Survivors of clergy abuse have expressed deep concern at proposals to ban protests outside places of worship, with lawyer John Ellis saying a blanket ban would have seen him arrested outside a Sydney cathedral last year.
Anthony Albanese on Wednesday backed proposals in New South Wales and Victoria to ban such protests after an arson attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and antisemitic vandalism in Sydney.
Speaking about the proposals, the prime minister said he “cannot conceive of any reason, apart from creating division in our community, of why someone would want to hold a demonstration outside a place of worship”.
This rankled abuse survivors, particularly those who engaged in what they describe as a respectful demonstration outside St Mary’s cathedral in Sydney after George Pell’s death, and others who have tied ribbons on the fence outside St Patrick’s cathedral in Ballarat for years.
Ellis was among those outside St Mary’s last year.
“Had such a ban, as is now suggested, been in place a few years ago, I would have been arrested for being outside St Mary’s cathedral with other abuse survivors during George Pell’s funeral,” he said.
Ellis was abused as an altar boy for years by a paedophile priest in the 1970s. When he sued the church and Pell himself, the Sydney archdiocese, under Pell’s leadership, took an aggressive approach in fighting his case despite internally accepting that Ellis had been abused and knowing of other complaints about the same priest.
It successfully argued in NSW’s highest court in 2007 that, as an unincorporated association holding its assets in a protected trust, it did not legally exist and could not be sued.
The defence came to be known as the “Ellis defence” and was used to thwart countless other claims until it was scrapped in 2019.
Ellis, whose legal work predominantly involves abuse claims, is adamant that a blanket ban on protests outside cathedrals would have seen him arrested and suffer anew.
“That would have been a great travesty and a kick in the guts to all abuse survivors,” he said.
‘Peaceful protest should never be unlawful’
Ellis said he understood and supported the idea behind the ban proposal – the need to respect faith, including by ensuring it can be exercised without persecution or attack.
But he said there were already laws designed to do precisely that, which target violent protest, offensive behaviour, racial abuse and discrimination.
“A peaceful protest should never be unlawful. Full stop,” he said. “People should be allowed their voice and their truth, however uncomfortable that is for others.”
Paul Auchettl, an abuse survivor from Ballarat, also flew to Sydney last year after Pell’s death.
He tied ribbons outside St Mary’s, which were repeatedly removed by church staff.
“People have never referred to ribbons as protest, but now I feel they easily fall into that category,” Auchettl said
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said such a ban would “not necessarily” have stopped abuse protests because they hadn’t intimidated the church.
But he conceded it was a “legal point” that would need to be ironed out.
Kevin Liston, co-chair of the Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform, also expressed alarm at the proposed ban.
Liston, who was not speaking on behalf of the ACCCR, said “people should be able to voice their opinions”.
“Banning protests or banning the expression of public opinion always seems to me to be a bad thing,” he said.
The NSW and Victorian governments referred Guardian Australia to previous comments about the potential bans. The Queensland government has said it was watching the proposed laws in NSW “with great interest”.
Unintended consequences
Gamel Kheir, the secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association, which runs Lakemba mosque, warned it could have unintended consequences.
He supported the ban in theory, but was unconvinced it would be enacted “fairly”.
“Places of worship should be peaceful; my religion tells me all places of worship are sacrosanct,” Kheir said.
“But I have zero confidence this will be implemented fairly. I am concerned this law will be used as a stick against certain communities and used to selectively protect certain communities.”
Kheir said some of his scepticism was rooted in the lack of political responses to previous Islamophobic attacks, referencing two incidents involving pig heads being left outside a school in 2017 and a mosque in 2022.
He also pointed to an arson attack against a mosque in Toowoomba in 2015, reports of another in Adelaide in 2023 and a firebombed car alongside Islamophobic graffiti outside a Perth mosque in 2016. None of those attacks ignited an anti-Islamophobia political response.
He also referred to anti-Islam rallies in 2015 and 2016 as examples of inflammatory protests targeting Muslims that received minimal political responses. Kheir said: “Why should we trust the government to fairly implement these laws?
“What was done after all of these incidents? Fat zero. Why are they pushing for this now? Where was the condemnation and laws to protect us then?”
Some Jewish groups, including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, had urged Albanese to encourage state governments to enforce laws restricting protests around religious schools or buildings or to enact new laws where they did not exist.
The federal antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, told the Daily Telegraph this week that she supported bans.
“I want to see the legislation of no demonstrations outside places of worship because to criticise a religion that [goes against] an essential part of our democracy,” she said.
Segal also criticised weekly pro-Palestinian protests as “intimidatory and harassing”, which the Palestine Action Group rejected. Josh Lees, one of the organisers in the group, said the protests had “peacefully” marched through Sydney’s CBD for more than a year.
