Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

ULLIVAN (—) (): Diversity, inclusion and blind acceptance are subjects that are regularly preached by the woke left. Unfortunately, their awakening has led them into a place of hypocrisy. They are some of the most intolerant and least accepting members of our society.

The Australian Football League is now a place where a person can be vilified and all but forced out of a job. It has become a bloated multibillion-dollar goliath regularly moralising to Australians on social issues while addicted to gambling advertising and has left us all down. In less than 24 hours Mr Andrew Thorburn was hired and resigned from his position as CEO of the Essendon Bombers Football Club. Let's make this crystal clear. Mr Thorburn was admonished and publicly attacked, not for his personal but for the thoughts of someone else who delivered a sermon at his church a decade ago. He did not attend, nor was he aware of it until the woke mob called for his blood.

I had the opportunity to work alongside the NAB while Mr Thorburn was the CEO of the bank. I headed the Indigenous training and employment organisation, GenerationOne, when NAB signed up as one of our partners. Unlike some other corporates that merely talk the talk and maybe put up some artwork or other things, the NAB really stepped up and embraced this program to create real and meaningful employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians. It was clear to me, given the way they embraced this program, that the support came from the very top of the organisation.

So it saddens me to see Mr Thorburn reduced by his faith and by this measure found unfit to take on the role at the Essendon Football Club. Essendon Football Club claimed that this is not about vilifying anyone for their personal religious beliefs, but about 'a clear conflict of interest with an organisation whose views do not align at all with our values as a safe, inclusive, diverse and welcoming club'. This is just hypocrisy at its finest—safe, inclusive, diverse and welcoming, unless, of course, your personal beliefs differ from the reigning diversity culture.

I accept that things have moved on and our society and that there are many different views on issues of social matters. But this is a very, very alarming situation that we have here. Welcome to the new Australia, where people can be censored and publicly punished by their mere association. We are no longer the country of a fair go. This fact should be a wake-up call for all Australians. It affirms what Janet Albrechtsen said recently in her article in The Australian. She said:

Rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, so central to living in a free and liberal society, have been emasculated by social engineers who know exactly what they are doing and facilitated by knaves who should know better.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews rushed to attack Andrew Thorburn's association, which only highlights a further degree of hypocrisy. The Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, said:

The Premier's own words about his beliefs and how they play out for the sake of others, have tended toward the harmful, because they have sought to uphold the good of one by undermining the good of another.

Referring to Andrew Thorburn’s church and the Bombers’ decision to sack its new CEO, the Premier used words like ‘intolerant, ‘bigotry’, ‘absolutely appalling’, and ‘no sympathy’. Such language pitches some members of the community against others and contributes to an unhelpful spirit of division. It leaves ordinary people of faith questioning if they can publicly hold their committed beliefs, or even to be able to exercise leadership and service in the community.

Then he went on to say:

We cannot claim to be inclusive if we stir up polarisation between sectors of the community, because in our Nation and, I hope, our State, every person, and every community, matters.

This issue is precisely why the coalition pushed so hard to pass the Religious Discrimination Act while we were in government. Opponents that stood in the way of the Religious Discrimination Bill said that the bill was a solution looking for a problem. Well, if Thorburn's case doesn't reveal the dire problem, then nothing will. As far as we know, Mr Thorburn was not seeking to use his platform as CEO of the football club to enforce his pastor's views on social issues upon the football club. He was not measured by his own history and record; he was measured by his association and was asked to make a choice that no Australian should ever be forced to make, and that was a choice between his faith and his job.

The Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, has hidden from this issue. He has shown no leadership. Labor went to the election claiming that they will unite Australians, but when it comes to defending freedom of religion, they are nowhere to be seen. In an interview with ABC Radio in Perth, when asked if Mr Thorburn had been discriminated against by Essendon, all that the Prime Minister had to say was that that's not his focus at all. He has not been focused on that. Well, from time to time, you need your leaders to stand up and defend those that need defending. I call on the Prime Minister to step up and do more in this space. Faith leaders and religious communities are calling for religious protections. After Labor voted against the coalition's bill, they then made it an election promise. I welcome that, and I would like to see that forthcoming.

I have been a strong supporter of religious protections and accept there is this massive diversity of views and, of course, lots of different positions. We must protect the freedom of individuals to be able to hold those positions. Australians are concerned that their freedom of worship is slipping away. Mr Thorburn is proof of it, and he is not the only one. Jason Tey, a wedding photographer, was sued by a same-sex couple because he told them that he did not share the same views because he was a Christian. He didn't decline to photograph their wedding, but nonetheless he received a letter from the Western Australian Equal Opportunity Commission advising that a formal discrimination complaint was lodged.

On the other hand, Muslim AFLW player Haneen Zreika was celebrated for refusing to wear the pride guernsey and skipping the pride round. Then we saw the Manly Sea Eagles implode because seven players made the same decision as Haneen Zreika. She was applauded, but Manly was attacked into submission. There is just no consistency. I raise those examples to point out that there is just no consistency. It's just another display of the left-wing hypocrisy.

This is a clarion call to Australians of courage. It's time for Australians who aren't on board with woke extremism to stand up and fight back. It's time for an Australia where you aren't punished for holding fast to your beliefs, no matter how much the woke mob might bay for your blood.