28^th May 2014
Rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Indi­gen­ous, Greek, Jewish, Chinese, Arab and Korean com­munit­ies met on Monday and Tuesday with more than 80 members of the federal par­lia­ment from the Coalition, Labor, the Greens and Inde­pend­ents to express their strong oppos­i­tion to the gov­ern­ment’s plans to weaken the existing Federal law against racial vili­fic­a­tion.

L‑R: Tony Pang (Chinese Aus­trali­an Services), Dr Ramzi Barnouti (Arab Council of Australia),
Peter Wertheim (Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry), the Hon Philip Ruddock MP,
George Vellis (Aus­trali­an Hellenic Council), Patrick Voon (Chinese Aus­trali­an Forum),
Kirstie Parker (Co-Chair, National Congress of First Peoples of Australia),
Luke Song (Korean Society of Sydney)

“We were pleas­antly surprised by the state­ments of support we received across the party political divide in favour of leaving the existing law as it is”, said the Executive Director of the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, Peter Wertheim.
“If anything, the oppos­i­tion that was expressed to the gov­ern­ment’s proposals was even stronger than we had heard pre­vi­ously. Most of the Coalition MP’s we met with expressed dis­ap­prov­al of the gov­ern­ment’s exposure draft to change the legis­la­tion, and voiced deep mis­giv­ings about the gov­ern­ment’s entire approach to the issue.”
It is under­stood that the gov­ern­ment received more than 5,300 sub­mis­sions from the public in response to its exposure draft, almost all of which were strongly critical of it.
“With the exception of any sub­mis­sions that were made in con­fid­ence, all of these sub­mis­sions should be made available to the public on the Attorney General’s website in the interests of having an informed and open debate,” Wertheim concluded.
The meetings between community rep­res­ent­at­ives and MP’s coincided with public state­ments on Tuesday by eminent Aus­trali­ans, Pat Dodson and Adam Goodes, which also urged the Federal gov­ern­ment to recon­sider its plans to amend the existing anti-vili­fic­a­tion law.

With Labor Members of Par­lia­ment

With ALP leader Bill Shorten, Labor front-benchers, Michelle Rowlands,
Tanya Plibersek and Mark Dreyfus, and Inde­pend­ent Senator Nick Xenophon

For further inform­a­tion:
Peter Wertheim AM | Executive Director
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au