Audrey Statham
Thursday, 13 March 2025
The current volatile geopolitical environment, coupled with the cost-of-living crisis, presents governments with an urgent challenge of strengthening social cohesion and fostering respect among people of diverse cultural, faith, and non-faith backgrounds.
The 2024 Scanlon Mapping Social Cohesion report shows growing hostility toward religion in Australia. Negative attitudes toward Muslims rose from 27% in 2023 to 34% in 2024, while negativity toward Jewish people increased from 9% to 13%. Positive views of Christians declined from 42% to 37%, with similar drops across other faith groups, including Buddhists (50% to 44%), and Hindus and Sikhs (both 33% to 26%).
As a committed Anglican Christian I am deeply concerned about this trend and would support government measures that actively work to improve attitudes toward religion and, especially, to combat rising prejudice and increased criminal acts against Jewish and Muslim communities, and other minority religious and multicultural groups.
However, the course of action the Allan Labor government announced last December of legislating restrictions on protest in Victoria is disturbing from both a democratic and a faith perspective. It would weaken the ability of the community, faith groups and unions I work with as a volunteer and activist to effectively advocate for social change for refugees, better working conditions in workplaces, and improved climate action policy.
The precise wording of the proposed Victorian legislation has not yet been released. All that is known about the restrictions comes from Premier Jacinta Allan’s December 17, 2024, statement, ‘Strong Action to Fight Hate and Help Victoria Heal’. The statement outlined restrictions including banning face masks at protests (with exemptions for religious, health and cultural reasons), prohibiting chains, ropes, locks and glue, introducing a ‘social cohesion pledge’ for multicultural and multifaith organisations seeking government funding, and restricting protests around places of worship.
These measures would greatly expand police powers beyond their current ability to ‘move protesters along’. New powers would allow police to compel individuals to remove face coverings if police ‘reasonably believe’ they are trying to conceal their identity, with noncompliance leading to arrest. Police would also gain powers to stop and search individuals or their cars for chains, ropes, locks or glue and seize any ‘attachment devices’ (named such as people sometimes attach themselves with chains or rope to objects in public as a non-violent protest action). Additionally, police may be granted new powers to move protesters away from churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples. No details have been provided on potential penalties, fines or prison terms.
The stated justification for these restrictions is to confront antisemitism, prevent dangerous demonstrations, protect religious worship, and restore social cohesion following an increase in antisemitic incidents across Victoria and NSW. However, this approach conflates peaceful protest with criminal activity. There is no evidence linking recent crimes against Jewish businesses and synagogues in Melbourne and Sydney to peaceful demonstrations. Curtailing democratic rights to peaceful protest and expanding police powers will not address social cohesion, extremism or antisemitism.
With no clear rationale and the legislation’s wording still unpublished, the announced restrictions appear to be a knee-jerk emergency measure. While meaningful action is needed to protect vulnerable faith communities and combat rising antisemitism and Islamophobia, existing laws already allow police to address public disturbances, including those at protests or near worship places. Criminal laws already cover violent conduct at protests such as affray, assault, and causing and threatening injury or death.
The proposed restrictions would erode key civil and democratic rights, including the right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, and privacy. A ban on face masks would discourage participation among older individuals and people with disabilities who have respiratory conditions. Additionally, face coverings protect members of diaspora communities from surveillance by foreign governments. Prohibiting masks could deter these individuals from attending protests that raise awareness of human rights abuses they and their communities have experienced, silencing their voices and limiting their ability to seek justice.
Attachment or lock-on devices help maintain a safer, more peaceful protest environment by focusing interactions between protesters and police on unlocking or removing the device rather than using physical force. Banning them could increase the likelihood of escalated confrontations, heightening the risk of injury for both protesters and law enforcement.
The proposed ‘social cohesion’ pledge remains vague, but it could make government funding for multicultural organisations contingent on groups refraining from publicly supporting groups, protests, or policies the government deems harmful to social cohesion. This could restrict advocacy efforts and discourage engagement on contentious issues.
Restricting peaceful assembly through introducing protest-free ‘safe access space’ around places of worship is imprecise, impractical, and was introduced without timely consultation with affected faith communities. ‘Around places of worship’ is broad, vague language imposing a blanket ban on peaceful demonstrations, regardless of their message and whether they pose real risk. This constitutes significant overreach by the Government.
