Mr BARTLETT (3:18 PM) —No-one in this place would condone discrimination, harassment or vilification on the basis of race, culture or religion. I am confident that we would all support the right of others to practise their religious beliefs free of hatred or persecution. Yet the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act paradoxically, in its attempt to promote racial and religious tolerance, is having the opposite effect. Rather than ensuring harmony and tolerance, the evidence to date is that it is fostering suspicion, tension and harmful litigation.

This legislation was unnecessary. It is unhelpful and it is inflammatory. Fortunately some other jurisdictions, such as South Australia and Western Australia, which had been pursuing similar legislation, have seen the dangers and have decided not to proceed. According to an article in the Age on 11 April this year, legislation being considered in the United Kingdom was dropped. One reason for that, according to this article, was the experience of what is happening in Victoria. I would also like to urge the New South Wales government to abandon its plans to introduce similar legislation.

We do need to do all we can to promote tolerance and to protect people against vilification. But heavy-handed legislation which curtails the freedom of speech is not the way to achieve this. Freedom of belief and freedom of speech is one of our fundamental rights. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Likewise, article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

The expression of belief—that is, the teaching of one’s views, be they religious, philosophical or political—necessarily involves disagreement with contrary views. Freedom of speech must involve the right to criticise alternate views, or else the debate of ideas becomes meaningless and we end up with, effectively, state sponsored censorship. Freedom of speech must involve the right to consider alternate views. There is a vast difference between disagreement on views and vilification of holders of alternate views. Sadly, it seems that the Victorian legislation fails to see this distinction. We do have a right to be protected from harassment and hatred. But we do not have a right not to be offended by the views of others, or indeed their rejection of, or their criticism of, our own views. This is a vital distinction. To do so subjugates the fundamental right of freedom of speech for a much more doubtful objective.

The rigorous debate of ideas is a healthy and essential feature of a free society and the ability to accept criticism without hatred, without vilification, is an essential feature of that. The Victorian legislation is anti tolerance. It discourages intolerance by encouraging litigation against people espousing views different from our own. It encourages a difference in ideas or beliefs to degenerate into litigation against the proponents of those beliefs, as witnessed in the recent case brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria against two Christian pastors.

The Victorian legislation has been particularly problematic because it is especially vague and subjective and it specifically rules out any motive for religious criticism as irrelevant. Rather than working to foster harmony and tolerance, it has pitted representatives of the Islamic and Christian communities against each other, involving substantial costs, and it has aroused tensions and suspicions. It has the potential to be used as a weapon to silence and punish people with different views and, as such, is an undemocratic infringement on the fundamental rights of freedom of belief and speech.

Further, such dangerous legislation is not necessary. The 1995 Commonwealth Racial Hatred Act already outlaws any public act which will humiliate or intimidate others on the basis of race. This provides protection against discrimination and vilification on the basis of race. To take this further into the realm of beliefs or ideas in which people exercise a choice is a very significant and dangerous step. I urge the New South Wales government to look more closely at the damage and division being wrought by the bad legislation in Victoria and to drop their plans to go down the same path. (Time expired)