Sea changes on euthanasia, conversion therapy and religious freedom - with Mike Southon and Monica Doumit

WEBVTT
00:00:38.450 --> 00:00:47.331
It is the Pastor's Heart Heart and Dominic Steele and a Freedom for Faith update on the sea changes in euthanasia, equality, conversion therapy and religious freedom.
00:00:47.331 --> 00:00:50.209
Monica Dumit and Mike Southon are our guests.
00:00:50.209 --> 00:00:56.173
The next six months are going to be bumpy for religious freedom issues here in New South Wales, australia.
00:00:56.173 --> 00:01:24.168
There's a rollout of euthanasia in our state starting in just a few weeks time, on the 28th of November, and then the proposed ban on conversion and suppression and an independent Alex Greenwich's Omnibus Equality Bill, plus a finalisation of the Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into religious schooling and particularly whether or not religious exemptions to anti-discrimination war should be removed or not.
00:01:24.168 --> 00:01:39.090
Monica Dumit is Director of Public Affairs and Engagement for the Catholic Church in Sydney and was one of the presenters at the Freedom for Faith conference today here in Sydney, and Mike Southon is Executive Director of Freedom for Faith.
00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:51.427
Monica, perhaps we can start with you and you could just kind of give us an introduction to this sea change that has happened over the last five years and continuing to happen and what's going on.
00:01:52.120 --> 00:02:27.134
Well, if we look back to December 2017, where we had the introduction of same sex marriage, I think all of us thought that that was a big watershed moment in terms of social change here in Australia, but what we've seen in the five to six years since that transpired is a number of different laws changing, all on critical social issues, whether that's abortion, pre-prohibition on so-called conversion practices in some states, limitations of religious freedom.
00:02:28.480 --> 00:02:38.191
It seems to have happened all in the last five or six years, and so there's certainly been a wave of legislation that's challenging for churches and for Christian ministries.
00:02:38.191 --> 00:02:51.947
And if we're looking at New South Wales, as you mentioned, we have the implementation of euthanasia beginning later this month, we will have the introduction of the government's proposed ban on conversion practices.
00:02:51.947 --> 00:03:09.205
We've already got the legislation tabled by the independent member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, that seeks to amend a whole range of laws in the name of equality and, at a federal level, the Australian Law Reform Commission looking in, so there are a lot of things happening in the next six months.
00:03:09.205 --> 00:03:10.829
It's a very critical time.
00:03:11.699 --> 00:03:20.651
You're acknowledging today that one of the things that have been going on is the loss of moral authority of the churches in the community, and particularly the Catholic Church there.
00:03:21.681 --> 00:03:39.902
Well, I guess what I was saying is that the end of 2017 saw the finalisation of the Royal Commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse and, for those who remember, that time revealed, obviously, a lot of shocking and terrible details of crimes and cover-ups within institutions.
00:03:39.902 --> 00:04:05.531
And I think something like, out of the complaints, 60% of those related to religious institutions and, of that, 60% related to the Catholic Church, and so I think, when a lot of these social issues were coming up before Parliament, there was a often a loud suggestion that churches should be quiet, because if they didn't have their own house in order, how dare they be speaking about moral issues anywhere else?
00:04:05.531 --> 00:04:17.331
So I do think that that contributed to, I guess, the muting or the silencing and sometimes self-censorship of some in church leadership in relation to some of these social issues.
00:04:19.043 --> 00:04:20.707
Mike, let's talk Euthanasia first.
00:04:20.707 --> 00:04:25.630
It's going to be messy when it starts here in New South Wales later this month.
00:04:25.630 --> 00:04:27.906
Yes, it's messy.
00:04:27.906 --> 00:04:30.205
When we say messy, what do we mean?
00:04:32.582 --> 00:04:35.311
Well, there's a lot of questions about how it's going to be implemented.
00:04:35.311 --> 00:04:38.568
I haven't seen full guidelines around implementation.
00:04:38.568 --> 00:04:44.711
One of the real messy bits is going to be in how we can choose not to be involved.
00:04:44.711 --> 00:04:49.870
Doctors should be able to conscientiously object and not be involved in Euthanasia.
00:04:49.870 --> 00:04:52.708
But there's a lot of power dynamics.
00:04:52.708 --> 00:05:01.826
There's a lot of complexity in whether or not at the time they're going to be able to say I don't want to be part of this if they say their boss is saying that they need to be part of this.
00:05:01.826 --> 00:05:09.120
We've got a lot of complexity or concerns for institutions themselves, like a retirement village.
00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:13.610
So a Christian retirement village like Anglicare, who doesn't want?
00:05:14.112 --> 00:05:21.432
to have people and, let's face it, many of the providers of aged care services are provided by the faith care sector?
00:05:21.639 --> 00:05:34.146
Yes, absolutely, and most of them come from Christian traditions who hold that life is sacred and we should not be actively taking life and they don't want that happening on their property.
00:05:34.146 --> 00:05:48.949
These institutions started as expressions of faith to care for people who were needed they're not just service providers to do whatever the person wants and they wanted to be able to implement their faith and hold to their faith on their property.
