Albanese faces pressure from religious groups over hate speech laws

A coalition of faith leaders has urged the Prime Minister to reject a deal with the Greens on proposed antisemitism laws.

The group, including Anthony Albanese’s spiritual adviser, Anthony Fisher are calling for the entire bill to be rewritten and its introduction delayed.

In Brisbane on Friday morning, the Prime Minister left the door open to a deal with the Greens. He poured cold water on negotiations with the Coalition, equating them to trying to grab smoke. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney and other faith leaders sent a letter on Friday to the Prime Minister, the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, and the Attorney-General, Michelle Rowland.

 

The letter expressed alarm at a potential deal with the minor party and called for reforming the hate speech bill. Anglican Bishop Michael Stead wrote the letter, which was signed by Australian National Imams Council president Shadi Alsuleiman and Anglican Archbishop Kanishka Raffel. Representatives from the Buddhist and Sikh communities also joined the call.

The signatories heavily criticise the bill’s definition of hate speech. They argue there are not adequate protections for lawful religious teaching within the current draft. The letter also raises concerns over the definition used to proscribe prohibited hate groups and questions the thresholds of criminality written into the legislation.

Religious leaders argued that the bill would be inconsistent with pre-election promises. They noted Mr Albanese promised that legal protections for people of faith would not go backwards under Labor. The coalition called for the Prime Minister to rule out a deal with the Greens, who have flagged support for reforms that would extend the bill to include sexuality and gender.

The leaders said they were alarmed that the government might remove exemptions for religious texts to win support from minority parties. They warned this would be the worst possible outcome for social cohesion. The Greens have demanded the full implementation of 63 recommendations from the 2024 national anti-racism framework.

The Hindu Council of Australia did not sign the letter due to differing views on religious text exemptions. However, the council has separately called for the bill to be delayed. Jewish leaders were also absent from the joint letter, as the community remains divided on the timing of the legislation.

The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) took a different position to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). AIJAC called for a short delay to maximise national political consensus. ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim has worked closely with the government on the bill. He urged the Opposition Leader to pass the laws next week and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The government is currently under pressure to resolve these tensions before the scheduled parliamentary debate.

Wertheim explicitly opposed the inclusion of the religious text exemption in the proposed legislation, labelling the concept a “relic of outdated thinking” and a “very wide loophole” that could render the laws ineffective.

In a parliamentary submission, Wertheim argued that invoking religion as a “cloak” or excuse to dehumanise others should be a thing of the past, insisting that no world religion promotes racial hatred knowingly and that such conduct should not be protected under any circumstances. He further criticised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s suggestion for critics to “read the Old Testament” to understand the need for caution, describing the remark as an “ill-advised” and “unfortunate trope” that failed to recognise that modern hate speech should never be justified through the misreading of sacred texts.