By 'cheap grace', Bonhoeffer meant a grace that demands nothing from the believer. It's cheap because it costs nothing and asks for no change or commitment. In a similar way, Australia risks adopting a mindset of cheap grace with regard to its freedoms. Many Australians enjoy freedoms like freedom of speech, assembly and religion, and they often take them for granted, expecting that, without fulfilling the accompanying responsibilities, these rights would follow.

True freedom, like Bonhoeffer's idea of costly grace, requires active defence, accountability and sometimes sacrifice. Without this commitment, Australia risks devaluing the freedoms that are so essential to its democracy. Winning the lottery of life and growing up in Australia means you have a leg up compared to so many other places across the world. Yet it seems that this Labor government is set on restricting freedoms for some while enhancing the rights for others, undermining our fundamental freedoms. We saw it with their divisive Voice referendum, an attempt by the Prime Minister to divide Australians on the basis of race. What happened to advancing Australia fair?

This year, we have also seen the attack on religious freedoms, through their proposed religious discrimination bill. The Australian Law Reform Commission has recommended the repeal of section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act. Doing so will make it illegal for faith based schools to uphold their principles by choosing only to hire teachers who affirm and support the ethos of their school. Justice Rothman, the author of the ALRC report, disclosed that he was constrained by the terms of reference set for him by the Attorney-General. This alarming revelation underscores the government's active role and desire to repeal section 38. The Albanese government, through their commissioned ALRC report, want to throw the majority of Australians under the bus to pander to a fraction of the population.

According to the latest census data, over 54 per cent of Australians identify as religious; 95 per cent of private schools are religious; and, nationally, those religious schools make up over 30 per cent of schools in Australia. That's 1.5 million students and tens of thousands of teachers that support them. The removal of section 38 will remove the current protections allowing schools to maintain their values and faith. It's not just schools; it will open up religious institutions and places of worship to further attack. The erosion of these freedoms is not only concerning, but it sets a dangerous precedent where the state is given too much power to dictate the boundaries of legitimate expression and assembly. We now have the Prime Minister's misinformation and disinformation bill. The original draft was a disaster to our freedoms, and, at first glance, the latest version seems to be no better.

The pace of the advancement of the opponents of freedom has accelerated in recent years. We need to boldly stand up against it before we lose our advantage completely and, importantly, to reclaim what's been lost. As that great freedom warrior of the 1980s President Ronald Reagan once said:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same.

Like Reagan said, now is the time for us to fight for freedom, to protect freedom and to defend freedom.