00:05:48.949 --> 00:05:58.764
So at the moment there is no space for conscientious objection for those institutions to say, actually we don't want this on our property.
00:05:58.764 --> 00:06:14.447
So a Christian retirement village likely is going to have to be storing drugs of death on their property in preparation for somebody who is going to voluntarily die and the institution can't say that that doesn't fit with what we believe.
00:06:15.379 --> 00:06:20.492
How are you and the Roman Catholic space navigating this Monica?
00:06:21.242 --> 00:06:29.110
Yeah, well, look, what we're trying to do is hopefully get a united approach, because you have a whole number of different aged care providers.
00:06:29.110 --> 00:06:47.721
Some are quite large and are open to and care for people of many faith backgrounds, and some are also almost community based, where it's sort of a maybe certain migrant community have their own little small aged care facility, and so they're a very different.
00:06:48.502 --> 00:06:58.447
Just down the road here for years, there's a Greek Orthodox aged care facility and caring primarily for people of Greek or Greek Orthodox backgrounds.
00:06:58.689 --> 00:06:59.670
Yeah, exactly right.
00:06:59.670 --> 00:07:14.547
And so the question for me becomes should those people of the Greek Orthodox community be able to live out their their final days in a place where they can be certain that there aren't going to be there aren't going to be lethal drugs on site?
00:07:14.547 --> 00:07:40.110
So often this is pitched as sort of the institutional right against the individual patient or resident, but actually it's about whether or not a group of residents can come together and say we want to live in a place where this isn't going to happen, or for families to say we want to entrust our parents or our other loved ones to a place where confident that there's not going to be institutional pressure to go in that direction.
00:07:40.420 --> 00:08:04.232
Absolutely, and the only way that you can do that is if an institution has complete rights to opt out and not this sort of halfway house that the legislation puts us in, which says, well, you can opt out as an institution, but you have to allow other people to come on site in order to consult or, in euthanasia, to make assessments, to deliver in a minister.
00:08:04.232 --> 00:08:04.913
Lethal drugs.
00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:11.860
So what's going to happen 28th of November, when the doors open, when the legislation says, go and yeah?
00:08:12.442 --> 00:08:28.584
Well, look, I imagine that we'll see in the faith-based institutions what's happened, I think, in other states, which is that it's not taken up by a lot of the residents because they're going in there with a particular perspective.
00:08:29.125 --> 00:08:45.844
And also, I find what the faith-based facilities have been quite successful doing in other places is, when a resident starts speaking about euthanasia or assisted suicide, they're able to bring in all of those other supports and say, okay, well, what are you actually asking for?
00:08:45.844 --> 00:09:10.467
Are you asking for euthanasia or assisted suicide, or are you expressing some type of fear, some type of pain that's not actually being managed well and is there, and there are other things that we can do to assist you in that and to give you good, holistic end of life care, give you real dignity in death, not the fake dignity in death that's being sold by other activists.
00:09:10.467 --> 00:09:30.510
The one thing I will say, though, dominic, is that it's actually not clear how this will play out, because Victoria has had euthanasia and assisted suicide for a number of years, as has WA, but neither of those jurisdictions require faith-based facilities to allow this on site, nor does Tasmania, so New South Wales is actually.
00:09:30.740 --> 00:09:37.573
New South Wales is worse, tougher, more anti-Christian than Victoria, or how did that happen?
00:09:38.260 --> 00:09:40.067
It's extraordinary, isn't it?
00:09:40.067 --> 00:09:54.457
So I actually don't know how it happened and, if I'm being honest, in some of the private conversations I've had with members of parliament, they didn't even realise that the aged care facilities didn't have these protections in place.
00:09:54.457 --> 00:09:57.504
Yeah, and so they say, oh no, no, you got your protections.
00:09:57.504 --> 00:09:59.528
No, we didn't.
00:09:59.528 --> 00:10:01.413
The amendment was voted down.
00:10:01.413 --> 00:10:10.966
But that's what happens when legislation like this is getting pushed through and NMPs are there to all hours of the evening on successive days.
00:10:10.966 --> 00:10:16.270
I think, unfortunately, there is a little bit of a tendency of we just want to get this over with.
00:10:16.291 --> 00:10:16.975
you know it's going to pass.
00:10:16.995 --> 00:10:24.241
You reject all the amendments you reject all the amendments, and I think what my answer should be described as a winner takes all approach.
00:10:24.241 --> 00:10:30.424
So once you realise that you have the number to you have the numbers in parliament to pass the legislation.
00:10:30.424 --> 00:10:36.445
There doesn't seem to be any willingness to be open to amendments or protections or things like that.
00:10:36.445 --> 00:10:39.836
That's just a bit of a a win takes all approach.
00:10:39.855 --> 00:10:46.072
yeah, now, junior doctors are also put in a particularly difficult position here, mike.
00:10:46.413 --> 00:10:48.339
Yeah, and there is.
00:10:48.339 --> 00:10:57.567
In any kind of work there's power dynamics, but a junior doctor has to do, you know he's constantly doing the sorts of tasks that the senior doctors are telling him to do.
