Religious tolerance will ensure community safety

An environment of hate and hostility towards a group of people increases the likelihood that such people will be physically attacked, have their property attacked and be discriminated against. It is likely to cause members of that community to live in fear.

The national Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission released a report in 2004 documenting increased levels of discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in Australia following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the US and the terrorist bombing in Bali in October 2002. Muslim women were particular targets of physical violence carried out by strangers. Such incidents included having dogs set upon them, attempts to run over them, being spat at, having things thrown at them from cars and having their hajibs pulled off. The victims of such attacks often fear leaving their homes.

However, harassment and discrimination has also been directed at people mistaken as Muslims, such as Christian Arabs and Sikh men wearing turbans. In one case an Egyptian Christian woman was knocked to the ground and needed hospital treatment after a man threw stones at her from a passing car.

At the same time we do not want to allow Islamic extremists to have a free hand to circulate their literature seeking to incite attacks against people of other faiths. If the campaign to have the Act repealed were to be successful the only winners would be individuals and groups that seek to incite religious and racial hatred in our community and those who would support acts of terrorism.

I support changes to the Act to make it more difficult for complaints that are frivolous, vexatious, misconceived or lacking in substance from proceeding before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and wrote to all Victorian MPs making this suggestion last month. Justice Morris made the same recommendation in his recent ruling. This only strengthens the law against those that seek to misuse it, without watering down the community protection it provides.

I can only hope that those currently engaged in the misinformation campaign take the time to read Justice Morris’s decision, before they plough on with their misguided and uninformed campaign to repeal the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.