Last year, there was a Canberra-generated controversy when text messages from the head of the Immigration Department leaked.
Mike Pezzullo had given free character assessments of various Ministers in these private messages. They were embarrassing but nothing you wouldn’t hear in any Canberra pub, every night of the week.
This was too much honesty for Canberra to bear. So after a short investigation, Pezzullo was sacked last November.
Ever since, our migration policy has been in shambles.
Almost 150 convicted or suspected criminals were released after the Government botched its response to a court case.
More than 20 of them have already been re-arrested on charges of newly committed crimes or for breaching bail conditions.
Just this week the Government made a shambolic and failed attempt to rewrite migration laws with just hours notice.
Maybe it’s time to give Pezzullo his job back.
Maybe we should not make telling the truth illegal.
A few years ago, the Tasmanian Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteus wrote a pamphlet defending the Christian view, hitherto preached uncontroversially for centuries, that marriage is an act that binds together one man and one woman.
For that sin, anti-discrimination proceedings were initiated against Bishop Porteus.
While the process was dropped after a public outcry, the threat of being penalised for telling the truth remains.
As Bishop Porteus said at the time: “It leaves those who want to speak out about the traditional relationship of marriage feeling somewhat intimidated (and it creates) an unfair advantage for those who support a change in the definition of marriage.”
As millions of Christians congregate this weekend to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, many are aware that the central truths of their religion are no longer welcome to be espoused in the public sphere.
This modern form of censorship has made our public debates about important issues tame and shallow.
Empty slogans (love is love; my body, my choice) have been allowed to replace detailed argument about the nature of existence and who we are.
People have become afraid to express what they truly think and believe because they face the threat of losing their job or being “cancelled”.
In response to all of this, the former Liberal-National Government proposed that we legislate to protect religious freedom.
Those laws failed in the face of opposition from all Labor parliamentarians and some Liberals.
However, the new Labor Government promised to enact something similar, although they wanted to partner it with anti-discrimination protections for students and teachers, while “maintaining the right of religious schools to preference people of their faith in the selection of staff”.
This week the Government presented a plan to protect religious freedom that can only be described as a plan meant to fail.
The Prime Minster said that he would only proceed if the Liberal and Nationals parties agreed to all of the detail of his proposal even before he had shared a copy with those parties.
And the PM would not support a Senate inquiry into the laws, which would normally be customary for something as complex as this.
So it looks like Australia will remain without any legal protection for the practice of religion.
Some will welcome this, others may think it doesn’t matter because there are more important questions that people face than whether God exists and, if he does, what does He want us to do.
However, every human civilisation to date has believed in some form of Gods or God.
Religious curiosity is a core part of what makes us human.
Creating an environment that restricts or chills that religious practice reduces human flourishing.
If there is one thing we should pray for this Easter it is to make telling the truth legal again.
