Scene: Australian House of Representatives On a Busy Working Day in February 2022. Enter Stage Right: the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 looking back over its shoulder

On 22 November 2017, then Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Wentworth Malcolm Bligh Turnbull announced a review into religious freedom in Australia.

The review was in response to pushback by religious institutions & conservative persons of faith once it became clear that the nation would be considering separating gender from the definition of legal marriage¹ and, the possibility that the Commonwealth Marriage Act 1961 would be amended to reflect this.

The Religious Freedom Review was conducted by an Expert Panel, chaired by former Liberal MP for Philip Ruddock, and was comprised of Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM, Dr Annabelle Bennett AC SC, Father Frank Brennan SJ AO and Professor Nicholas Aroney.

The Report of the Expert Panel was presented to the Prime Minister on 18 May 2018 – five months and nine days after the Marriage Act had indeed been changed to create marriage equality as a fact under law – and it made a total of twenty [20] recommendations.

In the following years there were three publicly released iterations of the proposed draft legislation. These are the versions currently before the Parliament: 

Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 [Provisions]; 

Religious Discrimination(Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021 [Provisions]; and

Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 [Provisions].

On 2 December 2021, the Senate referred all three bills to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 4 February 2022.

On 4 February 2022, this committee tabled its 164 page Report.

The Report states in part: The religious discrimination bill seeks to implement recommendations 3, 15 and 19 of the Religious Freedom Review, while the human rights legislation bill would implement recommendations 3, 4 and 12.2 It is silent on the remaining fifteen recommendations.

The entire report can be found at:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Religiousdiscrimination

Starting at Page 95 and ending at Page 150 are the Committee View, Additional comments from Australian Labor Party senators, Dissenting report from the Australian Greens and Additional comments from Senator Andrew Bragg.

What this section of the Report clearly shows is that the only people who come close to being unreservedly happy with the wording and intent of these bills are to be found within the ranks of Scott Morrison’s faction in the Parliamentary Liberal Party. In the wider Parliamentary Liberal Party there is some concern but whether it gets fully realised is another matter.

Further amendments are expected to be put forward, given the very real concerns held by the general public that the rights of LGBTQ+ students, teachers and parents are not protected against discrimination by faith-based educational institutions, as well as other concerns relating to potentially discriminatory impacts of Statement of Belief provisions currently found in the draft Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 and the fact that the successful passage of this bill into law will require as yet unaddressed amendment of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.

The three bills in question were always going to be used as an improvised explosive device buried deep within the House of Representatives carpeting, all set to explode during the first few weeks of the 2022 parliamentary calendar year in the hope of badly wounding the Labor Party over the course of the federal election campaign. 

On Thursday 4 February Prime Minister Scott Morrison also clearly stated his intention to legislate amendment of the Sex Discrimination Act before the federal general election. 

Given the limited number of sitting days in February and March in which to amend, it appears that Morrison may be reconciled to not passing  the current version of the Religious Discrimination Bill if the House Of Representatives baulks during the coming weeks. However, it is likely his intention to perform a piece of political theater in which he attempts to bully, intimidate and threaten the parliament in order to be seen as striving to fulfill his longstanding 'religious freedom to discriminate' promises to his conservative Christian base before polling day.

NOTES

1. Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, 2017

2. Recommendations incorporated into the religious discrimination bill and human rights legislation amendments bill:

Recommendation 3

Commonwealth, State and Territory governments should consider the use of objects, purposes or other interpretive clauses in anti-discrimination legislation to reflect the equal status in international law of all human rights, including freedom of religion.

Recommendation 4

The Commonwealth should amend section 11 of the Charities Act 2013 to clarify that advocacy of a ‘traditional’ view of marriage would not, of itself, amount to a ‘disqualifying purpose’.

Recommendation 12

The Commonwealth should progress legislative amendments to make it clear that religious schools are not required to make available their facilities, or to provide goods or services, for any marriage, provided that the refusal:

(a) conforms to the doctrines, tenets or beliefs of the religion of the body, or

(b) is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion.