00:10:57.567 --> 00:11:01.807
The senior doctors have got their career in their hands in many ways.
00:11:01.807 --> 00:11:06.846
They control their promotion parts, their future training, specialisation, things like that.
00:11:07.047 --> 00:11:08.251
So don't rock the boat.
00:11:08.292 --> 00:11:09.216
So don't rock the boat.
00:11:09.216 --> 00:11:12.791
And so a junior doctor can say I'm a conscientious objector and that's fine.
00:11:12.791 --> 00:11:26.321
And that's fine until the day that the senior doctor says who's under stress, knows he has to go do something, doesn't have time to do it, grabs a junior doctor and says you go into that room and do it, and that's, that's the moment of crisis.
00:11:26.321 --> 00:11:27.062
What do you do?
00:11:29.586 --> 00:11:32.669
Okay, next one conversion practice legislation.
00:11:32.669 --> 00:11:42.953
And there was a significant pre-election promise from the Mins government at the various freedom for faith forums across the state.
00:11:42.953 --> 00:11:46.727
Give us the picture of what the pre-election promise was.
00:11:46.727 --> 00:11:47.650
Let's start with you, michael.
00:11:48.442 --> 00:11:48.903
Yeah.
00:11:48.903 --> 00:11:52.895
So churches around New South Wales, 35 different electorates.
00:11:52.895 --> 00:11:58.037
They had a candidate forum and in most of those candidate forums there was a Labor candidate.
00:11:58.037 --> 00:12:06.602
And most of those candidate forums they asked the question if you are going to implement a conversion therapy, will you protect religious freedoms, will you use the Victorian model?
00:12:06.602 --> 00:12:09.534
And we knew that Alex Greenwich was bringing up his legislation.
00:12:09.534 --> 00:12:13.759
We're asking will you use Greenwich's model or are you going to do something else?
00:12:14.322 --> 00:12:31.308
And so the Labor candidates were actually all given a script by head office to answer and they committed that they would not use Alex Greenwich's model, they would not use the Victorian model, they would not ban prayer, they would not ban preaching and, most hopefully, they would not ban consensual requests for help.
00:12:31.308 --> 00:12:37.109
So that was what was built into the script that most candidates stuck to one way or another.
00:12:37.109 --> 00:12:45.899
Chris Mince himself attended an event in Parramatta and he attended his own candidates forum in Coggera and he made the same sorts of commitments that we would.
00:12:45.899 --> 00:12:50.070
Let you make your choice and go and ask for help if that's what you want.
00:12:50.250 --> 00:12:54.847
So where are we now, Monica, in the negotiations with the government on this?
00:12:55.450 --> 00:13:06.255
So a few months ago the government ran a private consultation, so they didn't put out a consultation paper for public review.
00:13:06.255 --> 00:13:22.027
They gave it to a handful of I guess interested parties, including the faith communities, I would say including also the LGBT community and others, and that consultation paper outlined a number of questions and a number of proposals to which we were invited to respond.
00:13:22.027 --> 00:13:35.924
From what I understand, in the preparation of that consultation paper, they weren't given or didn't have access to the promises, the pre-election promises that Mike just referred to.
00:13:35.945 --> 00:13:38.269
Which does sound astonishing to me.
00:13:39.211 --> 00:13:58.777
It does, I mean, it begs belief really yeah yeah, in that meeting they said we went online to find what promises we were going to be and they found Chris Minns promises but they didn't find the fuller promises that a lot of the young candidates were making, but they they didn't seem to be thoroughly briefed to be.
00:13:58.777 --> 00:14:01.124
These are all the promises that Labour has made.
00:14:01.394 --> 00:14:07.158
So at the moment, they've gone back to the drawing board, having been reminded that this was the promise they took to the election.
00:14:07.158 --> 00:14:08.162
Is that what's happened, or?
00:14:09.434 --> 00:14:11.121
We don't know what they've gone back to.
00:14:11.121 --> 00:14:25.059
So we've had a lot of meetings, a lot of productive meetings with MPs, ministers, attorney General, premier, explaining what our concerns are, what we're looking for in a balanced legislation.
00:14:25.059 --> 00:14:30.698
We want to prevent against coercive harm but we want to protect religious freedom.
00:14:30.698 --> 00:14:39.172
We've had all these conversations, we've been heard, they definitely have heard us, but we don't know what's happening.
00:14:39.172 --> 00:14:40.677
We haven't seen any legislation.
00:14:40.677 --> 00:14:45.986
We've heard a statement in the media that legislation is coming in November.
00:14:45.986 --> 00:14:49.447
Well, it is November and we haven't seen a draft.
00:14:49.447 --> 00:14:53.741
We haven't had any consultation, so we generally just don't know what's going on.
00:14:55.054 --> 00:15:04.764
My hope is that, in good faith, they will revisit the proposals in that consultation paper and come closer to the pre-election commitments that were made.
00:15:04.764 --> 00:15:19.736
I think that, if I'm being frank, I think that I've been quite impressed by the sincerity with which the government has approached this issue and sort of their promises of being faithful to those pre-election commitments.
