A planned new law targeting hate speech and incitement to violence in the Australian state of Victoria will preserve protections for “genuine” expressions of religious sentiment, including the right to spread a faith’s teachings with a view to converting people, government ministers backing the bill have said.
After pushback from faith leaders concerned about how the law would be applied — including the Archbishop of Melbourne — government officials has confirmed their newly proposed law, which replaces previous hate speech legislation, will continue to respect religious freedom of expression.
The Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-Vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024 was introduced into the state parliament Nov. 26, with debate scheduled for the new year.
The proposed changes to the law, which follow a five-year process of review, include a broadening of the definitions and scope for prosecution of speech crimes committed in public statements or in private conversations, as well as creating new classes of potential victims.
—
The newly introduced bill would revise decades-old legislation which criminalized racial and religious vilification, and is to include a swath of new protected categories, including sexual orientation and gender self-indentification — which the government has said will specifically include drag performers — as well as persons with a disability and other specified medical conditions.
The bill also broadens potential victims of hate speech to include so-called “associated persons,” including the parents of potential targets of hate speech.
Victorian state premier Jacinta Allan said last week that the proposed new law is necessary to keep local Australians “united against that American-style division that is starting to creep more and more into our community, into our dialogue, into our society, by cracking down on those who try and [sic] whip up hatred.”
A 2021 parliamentary enquiry found that existing hate speech laws had led to only two successful prosecutions in the previous 20 years. State attorney general Jaclyn Symes said that raising instances of anti religious bigotry, especially against Muslims and Jews, and instances of homophobic bullying of young people.
Symes also said that legislation needed to be updated to reflect the new reality of online abuse and indictment following the rise of social media.
Unlike the existing laws, which require proof that a person incited hatred and threatened harm to persons or property, the new bill will create two classes of offense: “inciting hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule” against a person or group of a protected class, and, separately, “threatening physical harm or property damage” against such persons or groups.
The crimes will carry punishments of up to three and five years in prison respectively and can be committed in any public, online, or private communications, including personal conversations.
The current law contains what are widely considered to be robust protections for freedom of religious expression, the loss of which, local religious leaders have warned, could lead to vexatious prosecutions and civil claims being brought by progressive advocacy groups.
Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli said in an interview last month that, while the Church “abhors vilification of any kind,” he had met with Symes to express concern that “the current proposals include highly subjective elements that risk limiting legitimate religious speech while the religious purposes defense is not sufficiently clear.”
In some jurisdictions, the passage of sweeping anti-hate speech laws have led to the prosecution of individuals — and in some cases even nationally prominent individuals — for articulating the teachings of their faith, or even quoting sacred scripture.
The Supreme Court of Finland is due to hear an appeal in a case brought against a lawmaker there alongside a Lutheran bishop, both charged in 2021 with hate speech for promoting traditional Christian teachings related to human sexuality, including by Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen tweeting a Bible verse.
The change to Victoria’s hate speech laws was triggered in 2019 by the proposal of a private member’s bill calling for a broadening of the legislation and the tightening of exemptions.
That bill was tabled by the former independent MP Fiona Patten who described the concerns raised over the current bill by religious leaders as “bullshit.”
However, despite Patten’s support for the reforms to proceed without concession, the attorney general confirmed last week that sincere expressions of religious belief would be protected under the new law and specifically singled out the freedom to “proselytise” and convert people to their faith.
Symes told Parliament last week that speech made for “genuine religious, academic, artistic, public interest or scientific reasons” would be exempted from the law, including “worshipping, practising, proselytising and teaching religion.”
“Being able to proselytise what you [and] what your religion stands for is unaffected by this bill,” she told the newspaper, while saying such protections “can’t be used as a cloak for unabated abuse.”
Archbishop Comesoli welcomed the government’s assurances in a statement from the Melbourne archdiocese said December 2 but, the archdiocese said, the archbishop would continue to monitor the bill’s progress through parliament closely.