Recommendation 15

The Commonwealth should amend the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, or enact a Religious Discrimination Act, to render it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of a person’s ‘religious belief or activity’, including on the basis that a person does not hold any religious belief. In doing so, consideration should be given to providing for appropriate exceptions and exemptions, including for religious bodies, religious schools and charities.

Recommendation 19

The Australian Human Rights Commission should take a leading role in the protection of freedom of religion, including through enhancing engagement, understanding and dialogue. This should occur within the existing commissioner model and not necessarily through the creation of a new position. 

Cartoons of the Week

David Rowe

Quote of the Week

 

“Morrison’s first chance to lay the groundwork for recovery came and went at the National Press Club. It was the political equivalent of the Hindenburg exploding and crashing onto a train. His last chance will be the budget on March 29. Days after that he has to call the election.” [Journalist Niki Savva writing in The Age, 3 February 2022]

Australian Federal Election 2022: moment meant to boost the reputation of Morrison Government goes spectacularly pear-shaped. Again

 

https://www.sea.museum/explore/maritime-archaeology/deep-dive/finding-endeavour

In 1788 during the American War of Independence a British troop transport & prison ship believed to have once been styled His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour was deliberately sunk along with six other vessels across the outer entrance to Newport Harbour, in an attempt to stop America’s ally France from taking possession of the town during the Siege of Newport.

The graveyard of these wrecked ships were rediscovered in modern times and are now the subject of archeological investigation begun in 1993 on what is a complex site. The Australian National Maritime Museum has been part of on-site investigations for the last four years.

Approximately 15 per cent of one particular wreck is relatively intact while the remainder of that ship lies scattered across one section of the seabed to the north of Goat Island. It is now known as RI 2394 and is possibly Lieutenant (later Commander) James Cook's former command

 HMB Endeavour.

It appears that prior to being scuttled RI 2394 was stripped of all fixtures of value and thus has no clear identifying features remaining except for its now predominately disconnected broken timbers.

Part of what Australian authorities believe is James Cook’s famous vessel. IMAGE: ABC News

Pre-disturbance mapping of RI 2394
The Search for Capt. Cook's Endeavour in Newport Harbour
Dr. D.K. Abbass PhD in The Redwood Library & Athenæum
Magazine ETC., Winter 2019

To date RI 2394 has only been identified as "the most likely to be the Lord Sandwich ex Endeavour®".  A sufficient level of archeological findings has not yet been produced.

Nevertheless, the federal government owned Australian National Maritime Museum – one of the research partners in the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project apparently decided sometime between 1- 2 February 2022 to issue a media release which resulted in similarly worded articles being published online by the The Senior, Daily Liberal Leader, Shepperton News, U.K. Daily Mail, and Australian National Geographic on 3 February 2022.

Australian Community Media’s Daily Liberal Leader, 3 February 2022:

British explorer James Cook's ship Endeavour has been identified after languishing in US waters for more than two centuries.

Cook famously sailed the ship around the South Pacific before landing on the east coast of Australia in 1770.

Australian National Maritime Museum CEO Kevin Sumption announced that after a 22-year program of archival and archaeological research, "we can conclusively confirm that this is indeed the wreck of Cook's Endeavour".

"This is an important moment," he told reporters at National Maritime Museum in Sydney on Thursday.

"It is arguably one of the most important vessels in our maritime history."

The ship played an important role in exploration, astronomy and science and was an important artefact in the history of Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and now the US, he said.

A "preponderance of evidence" had led to the conclusion that an archaeological site known as RI2394 in Newport Harbour, Rhode Island, "does indeed comprise of the shipwreck of HM Bark Endeavour," he said.

Since 1999 maritime archaeologists have been investigating several 18^th century shipwrecks in a two square mile area of Newport Harbor, Rhode Island.