00:15:19.736 --> 00:15:27.682
So I'm hopeful that the draft legislation that comes out later this month will reflect those promises.
00:15:28.735 --> 00:15:37.076
Now, suppression seems to be the word that is causing most angst amongst my Christian friends.
00:15:37.076 --> 00:15:38.240
Do you want to talk about that?
00:15:38.875 --> 00:15:44.335
Sure, well, when we talk about conversion practices, that's really changing from one to the other.
00:15:44.335 --> 00:15:45.538
And so what you?
00:15:45.538 --> 00:16:02.456
I guess what is sold in the media or described in the media is trying to change somebody's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual, and we know in the past that that's been linked to some quite abhorrent practices that are against the dignity of the human person.
00:16:02.456 --> 00:16:13.164
But when we talk about suppression, there is the likelihood that that will actually be seen as really anything that asks for sexual restraint.
00:16:13.164 --> 00:16:21.884
So anything that says no, you shouldn't act on those sexual desires that you might have or those sexual attractions that you might have, could counter suppression.
00:16:21.884 --> 00:16:25.259
And this isn't even an issue about homosexuality.
00:16:25.259 --> 00:16:28.167
This applies just equally to heterosexuality as well.
00:16:28.355 --> 00:16:34.203
So you're a part of so interesting about the one Corinthians flee from sexual immorality.
00:16:34.203 --> 00:16:36.856
There's a verse in the Bible that's sexual suppression.
00:16:36.856 --> 00:16:45.466
So preaching one Corinthians six, just that's going to get us in trouble.
00:16:46.855 --> 00:16:47.436
It's quite well.
00:16:47.436 --> 00:17:01.004
It's interesting because at least the consultation paper and some of the language from the government says you're allowed to preach it, but you're just not allowed to tell somebody that they can apply, that they have to apply it to their lives.
00:17:01.004 --> 00:17:08.738
So you can preach it generally, but you can't tell somebody then that that should influence the way that they behave.
00:17:08.738 --> 00:17:11.365
So your preaching becomes an academic exercise.
00:17:11.474 --> 00:17:25.648
So most churches there's education in preaching, there's education in small group discussion and there's education in one-on-onebiblery yeah, and prayer.
00:17:26.034 --> 00:17:26.395
Yeah.
00:17:26.395 --> 00:17:30.425
So the one-on-one would definitely be out, and potentially the small group as well.
00:17:30.425 --> 00:17:32.461
So I'll give you just a very benign example.
00:17:32.461 --> 00:17:50.122
Say you have a married heterosexual man come to you and say look, I've met another woman, I'm really attracted to her, I'm tempted to cheat on my life and as the pastor, I say resist temptation.
00:17:50.122 --> 00:18:01.723
That could be seen as suppression and expose you not only to criminal but also civil liability, which is prettya very strange idea.
00:18:03.037 --> 00:18:09.067
I mean that feels like unintendedI mean it seems just bizarre that that would be put forward.
00:18:09.346 --> 00:18:11.576
Yeah, I don't think it's unintended.
00:18:11.576 --> 00:18:15.656
This was brought up in the debates around the Victorian legislation as well.
00:18:15.656 --> 00:18:23.077
They went ahead knowing full well that this is how the legislation would be interpreted.
00:18:24.126 --> 00:18:24.709
And more than that.
00:18:24.709 --> 00:18:26.634
They specifically said that's how they want.
00:18:26.634 --> 00:18:58.096
So, in case you feel like we're catastrophising what this legislation is, this is the legislation that's in Victoria, and the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, vroc, have got a website which says what you can and cannot do, what would be a chain of conversions, of pressure and practice, and what wouldn't, and they specifically say that encouraging somebody to live in chastity because otherwise, apart from having sex within marriage, is a suppression practice and would be unlawful.
00:18:58.096 --> 00:19:05.112
Specifically said, on their publicly accessible website they give examples of the sorts of prayers that are acceptable.
00:19:05.112 --> 00:19:13.694
So a prayer that is acceptable is it's acceptable to pray with someone and thank God that they are perfect as they are and accepted by God as they are.
00:19:13.694 --> 00:19:23.875
It is not acceptable to pray a prayer that indicates in any way that they could be broken, need repentance or changing the way that they live.
00:19:26.349 --> 00:19:26.549
So it's.
00:19:26.549 --> 00:19:30.881
Their website is going to run foul of well.
00:19:30.881 --> 00:19:34.570
The Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian, keep going.
00:19:34.570 --> 00:19:35.673
Fill the list out for me.
00:19:36.546 --> 00:19:39.695
Muslims, hindus, the Jewish communities as well.
00:19:39.695 --> 00:19:42.051
This isn't only an issue for Christians.
00:19:42.051 --> 00:19:57.114
And when it comes to Catholics, I was saying in the presentation and I'll repeat it here this could also affect the Catholic Church saying to their priests you need to be celibate, because that would also be technically a suppression practice.
