Scott Morrison’s religious bill defeat was ‘masterclass in wasted time’

Scott Morrison’s failed religious discrimination bill pushed was a “masterclass in wasted time”, with only one redeeming feature.

COMMENT

Bad policies are like Frankenstein’s monster. Anybody watching while they are cobbled together can see it’s going to end in disaster but it’s only after they are brought to life that those who made them finally realise the abomination they’ve created.

The federal government’s religious discrimination bill is just such a beast.

Its only redeeming feature is that it has been shelved.

For one thing it is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist — a sentiment echoed by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.

When the most religious leader of government in the country says a religious freedom act is a bad idea it probably pays to listen.

For while I have always been an outspoken defender of freedom of religion — with the obvious proviso that it does not cause harm to others — this is something that millions of Australians already happily practice every day without any fear of persecution.

Instances where religious values come into conflict with secular laws or workplace policies are so exceedingly rare that when they happen they are extraordinary enough to make the news.

In fact you could rattle them off on the fingers of one hand: The Israel Folau fiasco, a Sikh school student carrying an ornamental knife, a gay teacher sacked from a Christian school, a Christian school principal forced to step down after attempting to screen students’ sexuality and another Christian school publicly blasted for condemning homosexuality — alongside adultery and premarital sex.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet didn’t think the bill was needed.

And of course the case of the Muslim AFLW player who refused to take part in the LGBT Pride round — although this mysteriously provoked far less outrage in certain quarters.

In other words, when such injustices occur — or are studiously dug up — they are usually resolved in the public sphere and the relevant parties quickly reminded of mainstream Australia’s position on the matter.

This is how our nation has always resolved things. Unlike the United States, with its famous Bill of Rights, we have no such national instrument.

Our constitution essentially says: “Here’s how you form a parliament and the rest you can figure out yourself.”

Our system relies not on codified rights but on convention and common sense — what The Castle’s inimitable legal scholar Denis Denuto correctly referred to as “the vibe”.

The problem with the religious discrimination bill is that it attempts to enshrine certain rights in one area in a nation where they are not enshrined elsewhere.

Thus not only does it attempt to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, but it creates a new problem for every non-problem it attempts to fix.

There could be no more perfect example of this than the fact the legislation has effectively killed itself off.

A seemingly innocent amendment by crossbencher Rebekha Sharkie — attempting to make particular groups immune from discrimination — was immediately red-flagged by Commonwealth lawyers who feared this would implicitly legalise discrimination for anyone not explicitly mentioned.

Talk about a hot mess.

And so the best thing about the bill is that it will likely never see the light of day, thus eclipsing the previous best thing about it, which is that nobody could understand it.

But how on earth did it even get this far?

It began with a review of religious freedom commissioned by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in an effort to reassure his parliamentary colleagues he was actually a conservative.

This was in response to the thumping majority the same-sex marriage plebiscite returned, thus giving gay couples the same right to domestic misery that heterosexual ones had endured for generations.

However the most critical and least remarked upon thing about the same-sex marriage result is that it was a paragon of legislative efficiency.

The bill defeat was not what the PM wanted this week.

Essentially it merely sought to change the Marriage Act from referring to “a man and a woman” to “two people”, a 66 per cent improvement in verbal economy.

By way of comparison, the parliamentary paper explaining the proposal ran to 8121 words.

In short — literally — it was not just an expression of individual freedom but also a slashing of red tape, the sort of thing both conservatives and liberals ought to instinctively embrace.

But Turnbull had to throw some red meat to the Coalition base, who were increasingly convinced he was John Hewson in a Fonzie jacket.

Liberals and conservatives alike were also — rightly — peeved that section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act was being exploited by activists to silence or punish people they didn’t like, something very much against the spirit of the legislation but aggressively pursued in two high-profile cases around that time.

Like the Marriage Act, the Racial Discrimination Act could have been easily fixed with some basic subediting. Simply removing the word “offend” would have solved most problems and at least reduced the parliamentary ink budget.

But the government couldn’t trim that little bit of red tape so it introduced a bigger bunch of red tape on the other side, the political equivalent of trying to solve a Rubik’s cube by dropping a bowl of spaghetti on it.

And now they are where they are, kicked in the arse from inside and out, and without a thing to show for it. This is a masterclass in wasted time.

Meanwhile Labor is showing itself to be a sharper and more efficient machine. And we all know which model the market rewards.

Joe Hildebrand is host of The Blame Game, 8.30pm Fridays on Sky News Australia

Originally published as Scott Morrison’s religious bill defeat was ‘masterclass in wasted time’