The Endeavour was scuttled there by the British 244 years ago and lay forgotten for more than two centuries.

Although only about 15 per cent of the vessel remains, several details on the wreck convinced archaeologists they had found Endeavour after matching structural details and the shape of the remains to those on 18th century plans of the ship.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher applauded the discovery, saying it fulfilled the museum's mission to record and display the story of Australia's maritime heritage.

"What the museum has done ... over 20 years to verify the location of the vessel ... is of extraordinary importance", he said…… [my yellow highlighting]

However, this ‘historic’ co-announcement by the National Maritime Museum and the Morrison Government appears to be somewhat premature as I can find no published record of Mr. Sumption's confirmed discovery claim*, nor did he cite any publication date. It seems he was in something of a rush to inform the world. 

*It should be noted that in his LinkedIn entry Kevin Sumption lays no claim to having qualifications directly related to archeology or to having been employed as an archeologist. His skills lie in museum management, planning, projects & exhibitions. 

And then there is this......

STATEMENT FROM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - D.K. ABBASS PhD:

February 2, 2022

The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) report that the Endeavour has been identified is premature. The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) is now and always has been the lead organization for the study in Newport harbor. The ANMM announcement today is a breach of the contract between RIMAP and the ANMM for the conduct of this research and how its results are to be shared with the public. What we see on the shipwreck site under study is consistent with what might be expected of the Endeavour, but there has been no indisputable data found to prove the site is that iconic vessel, and there are many unanswered questions that could overturn such an identification. When the study is done, RIMAP will post the legitimate report on its website at: www.rimap.org. Meanwhile, RIMAP recognizes the connection between Australian citizens of British descent and the Endeavour, but RIMAP's conclusions will be driven by proper scientific process and not Australian emotions or politics.

One can’t help but suspect that there is one particular person who will be disappointed in how the National Maritime Museum's announcement is going down.

That person is Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison, the well-known fan of all things 'Captain' Cook & Endeavour. 

Who it happens is also a prime minister in search of feelgood election campaign stories which might allow him to bathe momentarily in a little reflected glory. 

Now faced with the prospect that quite a few voters might believe that this particular 'historic' Endeavour announcement was a somewhat hysterical attempt on the part of PMO staff to present a different media narrative in order to paper over the very recent revelations that certain members of Morrison's own party see him as “a horrible, horrible person”, “just obsessed with petty political point scoring”, “a complete psycho”, “desperate and jealous”, and that “the mob have worked him out and think he’s a fraud”.

Australian Federal Election 2022: second-rate performance artist grabs a koala to cuddle.....

 

This is the image of a former child actor who became Australian Prime Minister, Scott John Morrison. Right now Scott wants Australian voters to believe that he will help save the Koala from extinction. 

IMAGE: Courier Mail, January 2022

However, Morrison is less a prime minister than he is a second-rate performance artist and right now he is playing a set piece role with this particular koala as a prop.  

Here in New South Wales we have some experience of how once the photographers and television cameramen have departed the scene Scott Morrison doesn’t give a damn about koalas - it's called the Regional Forest Agreement. 

Echo, 2 February 2022:

The recently announced $50 million emergency fund for koalas by the Federal Government has been called a ‘smokescreen’ by environmental group North East Forest Alliance (NEFA).

The funding comes from the federal government’s $2 billion bushfire relief fund that was announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on 6 January.

Announcing the koala funding Treasurer Josh Frydenberg referred to the Black Summer fires that raised approximately 10 million hectares of land, with 8.4 million hectares saying that ‘This has been an ecological disaster, a disaster that is still unfolding. We know that our native flora and fauna have been very badly damaged’ (ABC).

A NSW Parliament report in 2020 identified that koala populations across parts of Australia are on track to become extinct before 2050 unless ‘urgent government intervention’. This gives Australian’s now less than 30 years to turn this koala extinction threat around.

However, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that Scott Morrison’s announcement of $50 million for koalas is just a smokescreen to cover-up his Government’s approval for increased logging and clearing of koala habitat, while allowing climate heating to run amok, threatening the future of both koalas and the Great Barrier Reef,

‘Without good policies on habitat protection and climate change no amount of money will save koalas,’ said Mr Pugh.

‘If Scott Morrison was fair dinkum about protecting koala habitat the first thing he would do is to stop their feed and roost trees being logged and cleared. Money is no good for koalas if they have nowhere to live.

Climate action needed

‘The second is to take urgent and meaningful action on climate heating, as koalas and their feed trees have already been decimated by intensifying droughts and heatwaves in western NSW, and bushfires in coastal areas. If the Morrison Government doesn’t take urgent action on climate heating then neither koalas nor the Great Barrier Reef will have a future.

Regional Forest Agreement

‘When the Morrison Government issued an indefinite extension to the north-east NSW Regional Forest Agreement in 2018 they agreed to remove the need for Forestry Corporation to thoroughly search for koalas ahead of logging and protect all identified Koala High Use Areas from logging.

‘They also agreed to overriding the NSW Government’s own expert’s panel recommendations, supported by the EPA, to retain 25 koala feed trees per hectare in modelled high quality habitat, by reducing retention down to just 10 smaller trees.

‘Thanks to the Morrison Government we now have a shoddy process where a few small trees are protected in inaccurately modelled habitat, while loggers rampage through koala’s homes, and if a koala is seen in a tree then all they need to do is wait until it leaves before cutting its tree down.

‘Now Scott Morrison is allowing the Forestry Corporation to log identified refuges in burnt forests where koalas survived the fires.

‘The situation on private lands is just as dire. Morrison did nothing to save koala habitat when his State National Party colleagues declared war on koalas in mid 2020 and forced his Liberal colleagues to agree to remove protection for mapped core koala habitat and to open up protected environmental zones for logging. This too is covered by Morrison’s Regional Forest Agreement.’

‘If he really cared about the future of koalas the first thing Morrison needs to do is amend the Regional Forest Agreement to ensure there are surveys by independent experts to identify core koala habitat for protection before clearing or logging…...

‘The second thing is to stop new coal and gas projects, because to have any chance of saving koalas and the Great Barrier Reef we must act urgently to reduce our CO2 emissions, rather than increasing them.....

Approximately 1:36pm on Tuesday 1st February 2022: A moment frozen in time

The face of Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott John Morrison as he heard these words:

Journalist: Peter van Onselen, Network 10. Prime Minister, at the start of your speech, you mentioned your close friendship with Marise Payne. I wanted to ask you about another close friend, Gladys Berejiklian, and that’s somebody that you wanted to run actually at the next election. I've been provided with a text message exchange between the former New South Wales Premier and a current Liberal Cabinet Minister. I've got them right here. In one, she described you as, quote, ‘a horrible, horrible person,’ going on to say she did not trust you and you're more concerned with politics than people. The Minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and, quote, ‘a complete psycho’. Does this exchange surprise you and what do you think it tells us? [Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Address, Questions and Answers, National Press Club Canberra, ACT, 01.02.22]

Scott Morrison's response:

Prime Minister: Well, I don't know who you're referring to or the basis of what you’ve put to me, but I obviously don't agree with it, and I don't think that's my record. [Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Address, Questions and Answers, National Press Club Canberra, ACT, 01.02.22]

Morrison is well aware that similar assessment's of his character frequently occur on social media and from time to time in the corridors of Parliament House.

However, this is possibly the first time he has been so publicly confronted with such an assessment made by his own Liberal Party colleagues.

UPDATE

Crikey, 2 February 2022:

Van Onselen followed up with more text messages during the evening news, in which Berejiklian allegedly referred to Morrison as “obsessed with petty political point-scoring” while lives were at stake during the bushfires. According to the unnamed minister: “The mob have worked him [Morrison] out and think he’s a fraud.”…..