00:19:57.785 --> 00:19:59.371
So I mean, that's a big thing.
00:20:00.005 --> 00:20:01.347
It's a big thing that I would say.
00:20:01.347 --> 00:20:09.635
What Mike was saying is probably even bigger, because this is the state dictating what you can pray.
00:20:09.635 --> 00:20:19.575
Is there any greater example of overreach or impingement on religious freedom than telling you what you can and cannot pray, who you cannot you cannot pray for.
00:20:19.575 --> 00:20:23.794
It's just, it is extraordinary yeah.
00:20:24.005 --> 00:20:25.088
The Virok website goes on.
00:20:25.088 --> 00:20:26.374
It talks about preaching.
00:20:26.374 --> 00:20:34.332
So there is an exemption in Victorian legislation that you can preach what you believe unless it's directed towards an individual.
00:20:34.332 --> 00:20:45.557
And the Virok website says if you are aware of somebody in your congregation who has suffered a struggling with same-sex attraction, your sermon could be considered to be directed at that individual.
00:20:45.557 --> 00:20:57.133
So even just the fact that you're up in the pulpit saying the Bible calls you to live this way sexually, that actually could well be a suppression practice if you knew there was someone in your congregation struggling with that issue.
00:20:57.133 --> 00:20:59.349
And that's again public website.
00:20:59.349 --> 00:21:01.055
That's what they've said, that this is the ruling.
00:21:01.746 --> 00:21:08.132
And I think one of these, I think there's a great misunderstanding of what religion and what faith is supposed to do.
00:21:08.132 --> 00:21:09.771
It calls all of us to conversion.
00:21:09.771 --> 00:21:15.550
I mean that's the message repent and believe in the gospel, like that's what we're called to.
00:21:15.550 --> 00:21:21.156
And so this idea that conversion is somehow some awful practice that goes on?
00:21:21.156 --> 00:21:22.765
No, we're all called to conversion.
00:21:22.765 --> 00:21:27.296
We're all called to conversion daily to conform our lives closer to Christ.
00:21:27.296 --> 00:21:31.352
And so this idea that somehow this is some barbaric practice?
00:21:31.352 --> 00:21:41.593
It speaks really to an ignorance of religion and the importance of religion in people's lives, I think by those suggesting these laws.
00:21:42.287 --> 00:21:55.432
And again, not unintended consequences, because we've had one MP who's pushing this very hard on an activist and has said publicly that he wants to not only ban conversion practices but the beliefs that underlie them.
00:21:55.432 --> 00:22:01.938
So this is an intentional attempt to silence people who disagree with a specific worldview on sexuality.
00:22:02.586 --> 00:22:04.673
What about the issues of gender identity, Michael?
00:22:06.409 --> 00:22:15.593
In gender identity gets even more complicated because it's a medically contested space as well as being a theologically contested one.
00:22:15.593 --> 00:22:25.576
But in the current proposal that we saw from the Department of Communities and Justice, it does not separate between gender identity and sexuality in the legislation.
00:22:25.576 --> 00:22:34.034
It says it is illegal to embark in this sort of conversion or suppression practice on the basis of sexuality or gender identity.
00:22:34.034 --> 00:22:44.354
So everything we've said applies with somebody who comes up with you, including a minor, who comes and talks to you and says I'm not sure that I'm the gender that I'm born at.
00:22:44.354 --> 00:23:07.198
With Any attempt to say even wait, wait and see what's going to happen and the face of the proposal that's come, would be a suppression practice, because the best thing to do for a child who says that they are a different gender is to immediately treat them and immediately give them the puberty blockers and all the treatment that they need.
00:23:07.198 --> 00:23:11.233
So anything that says wait is a suppression practice.
00:23:12.345 --> 00:23:18.537
We have had so many kids actually go through phases and agree with this.
00:23:19.724 --> 00:23:45.138
Another group who are really upset about this actually are the LGB groups, so gay and lesbian groups, who are saying a girl who goes through gender confusion will often grow up to be a very happy, healthy, gay lesbian girl, and so they are very concerned about pushing kids in very confused situations through gender transformation.
00:23:45.138 --> 00:23:57.056
But when we're talking about like the conversion and suppression legislation or what it's saying, it is restricting our ability to even talk about all these realities.
00:23:57.056 --> 00:24:15.404
We have had an example of a family member in Victoria who wrote to their other family member who was planning to go through gender transformation and wrote I don't think you should do this, I don't think it's a good idea.
00:24:15.404 --> 00:24:23.375
And the Victorian Equal Opportunity Human Rights Commission wrote to that family member saying what you did was a suppression practice and likely to be unlawful.
00:24:23.375 --> 00:24:36.748
So we're already having examples of in another state commissions clamping down on people, on just family members, saying maybe you should wait, don't do this, you're concerned.
00:24:36.748 --> 00:24:40.037
Grandparent, uncle, parent I have those conversations.
00:24:40.205 --> 00:24:41.391
Kind of what you're saying, Monica.
00:24:41.684 --> 00:24:48.470
I was just going to say, and one of the important things is that in a number of jurisdictions overseas we're seeing the opposite happen.
