A broad coalition of Australia’s most influential religious leaders have urged the prime minister to scrap Labor’s proposal to outlaw the promotion of racial hatred, raising “deep concerns” about the impact on freedom of religion and expression.

The government’s sweeping legislative response to the Bondi terror attack has met strong resistance from the opposition and the Greens, putting a roadblock in Labor’s plan to rush the bill through parliament when it is recalled early next week.

A long list of Australia’s top religious leaders, including Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher and president of the Australian National Imams Council Shadi Alsuleiman, wrote to Anthony Albanese on Friday asking for the introduction of the bill to be delayed “to remove unintended consequences and overreach”.

“As leaders across the range of faith communities in Australia, we have deep concerns about the bill’s impact on religious freedom and freedom of expression,” the letter read.

“These freedoms are not peripheral considerations.

“They are foundational to Australia’s constitutional framework, democratic culture, and the ability of faith communities to contribute positively and responsibly to public life.”

No Jewish leaders were signatories on the letter, which was also signed by Buddhist, Sikh, Anglican, Orthodox, Maronite, Christian, Baptist and Presbyterian representatives.

One of the most contentious elements of the reforms is a new offence that would make it illegal to incite or promote hatred on the grounds of race, colour, or national or ethnic origin unless the speech or writings are direct quotes from texts central to religions.

Religious teaching may be defence under new hate laws

Directly quoting from a religious text for the purpose of teaching or discussion may provide a defence under the federal government’s hate speech laws proposed in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.

The omnibus bill also includes measures to introduce a gun buyback scheme, strengthen background checks for firearm owners, grant greater powers to cancel or reject visas, and create a regime to ban designated hate groups.

While the letter acknowledged that faith leaders had previously signalled their support for a serious religious vilification offence, they called for the inciting racial hatred offence to be removed from the draft legislation. 

“As a general policy, expression may be appropriately criminalised where it is used to incite or threaten physical violence against a person or a group, but it is dangerous to criminalise expression just because a person or group feels intimidated, harassed, hated or threatened,” it read.

Australian Jewish groups have largely backed the government’s proposed racial hatred laws, though some have expressed concerns about the rushed nature of the reforms and an exemption for people quoting directly from religious texts for teaching or discussion.

Greens won’t support Labor’s sweeping hate law reform in current form

The Greens have thrown up a roadblock for Labor by declaring it will not support the government’s sweeping changes to hate and gun laws without amendments as the Coalition also backs away from the reforms. 

Legal experts have also flagged potential issues with the proposed laws, including leading constitutional law scholar Anne Twomey, who said elements of the bill were “concerning” and could impact the right to freedom of speech.

The prime minister on Friday afternoon told the ABC the government would take comments that had been made “on board”, while calling for “some form of good will from the Coalition”. 

“If people have genuine proposals, they should put them forward,” he said.

“This is a moment that calls for the sort of unity we’ve seen in other national events.”

Coalition, Greens voice opposition to bill

In the month after the Bondi attack, the Coalition repeatedly called on the government to recall parliament before the scheduled return in February to act to eradicate antisemitism.

The opposition also pushed the government to enact a list of recommendations by antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal in full, which included a call to strengthen laws in relation to “serious vilification offences and the public promotion of hatred”.

But this week Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said Labor’s bill failed to address the issues that gave rise to the massacre, risked criminalising speech unrelated to antisemitsm or extremism, and lacked clarity.

Sussan Ley raises her hands during a press conference.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has slammed Labor’s sweeping bill.  (ABC News: Matt Roberts)

Ms Ley also took issue with the fact “radical Islam” was not specifically cited in the legislation.

It followed public comments from members of her party concerned that the new laws would curtail freedom of speech and religion.

“It should be possible for this legislation to criminalise radical Islamic extremist hate preaching without impinging on free speech,” Ms Ley said on Friday.

“My colleagues are unified behind the very strong views that we have put forward about Labor’s flawed legislation.”

Coalition MPs were invited to an internal briefing on the bill and this week’s snap parliamentary hearing on Friday afternoon, but the opposition is not expected to come to an official position until a formal partyroom meeting is held next week.

Without the support of the Coalition, Labor needs the Greens to pass the laws in the Senate but the minor party has also said it would not support the bill in its current form.

While the Greens remained open to working with the government on amendments, senators David Shoebrige and Mehreen Faruqi on Thursday expressed deep reservations about multiple elements of the bill and the potential for unintended consequences that undermine political, civil and human rights.