The Coalition’s religious freedom bill will result in a rise in both religious intolerance and anti-religious hostility, threatening secularism in Australia, Michael Kirby has warned. The former high court justice has labelled it an “unbalanced law that will sustain nastiness and hostility that we can well do without” in his first intervention in the debate since Christian Porter released the draft religious discrimination bill in August.

The attorney general has promised to introduce the bill to parliament before the year’s end, but faces an uphill battle to pass it, with human rights and LGBTI groups, employer bodies and state anti-discrimination commissions opposed, and key crossbench senators saying skepticism it is needed.

In a letter to the Australian Law Journal, Kirby suggested the push for legal protections for “religious freedom” was “a product of hostile religious assertions of a minority of conservative politicians” after the passage of marriage equality legislation in 2017.

“I am unconvinced that such newfound protections are really needed,” he said. “And I see serious dangers in the present form of the proposed laws.” Kirby argued that existing discrimination law enacts the principle that “the right to swing my arm ends when I hit another’s chin”, which is “now … being dismantled to give a free go to the religious arm swingers”.

“If this move goes ahead, I predict that the result will be a rise in religious intolerance and also anti-religious hostility to replace the more relaxed [live and let live] tradition of modern Australia. Read more via Guardian