00:24:48.470 --> 00:25:15.855
So in the UK, in Sweden, in Norway, in other places, they're saying we're actually going to outlaw giving children puberty blockers because we consider them to be experimental, we don't know the long-term effects of them, and so on the one hand we've got jurisdictions that are prohibiting pushing children down a gender affirmative path, and here we're about to do the opposite, which is say well, we're going to outlaw anything except a gender affirmative path.
00:25:15.884 --> 00:25:20.022
Which is extraordinary when we're going to outlaw doing anything except this.
00:25:20.022 --> 00:25:26.990
And yet one of the Australian medical defence insurance companies is pulling back from ensuring doctors to do that.
00:25:27.586 --> 00:25:28.545
Yeah, absolutely so.
00:25:28.545 --> 00:25:43.037
Mda National announced that, as of the 1st of July of this year, they were going to not provide insurance coverage to private practitioners who prescribed cross-sex hormones to kids under 18.
00:25:43.037 --> 00:25:44.579
I think maybe even puberty blockers as well.
00:25:44.579 --> 00:25:45.984
So they're going to double check.
00:25:45.984 --> 00:25:53.673
But they said it's not an ideological issue, it's actually a financial one.
00:25:53.673 --> 00:26:06.592
We the risk to the children is unquantifiable at this stage and so, simply from a financial point of view, we can't quantify the risk we're undertaking by backing doctors who are prescribing these.
00:26:06.592 --> 00:26:19.268
So if you have the insurers saying this, if you have jurisdictions in other parts of the world putting the brakes on all of this and saying hold on, we don't know what's going on here, let's slow down.
00:26:19.268 --> 00:26:24.273
I think it makes it even more egregious that New South Wales is looking to go down this path.
00:26:25.287 --> 00:26:28.115
Let's just jump over to anti-discrimination for a minute.
00:26:28.115 --> 00:26:42.669
And I was alarmed at something you said in your presentation about the anti-discrimination board potentially in the future being able to initiate investigations without a complaint about something that had been said in a sermon.
00:26:42.669 --> 00:26:44.335
Go looking, investigating.
00:26:44.335 --> 00:26:45.690
Tell me about that, monica.
00:26:46.065 --> 00:26:58.113
Yeah, so amongst the proposals and what we see in the Victorian legislation as well, is the idea that the anti-discrimination board will be given the power to conduct what they call own-emotion investigations.
00:26:58.244 --> 00:27:08.348
So they haven't received a complaint, but they would think, okay, well, we think there might be a systemic issue of conversion in some institution.
00:27:08.348 --> 00:27:12.132
We'll, off our own motion, go and start investigating that.
00:27:12.132 --> 00:27:18.549
And they would have the power to compel witnesses, to subpoena the production of documents and other things like that.
00:27:18.549 --> 00:27:56.055
And I would think, if they're looking into systemic issues of conversion, then their first targets are going to have to be religious groups, absolutely, and churches, and so I would expect, empowered by this, particularly if they hire more staff in order to do that, they're going to be looking for something and you would have the potential of a letter from the anti-discrimination board saying we would like copies of your sermons that you've preached on this issue or anything like that, so we can judge for ourselves whether or not there is a systemic issue of conversion within your church.
00:27:56.055 --> 00:28:02.744
And look, I would dare I say there's a pastor who doesn't have a systemic issue of conversion going on here preaching.
00:28:02.865 --> 00:28:03.910
Everybody is going to be preaching.
00:28:03.910 --> 00:28:05.970
Turn back to Jesus.
00:28:06.069 --> 00:28:06.250
Yes.
00:28:07.065 --> 00:28:09.211
In this area of your life or that area of your life.
00:28:09.211 --> 00:28:12.172
You're a rebel, you need to repent.
00:28:12.172 --> 00:28:14.010
I'm a rebel, I need to repent.
00:28:14.404 --> 00:28:19.752
Yeah, if you're not calling to conversion, if you're not calling to repentance, you're probably not being faithful to the scriptures at all.
00:28:19.752 --> 00:28:25.913
So yeah, so I think we've got a real systemic issue that's going to keep the anti-discrimination board busy.
00:28:27.265 --> 00:28:30.013
And this proposal was from Alex Grenich's omnibus bill.
00:28:30.684 --> 00:28:32.108
I think it was also in the consultation paper.
00:28:32.530 --> 00:28:41.925
Yeah, Right, I mean the Alex Grenich omnibus bill that also included, I think.
00:28:41.925 --> 00:29:02.847
When you come to gender change and somebody saying I want to change gender, no need for any kind of surgical change, I just declare, and so you could end up, under that proposal, with me not being able to define who gets to search my body at the airport, is that right?
00:29:04.847 --> 00:29:08.067
Or me being able to define who searches my body at the airport.
00:29:08.067 --> 00:29:11.513
So I define myself as a woman.
00:29:12.986 --> 00:29:14.111
And then I go through the thing.
00:29:14.244 --> 00:29:15.048
I'm saying I'm a woman.
00:29:15.048 --> 00:29:16.051
Today I've done the paperwork.