The definition of ‘places of worship’ also remains unclear and could include faith-based schools with chapels or prayer rooms. Melbourne’s CBD alone has approximately twenty places of worship, including seventeen churches, a synagogue and a temple. This restriction would have a chilling effect on peaceful demonstrations in the city, including at Federation Square, directly opposite St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral.
For historical reasons, churches constitute a significant portion of Melbourne and Victoria’s places of worship. A 2016 NCLS Research report estimated 2,800 churches in Victoria. Yet there has been almost no consultation with churches or other faith groups regarding proposed protest restrictions, nor any discussion whether affected faith groups support introduction of ‘safe access areas.’
Blanket application to churches of ‘safe access areas’ around worship places reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the role churches now play in strengthening the social fabric of democracy. For generations, churches have been hubs for public meetings, community events, and local engagement. Many are still open all week – along with their grounds and gardens – for non-religious and religious to visit spaces for quiet reflection.
Banning peaceful assembly near churches would obscure their historical and ongoing role in fostering civil discourse and community well-being, making them less visible and accessible to the communities they serve. Symbolically and physically, it would isolate churches from democratic civic life. This strikes at the very heart of faith, which calls people not only to worship but also to engage actively in the world as an expression of worship.
The Allan Labor Government should not legislate its proposed restrictions on peaceful public assembly, and the churches should not support it. It will not solve underlying issues of extremism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and hostility towards religions, the legislation’s aim.
In particular, the restriction on protest near places of worship conflates peaceful public assembly and protest with criminal acts. It wrongly frames peaceful protest as inherently hostile to faith, despite the fact that promoting peace and publicly standing up against wrongdoing align with the churches’ long-standing role in supporting civil debate, fostering community wellbeing, and working to transform unjust structures. Imposing safe access areas on churches could further fragment the social fabric and threaten secular democracy, which churches and other faith communities share responsibility to uphold and defend.
Victoria’s Labor Government and other political parties should, therefore, pursue alternative, democratic measures that will address concerns of faith communities that feel vulnerable to their premises being targeted by criminals, whilst safeguarding secular democracy.
To this end, it should expand and widely publicise its pledged $40 million funding for the Multicultural Infrastructure Fund to support multicultural and multifaith community organisations to build, upgrade and renovate facilities including security infrastructure.
It should encourage the Federal Labor Government to increase the Securing Faith-Based Places grant program, which provides $40 million over four years to improve security at places of worship, religious schools and preschools, and faith-based community centres.
It should also action as a matter of urgency its stated plan to revive multifaith dialogue by helping faith and multicultural groups to come together through the formation of a targeted advisory group. The scope ought to be broadened to include opportunities for First Nations leaders and peoples, and other community groups such as unions, human rights groups and civil society activists, to participate in dialogue at this grass-roots level.
The advisory group should report regularly to government and public about actions and progress made in combatting extremism, addressing hostility against religions and educating about the essential role of peaceful public protest in safeguarding secular democracy.
Churches would gladly offer spaces and facilitators to support such much-needed public dialogue and civil debate for healing social division and fostering solidarity and harmony.
However, if the Victorian Government legislates restrictions on peaceful protest, the following considerations should be addressed regarding the restriction around places of worship:
- The terms ‘around’ or ‘near a place of worship’ should be revised to apply only to assemblies targeting worshippers using their right to use a place of worship.
- Police should only be permitted to exercise move-on orders for assemblies outside places of worship that intentionally interfere with the right of people to practice their religion or are inciting religious or racial hatred.
- The term ‘place of worship’ should be clearly defined.
- The wording of this restriction, along with any other restrictions on protest, should be made public and the Victorian community should be consulted and invited to provide feedback well in advance of the legislation being introduced in parliament. There must be thorough consultation with faith communities on the potential impact on congregations and the communities they serve of restricting peaceful protest through the introduction of ‘safe access areas’ around places of worship.
- A sunset clause must be included to ensure there will be public and parliamentary debate to review the need for all restrictions on the right to protest.
Audrey Statham is a member of Melbourne Anglican Diocese Social Responsibilities Committee, advocating for refugees and climate justice. She was also a workplace delegate on the bargaining team for her union, the National Tertiary Education Union, during its 2023 enterprise bargaining.
Image Credit: Recent Trades Hall meeting Protesting Anti-Protest Legislation. Supplied.
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