Later this morning, on the triumphant radio rounds, van Onselen revealed the minister in question was federal, and said the texts were from the time of the bushfires — the last time Morrison’s approval ratings were as low as they are this week.

The Conversation, 2 February 2022:

Van Onselen quoted the text comments in his Press Club question and on the Ten news.

He said Berejiklian’s comments included describing Morrison as “a horrible, horrible person” who was “just obsessed with petty political point scoring” when lives were at stake.

According to van Onselen, the other person condemned Morrison as “a complete psycho”, “desperate and jealous”, and said: “The mob have worked him out and think he’s a fraud”.

CASH SPLASH: a lesson in how to retain your parliamentary majority between elections

 

Leslie Williams
Liberal MP & former Nationals MP for Port Macquarie
since 26 March 2011
IMAGE: Manning River Times, 4 Feb 2015

The Saturday Paper, 26 February 2022:

Less than a month after New South Wales Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams sensationally quit the National Party to join the Liberals, the defector was in direct conversations with then treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s office about a controversial $5 million grant to a private nursing home in her electorate.

The building project – for a new community centre, as part of a wider redevelopment of the St Agnes’ Care and Lifestyle facility in the coastal town that gives the state seat its name – was not part of any NSW government program. It was not on the radar of any official, or recommended by bureaucrats. Senior Treasury officials warned the state government’s powerful expenditure review committee (ERC) that the funding made no sense and should not be supported.

Instead, exactly one week after Leslie Williams forwarded details of the aged-care company’s development application to Perrottet’s ministerial staff, the $5 million grant was approved by the ERC, which was led by Perrottet and then premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The money was not new funding. It had to be found from elsewhere in the Health budget. As the coronavirus pandemic raged, the $5 million was taken from the Department of Health’s general spending budget and handed to St Agnes’ Care and Lifestyle for capital works on land owned by the Roman Catholic Church Diocese of Lismore. At the time, the-aged care operator had $34.7 million “cash on hand” and had received $3.1 million in federal JobKeeper funds.

The funding proposal that went to the ERC was blunt in its assessment of the project. Under the heading “risks, sensitivities and any other issues”, Treasury officials wrote that the grant was “not supported”.

The document prepared for the review committee said: “The proposal provides financial support for the establishment of a private residential aged-care facility. Given funding and regulation of aged care is a matter for the Commonwealth government, and the benefits accrue to the private residents and operator of the facility, the need for government support is unclear.”

As it happens, the decision had already been made. Hours before the ERC meeting actually took place, public servants were given the job of writing a press release for the announcement.

A week later, on October 27, 2020, Berejiklian was in Port Macquarie posing for a ceremonial sod-turning at the development site next to newly minted Liberal MP Leslie Williams. The official press release, now absent from the NSW government directory but still hosted by Williams on her MP website, includes quotes from the then premier and her treasurer.

“Port Macquarie has one of the highest prevalence rates of dementia in NSW and this state-of-the-art facility will offer transformational care for the elderly,” Berejiklian said.

And from Perrottet: “We expect this unique project, which is a NSW first, to create hundreds of jobs in the health, building and construction industries on the mid-North Coast.

What is clear from the time line of events is that the government, with negotiations handled out of the then treasurer’s office, moved quickly to rush through the $5 million in funding. This raised eyebrows internally.

“The aged-care sector is poised to grow substantially in NSW, contributing to jobs growth and the economy but as Covid events have shown us, quality of care is paramount.”

The ERC brief from Treasury did not put a figure on the jobs created, noting only that it was “TBD” or “to be disclosed”.

Williams, naturally, was thrilled. At the time, she said: “The NSW government’s investment will help build the community centre in the village, which houses all the social amenities that make this facility unique.”

St Agnes’ Care and Lifestyle chief executive Adam Spencer remarked that “both Ms Williams and the premier have been very supportive of this project”…..