Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to a question without notice asked by Senator Allison today relating to comments made by the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) and the Treasurer (Mr Costello) concerning Australian values.

I asked Senator Minchin what values the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have been referring to over the last few days when they have said that people who do not abide by Australian values should be kicked out. Minister Minchin said that there is consensus about those Australian values but declined to spell them out for us here today. I think the Treasurer would be in no better position to do that. In fact, I would suggest that if we were to look at the Australian government’s own actions with regard to values we would find a very different set of values being practised than what are understood by general consensus in the population as Australian values.

Let us talk about some of the values in Senator Minchin’s answer—pluralism, the rule of law, eliminating extremism and tolerance of difference. No-one would disagree with any of those. The problem is that there is no process. What are we talking about here? There are already rules of law. In fact, immigrants in this country get sent back to their place of origin, even if they came here as children, if they break the laws and are sent to prison. Our detention centres are full of such people. That is another issue. Already everyone in this country obeys the rule of law or is punished for not doing so. As I said, immigrants are sent back home if they are in that category.

What I find interesting is that there are references now to a secular state. It seems to me that Senator Minchin, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are being a bit selective on this question of secularity. Much has been made of it in recent days. I think this is about secularity for Muslims, not for Christians or people of other religions in this country. Let us have a look at some of the issues. For a start, in this parliament we have prayers in the morning. That is not secular; it is religious. Religion is probably more visible now in Australian politics than it has been in three decades. Mainstream churches are providing more and more government social services, even though governments are challenging those churches’ right to speak out on social justice issues like the treatment of refugees, industrial relations and welfare. Church based schools are receiving more subsidies than ever in the past, and enrolments in non-government schools are steadily increasing, particularly in Christian schools.

The disastrous appointment and subsequent resignation of Archbishop Peter Hollingworth as Governor-General at the time when the abuse of children in institutions created by churches was being very hotly debated drew attention to some of the problems of mixing church and state. The government appointed as chairman of the so-called Fair Pay Commission a man who declared that God would guide him in making minimum pay conditions. That too has come under fire. It is hardly an act of a government that is interested in secularity.

Mr Costello himself has made much of his support of evangelical Christian groups. He made a pre-election visit to Hillsong, the largest Pentecostal church in the country. A Liberal MP in Perth said that people should vote for the Howard government on the basis that the Prime Minister was a Christian, and the Prime Minister himself used his end of year address in parliament to deliver a mini sermon on Christianity. All of this is occurring in an international context which, since 2001, has been overwhelmingly focused on religiously inspired terrorism.

We are talking here about very dangerous precedents being set: talking about Australian values without being able to spell them out, without being able to live them, as I would argue the government should be doing instead of what it is doing at the present time. Dishonesty in government is looking more serious in this country, whether we are talking about AWB or the Prime Minister saying in a book that has just been published that the ‘children overboard’ scandal against the government was, in fact, a problem with people sinking their own boat. This has been demonstrated to be absolutely untrue. These are some of the values that Australian people expect their government to reflect, but it is not. I urge the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and Senator Minchin to pull back from this very divisive dog-whistling approach, which is obviously targeting Muslim people, to consider their remarks about secularity and to consider whether or not we should move down that path. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.