Not a g’day for religious freedom

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: freedom of speech in Australia.

Last year, a decades-old anti-discrimination law in Queensland resulted in nearly 10,000 complaints and inquiries—people wondering if merely being offended was grounds to file a discrimination claim.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Last month, Australia’s Parliament passed an even more restrictive law. Supporters called it “a stronger and more modern Anti-Discrimination Act.” Others say it will further chill free speech when enforced next July.

BROWN: WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis recently spoke with some Australians about the tension between inclusivity and free speech. It’s a warning for other western countries.

DAVE PELLOWE: I was doing a tour with one other speaker … in marginal electorates up and down the Queensland coast.

AMY LEWIS: Earlier this year, Church and State Ministries founder Dave Pellowe began speaking publicly around Queensland to help Australians prepare for this month’s elections.

PELLOWE: …And the idea was to hold meetings by Christians, for Christians in Christian churches, about Christian effectivism.

Under Australia’s anti-discrimination laws Christians and anyone with moral and religious convictions may be at risk of years in jail for speaking truthfully and openly about their beliefs. Someone might get offended and complain to the government. That’s what happened to Pellowe.

All across Australia, most public meetings begin with what’s known as Acknowledgment of Country. It’s often a hasty recitation about Aboriginal Australians’ traditional ownership of the land. Some people interpret it as political woke-ness.

PELLOWE: They feel that they're being accused of colonizing and injustice and even theft, and that they're being welcomed to somebody else's country when it's a country that they've been born in and raised in and never known anything else.

Pellowe decided to start his meetings differently…

PELLOWE: I humorously allow people to think that I'm about to do an Aboriginal ceremonial Acknowledgement of Country. And then, instead of doing that, I quote Psalm 24 verse one, which says, “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.”

It was effective—Pellowe got everyone’s attention. After one talk in particular, the first person to the microphone was upset.

PELLOWE: She asked me why I wasn't worried about offending people … and I gave a full and strong teaching on the incompatibilities between Aboriginal pagan beliefs and Christianity.

Based on Pellowe’s answer, an indigenous Christian in attendance lodged a complaint with the Queensland Human Rights Commission. He said he’d been racially and religiously vilified and humiliated. He wanted Pellowe to make a public apology and undergo re-education.

A little background. Under existing anti-discrimination laws, in cases like this one, the commission arranges a mandatory conciliation meeting to try to resolve the complaint before it goes to court.

The date for his conciliation meeting arrived early last month.

PELLOWE: The gentleman complainant was not in the least bit interested in conciliating, and I was never, ever, ever going to be willing to cooperate with unreasonable demands to apologize for pursuing truth and preaching the gospel.

So, the case moved on to a tribunal. During that same time, Queensland passed a new law with an even lower threshold of hate speech. It’s called the “Respect at Work and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2024.” It’s supposed to protect women and self-identified transgender people from sexual harassment in the workplace.

MARGARET CHAMBERS: Combating sexual harassment sounds like a good thing…

Margaret Chambers is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. She researches Australian policies that affect freedom of speech and religious freedom. She’s followed Pellowe’s case.

CHAMBERS: …but they've sort of used it as a Trojan horse to slip in all of these other vilification provisions, which, ah, cracked down on the ability for Queenslanders to express themselves.

And according to Margaret Chambers, it’s even worse than the old anti-discrimination laws and the proposed overhaul earlier this year.

The new anti-discrimination bill expands the list of “protected attributes.” It includes both things said and left unsaid. The speaker’s intent is considered irrelevant.

Queensland’s Attorney General Yvette D’Ath celebrated the law’s passage.

YVETTE D’ATH: This is the start of a significant shift on how we expect our workers, our community to be treated.

The old laws required evidence that someone had been harmed. Not anymore, says Chambers.

CHAMBERS: And what that does is shifts the focus from having to prove that a third person was actually incited to hatred by making it all about the victim and the emotional response triggered by somebody who's affected by the hateful speech.

Chambers says anti-discrimination laws have become anti-speech laws.

CHAMBERS: These vilification provisions are not about hate speech. They’re actually about controlling what people can and cannot say….

The new law relies on something called “positive duty” — requiring employers to remove all objectionable conduct from the workplace. But it leaves the term “objectionable conduct” undefined.

CHAMBERS: So, they're going to go out of their way to eliminate things which might be objectionable…

It gives the human rights commission power to investigate any business they suspect of not complying, even without a prior complaint.

CHAMBERS: …and it would just have a very chilling effect on speech in Queensland.

Member of Parliament Stephen Andrew says the new law will put Christian education at risk.

STEPHEN ANDREW: It will put Queensland faith-based schools in an absolutely untenable position. (Shame) Yeah, it is a shame… The state is now setting up its own religion.

Dave Pellowe says the state is trying to create its own Levitical code.

PELLOWE: We actually try and redeem people through government legislation, except it's salvation without forgiveness, it's condemnation without redemption.

In less than two weeks, Queenslanders have the opportunity to elect legislators who could overturn these laws and reinstate freedom.

PELLOWE: Most of us were really shocked at how quickly the West and certainly Australia in our backyard, gave up freedom and the reason freedom matters is so that we can pursue truth. Truth is the highest good. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Doctrinally, theologically, the reason freedom matters is so that people can search for Jesus.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

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