As the Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs in 2001, I had carriage of the original Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill for the Liberal Party.

The model bill that the Government originally proposed, was not supportable. After my colleagues and I embarked on a long process of consultation we reached agreement with the Government on a bill which came before the parliament. As part of this process I worked closely with the Jewish community which gave me a great deal of assistance.

The resulting Act makes it illegal to vilify or incite hatred of people on the basis of either their race or religion.

Subsequently, the implementation of the Act had some unintended consequences, which the recent ammendments before the parliament were aimed at addressing. The Liberal Party had an additional amendment which it felt would improve the legislation, and supported the proposed changes. As with the first bill, Liberal members were given a conscience vote.

The National Party had opposed the original legislation and opposed the recent amendments. The National Party also proposed an amendment to remove religion from the Act.

I felt in all conscience that I could not support the National Party amendment.

Let me say that all speakers from all parties on the legislation said that they did not believe our society should tolerate the incitement to hate or vilify anyone on any basis and all supported our tolerant and diverse state.

I do not believe that anyone should be able to incite hatred or vilify any person on the basis of either their race or their religion, because I appreciate that a person’s race does not determine their religion and vice versa.

I pointed out to the parliament that members of the Jewish community in my experience regard their religion as somewhat different to their race. In fact members of the Jewish faith are of many races or different ethnic backgrounds, be they Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Yemenite or Ethiopian.

I also believe we can legislate to protect our communities from vilification without denying people their right of free speech. The right to freedom of speech is the very essence of Australia’s democracy, but that right also carries responsibilities toward others.

HELEN