Former opposition leader Michael O’Brien caught in furore over cartoon

The Islamic Council of Victoria has slammed ex-opposition leader Michael O’Brien for suggesting only extremist Muslims would find a cartoonist depicting the prophet Muhammed to be unlawful vilification.

Shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien has been accused of ‘mocking the religious beliefs of thousands of Victorians’. Picture: David Crosling

Victoria’s shadow attorney-general has been accused of “mocking the religious beliefs of hundreds of thousands of Victorians” by the state’s peak Muslim body.

The Islamic Council of Victoria slammed former opposition leader Michael O’Brien for suggesting only extremist Muslims would find “a cartoonist (depicting) the prophet Muhammed” to be unlawful vilification.

Mr O’Brien had used the example to explain the Coalition’s issues with the government’s proposed hate speech laws, which — if passed — will make it unlawful to vilify someone based on an expanded list of attributes, including disability, gender, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation.

The opposition had requested that the government drop a harm-based civil provision which gives people with a protected attribute – such members of the Muslim community – a say over what is considered unlawful vilification.

Mr O’Brien, who labelled the provision “subjective”, had suggested that a cartoonist who depicted the prophet Muhammad could potentially be found guilty on the basis of what a Muslim from a more extreme branch of Islam found to be “unreasonable”.

Current anti-vilification laws consider what a “reasonable person” would find to be unlawful.

The Islamic Council was quick to pounce on Mr O’Brien’s example, saying it was “appalling” and “unacceptable” for the Liberal MP to “utilise a core belief of Islam” as a tool to debate legislation.

“Such comments not only undermine efforts to combat vilification, but mock the religious beliefs of hundreds of Victorians,” the council said in a statement.

“Amid a surge in Islamophobic incidents in Victoria, Liberal Party leaders have repeatedly downplayed and denied Islamophobia.

“It is abhorrent that the party’s leaders would now resort to criticising our community’s opposition to the desecration of the most sacred tenets of Islam.”

But a spokesperson for Mr O’Brien on Friday argued the ICV’s attack had proved his point.

“If MPs are being attacked by religious groups for daring to question proposed restrictions on free speech, it underlines why Labor’s proposed laws must be so carefully examined,” he said. “Freedom of speech is a fundamental right of every Victorian”.

Originally published as Former opposition leader Michael O’Brien caught in furore over cartoon