Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) | Hansard source

I want to make some brief remarks here. I was in the chamber yesterday when this report was tabled. I have never really seen, in my experience, such a partisan attack on a group of Australians who are simply participating in our democracy. For reasons a little unknown, this government has decided, post an election, on day one, to target and attack a group of people broadly under the description of the Exclusive Brethren church with collective guilt for simply being involved in an election process.

It is not unusual for a group of people to be involved in our elections. The Labor Party, of course, know this very well through the trade union movement. I put on record that my wife and I have been subject to some terrible behaviour from trade unions on polling booths. Once, my wife was pregnant and was told by a particular unionist that he hoped her baby was a mutant. I have never, ever resorted to the conclusion then that all trade unions should be condemned or, somehow, all trade unions should be banned from being involved on polling booths because they're always bad apples. I don't believe in collective punishment of people. I believe in encouraging all Australians to be involved in the political process and the democratic process.

Now, apparently, this government, despite the fact that they won the election and won it well, don't believe that. Apparently, they don't believe that and they want to target a particular group of Australians. Even worse, I haven't heard—I sat through the debate yesterday evening—a single example of conduct like I just described. I did not hear it. There were generic complaints that it was an intimidating environment and there were a lot of people—okay. Being part of a big group is not a crime. Being involved in our democracy is not a crime.

During the election, the Prime Minister referred to members of the Exclusive Brethren as a cult. He referred to a group of people of a certain religious belief as a cult. It was unbecoming of the Prime Minister. Perhaps I could give him some understanding for, in the heat of an election campaign, lashing out in that sort of way. But now, after an election, in the wake of that, where it could be considered properly, the Labor Party continues a jihad on a group of people just trying to practice their religion and just trying to be involved in the Australian political scene.

We saw the spectacle yesterday of a senator from the Greens party effectively concluding that members of a certain religion shouldn't be involved in politics. If you've got religious views, they're not welcome in our democracy. Freedom of religion is at the heart of the beginning of our democracy. It is why, back in the 1500s, a bunch of civil wars in England started the democratic freedoms processes in the countries we now draw our democratic history and heritage from. It was over the very right to freely practice your religion that those wars were fought and that, ultimately, democratic freedoms and practices were established which we still honour—or we should honour—to this day.

This approach should be utterly rejected by this parliament. This one-sided, partisan weaponisation of the committee processes here in this chamber is a disgrace to the democratic process in this country. Everybody can see it for what it is. Particularly, for a political party that won an election to act like sore losers afterwards is unbecoming. The Australian Labor Party, are, I recognise, an important part of our democratic history, but they're not doing themselves any favour with this kind of partisan, self-interested attack on another innocent group of Australians.