00:29:16.051 --> 00:29:23.912
I go through, I go beep, I say you need to have a strip search and I say, well, I'm a woman, I want a woman officer to search me.
00:29:23.971 --> 00:29:24.493
Thank you very much.
00:29:24.493 --> 00:29:29.030
And then an Islamic woman who's working on border security is put in a very difficult position.
00:29:29.111 --> 00:29:33.614
Absolutely and she's at least under Alex Grenich's proposals.
00:29:33.614 --> 00:29:34.616
He's got no grounds.
00:29:34.616 --> 00:29:37.009
She's got no grounds to say no, because that would be discrimination.
00:29:37.009 --> 00:29:44.692
For her to say, well, as a Muslim woman, I can't, I'm not going to touch a man's body, would be discriminatory, because I'm a woman, I'm not a man.
00:29:44.692 --> 00:29:48.034
It's the same problem with single sex schools.
00:29:48.034 --> 00:29:56.205
It is legislating, even at the safest legislation, of saying this can happen at the age of 18, plus.
00:29:56.205 --> 00:29:59.575
It's heaps of 18 year old kids still doing the HSC.
00:29:59.575 --> 00:30:02.813
So single sex schools have a massive problem.
00:30:02.813 --> 00:30:05.211
But then the legislation talks about what?
00:30:05.211 --> 00:30:06.548
About the conditions?
00:30:06.548 --> 00:30:12.473
That it can happen at 16 plus or even younger, and it doesn't even require necessarily a parent's support.
00:30:12.473 --> 00:30:16.288
You can get the court to agree with the child and there you go.
00:30:16.288 --> 00:30:17.673
They're now a change of agenda.
00:30:17.884 --> 00:30:20.694
And even at 18 residential colleges at university.
00:30:20.694 --> 00:30:25.614
I mean we've all seen the reports into what goes on at some of those residential colleges.
00:30:25.614 --> 00:30:30.794
Do you think anything's going to be better by mixing the sexes in those?
00:30:30.794 --> 00:30:33.569
Who's going to be safer?
00:30:34.486 --> 00:30:37.851
And you can guarantee there's going to be a couple of guys who are going to try it on?
00:30:39.547 --> 00:30:42.230
That's just under the Grenich one, or is that under the government one?
00:30:43.145 --> 00:30:46.734
That's under Alex Grenich's omnibus proposal.
00:30:46.734 --> 00:30:50.432
Sex self ID was not part that.
00:30:50.432 --> 00:30:57.471
The government proposal we talk about is specifically conversion therapy and it was a proposal from the Department of Communities and Justice.
00:30:57.471 --> 00:31:05.664
And I do emphasize that point because at the moment we haven't seen a proposal from the Labor Party of New South Wales.
00:31:05.664 --> 00:31:17.573
We've only seen DCJ's proposal, which was requested by the government, and so there is still space for us to say Labor have not even suggested they're going to be breaking our promises at this point.
00:31:17.573 --> 00:31:20.113
They've had a proposal putched to them.
00:31:20.113 --> 00:31:27.429
We are calling on them to reject that proposal wholesale and because if they accept the proposal then they will absolutely have broken every one of their promises.
00:31:27.429 --> 00:31:30.232
But so I think it's important to draw that distinction.
00:31:30.232 --> 00:31:38.455
But the sex self ID is one of Alex Grenich's omnibus bill which includes a conversion therapy legislation.
00:31:38.644 --> 00:31:40.671
You're hoping that that will be rejected outright.
00:31:40.671 --> 00:31:41.413
Sorry.
00:31:41.733 --> 00:31:42.596
Yeah, look, absolutely.
00:31:42.596 --> 00:31:58.156
But I think, as I understand it, the Labor government is, even if it doesn't support the sex self ID provisions of the Greenwich Bill, have indicated that they will do their own, that as a party position, that this is something that they support.
00:31:59.382 --> 00:32:02.713
So it's not that's the self sex ID Of some form.
00:32:02.713 --> 00:32:03.440
Yes, of some form.
00:32:03.579 --> 00:32:09.501
Chris Mince has said every other state has done it, which is a classic argument for jumping off the Harbour Bridge.
00:32:09.501 --> 00:32:15.969
But that is a statement that he's made and a commitment that he's made, and of Greenwich's Omnibus Bill.
00:32:15.969 --> 00:32:20.267
If you split it out, you can split it out saying there's the conversion therapy section.
00:32:20.267 --> 00:32:27.760
Okay, let's put that over there, because the government have committed to not use his conversion therapy legislation and are writing their own and we know that's going to happen.
00:32:28.423 --> 00:32:43.127
The second set is a whole lot of changes that's made to discrimination law and a lot of them are very broad changes which will make it almost impossible to make distinctions between people, particularly for faith organisations.
00:32:43.127 --> 00:32:56.412
But the New South Wales government have initiated their own review into discrimination law and have committed that they will not implement any of these changes for the discrimination law until that review's happened.
00:32:56.412 --> 00:33:02.250
So we can again park that for a little bit, be very concerned because we don't know what this review's going to come up with.
