Religious freedom an election battle we could all do without

Scott Morrison’s defeat on the floor of the House of Representatives reminds people it is indeed a minority government. Picture: Gary Ramage

Religious freedom now threatens to be front and centre during the election campaign.

It should not be so, but febrile politics, partisan allegiance, ideological commitment, leadership failure and a forlorn hope of finding common ground on an impossibly complex and contested task has deemed it so.

No one has emerged a winner from the shambolic parliamentary end to four years of political promises, a woke confusion of priorities, entrenched beliefs and needs, political opportunism and grandstanding at one minute to midnight.

Scott Morrison has failed to deliver on a promise based on a Malcolm Turnbull undertaking made four years ago under the duress of wanting to get support for the same-sex plebiscite.

Anthony Albanese has failed to address those pledges after the last election to people of faith and religious schools that Labor “got it wrong”.

For the Prime Minister it is the defeat of the Coalition on the floor of the House of Representatives reminding people it is indeed a minority government, and failure to fulfil a pledge that there would be laws protecting religious freedom passed in this term.

For the Opposition Leader it is a technical victory. His declaration that Labor wanted to amend the laws to “protect children” and that he will be “fighting” for those principles to be implemented if he is elected is a bold statement of intent.

Morrison is the big loser because he’s failed to deliver on a promise of enormous import to his conservative base, he’s been ratted out by at least five colleagues who have ignored his plea to unite or lose the election, and the chaos of parliament continues.

Anthony Albanese achieved a technical victory. Picture: Gary Ramage

But Albanese is no clear winner. Morrison will argue the amendments the Greens/Labor alliance backed would make the faith community and religious schools worse off – which is true – and that it was Labor’s existing legislation and amendments that gutted the bill.

In some inner-city Melbourne seats – definitely not all – Mark Dreyfus’ hard line will be welcomed, but in some, most, outer-suburban seats in Sydney, where there was an overwhelmingly vote against same-sex marriage, it will be electoral poison.

It is impossible to tell the overall political or electoral effect of the failure of the religious freedom bill, but one thing is certain: no one – Morrison or Albanese, religious communities, schools or vulnerable groups – will be better off for an election fought on such ground.

In the last election an attack on Morrison’s personal faith was wrong, out of place in Australia, and it backfired. This threat of a new crusade can only be worse.