00:33:02.250 --> 00:33:02.821
But we can.
00:33:02.821 --> 00:33:11.008
But then the sex self ID is something that Alex Greenwich has written and the government has in theory committed to.
00:33:11.008 --> 00:33:13.338
It's actually quite a concerning piece of legislation.
00:33:13.338 --> 00:33:15.344
We don't know when that portion will come up.
00:33:15.344 --> 00:33:18.711
Alex's bill has not been split up.
00:33:18.992 --> 00:33:23.103
I believe so there is a separate conversion practices bill.
00:33:23.144 --> 00:33:25.991
Yes, but the rest is still altogether the rest of it is still altogether.
00:33:25.991 --> 00:33:38.240
So they're not yet in the position to just pass sex self ID, but it would just need splitting the bill and then starting to debate it, and that's plausible to have happened within the November setting.
00:33:38.603 --> 00:33:39.265
It is plausible.
00:33:39.265 --> 00:33:43.140
And there are other things in the Greenwich bill that are also concerning.
00:33:43.140 --> 00:33:46.711
There are things like in relation to prostitution.
00:33:46.711 --> 00:34:04.865
So prostitution is already decriminalised here in New South Wales, but there are some limits on things like advertising, whether or not you can solicit outside churches or schools or things like that, and what the Greenwich bill seeks to do is to remove even those very minor barriers.
00:34:04.865 --> 00:34:24.511
So there would be nothing to prevent somebody soliciting for sex work outside, or even inside a church or outside a school or something like that, so to remove even those slight community taboos around prostitution.
00:34:24.511 --> 00:34:30.248
So that's something that's very strange and very again, I think, concerning out of the bill.
00:34:30.929 --> 00:34:32.613
You've been promoting a website.
00:34:32.613 --> 00:34:34.623
Contact your MP.
00:34:34.644 --> 00:34:36.547
Contact your MPorgau.
00:34:36.867 --> 00:34:38.851
For people to contact their MPs.
00:34:38.851 --> 00:34:39.594
That's about it.
00:34:39.820 --> 00:34:43.878
Yeah, it's a fairly self-explanatory name, so this is specifically at the moment.
00:34:43.878 --> 00:34:46.644
The website is specifically about the conversion therapy legislation.
00:34:46.644 --> 00:34:53.045
It is a website to give you that will help you write, call or meet with your MP.
00:34:53.045 --> 00:35:00.585
It's not connected necessarily with any one faith or denomination, but it's for everybody to go.
00:35:00.585 --> 00:35:02.730
You can search for your MP.
00:35:02.730 --> 00:35:07.733
Postcode search gives you talking points so you can write your letter.
00:35:07.733 --> 00:35:09.594
It gives you guides and lines about how to do it.
00:35:09.594 --> 00:35:11.806
You can find your MP's email address on there.
00:35:11.806 --> 00:35:18.360
If you wanted to go and have a meeting with your MP, it takes you step by step for the whole process, understanding what a meeting would be like.
00:35:18.360 --> 00:35:21.148
Here's the email to send to the MP asking for the meeting.
00:35:21.148 --> 00:35:22.271
Here's some talking points.
00:35:22.271 --> 00:35:35.192
Here's a two-page document that you can walk through with your MP with our concerns and our requests laid out and authorised and approved by 15 major faith organisations.
00:35:35.192 --> 00:35:36.114
This is a.
00:35:36.679 --> 00:35:39.509
The concern about conversion therapy is a multi-faith concern.
00:35:39.509 --> 00:35:40.210
As we already said.
00:35:40.210 --> 00:35:47.164
Muslim communities, hindu communities, jewish communities are all really, really worried that they can't preach what they believe.
00:35:47.164 --> 00:36:08.271
So this site's been designed to help every community to go and speak up, the reason being that politicians don't know what we're concerned about until we tell them they don't have great polling, and so the only way that they have an idea of what their electorate is is they get a feel of the electorate People who come and talk to them by the letters they get.
00:36:08.271 --> 00:36:12.951
And we, particularly the Christian church, have really withdrawn from doing that.
00:36:12.951 --> 00:36:18.400
We're not keen to write letters, we're not keen, and so people think that we don't actually care about this issue.
00:36:18.400 --> 00:36:27.887
It's not hard to write a letter and it makes a big difference, particularly when 100-odd personally written letters come through an MP's office.
00:36:27.887 --> 00:36:30.983
They know it's All right, monica.
00:36:31.264 --> 00:36:32.387
Michael, thanks for coming in.
00:36:32.387 --> 00:36:33.210
Thank you so much.
00:36:33.210 --> 00:36:48.096
Thank you, monica Dumit is the Director of Public Affairs and Engagement for the Catholic Church here in Sydney and I was one of the presenters at the Freedom for Faith Conference here in Sydney today, and Mike Southen is Executive Director of Freedom for Faith.
00:36:48.096 --> 00:36:49.059
My name's Dominic Steele.
00:36:49.059 --> 00:36:54.027
You've been with us on the Pastor's Heart and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.