MEDIA RELEASE
Family First's NSW Legislative Council lead candidate Lyle Shelton says the NSW Supreme Court has upheld the core finding against Kirralie Smith – that identifying two biological males playing women's soccer as men is unlawful vilification – while only trimming back some of the most extreme mechanics of the penalty.
Family First National Director and NSW Legislative Council lead candidate Lyle Shelton says yesterday's NSW Supreme Court decision confirms the substance of the case against women's rights advocate Kirralie Smith stands: publicly identifying two biological males playing in women's soccer as men is unlawful vilification under NSW law.
Ms Smith, spokeswoman for the women's rights advocacy group Binary*, took the case to the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the Local Court's findings entirely. Justice Rigg dismissed her central arguments, upholding the finding that Ms Smith and Binary Australia unlawfully vilified Nicholas "Stephanie" Blanch and Justin "Riley" Dennis, upholding the $95,000 in damages against her – $55,000 to Mr Blanch and $40,000 to Mr Dennis – and rejecting her challenge to the constitutional validity of the vilification laws themselves.
"The Court has confirmed that in New South Wales, a woman can be fined $95,000 for stating that a male is a male. That is the plain effect of this judgment, whatever technical adjustments were made around the edges," Mr Shelton said.
"Ms Smith and Binary Australia did succeed on a handful of narrow, technical points about how the penalty is carried out. The Court found the Local Court's order requiring Ms Smith to publish a corrective statement had been drafted so broadly it would have breached a separate court order protecting Ms Blanch's identity, and that an automatic further penalty of tens of thousands of dollars for non-compliance had not properly been available under the law. Those specific mechanisms have been sent back to the Local Court to be redrawn.
"Family First won't pretend a handful of technical fixes changes the substance of this ruling. The finding stands: calling a man a man is unlawful vilification in this state, and the fine for it is $95,000. The Court was not asked to, and did not, walk back the fundamental problem – that NSW's anti-vilification laws can be used to punish women for stating biological fact.
"Kirralie Smith has been dragged through the courts for years for doing nothing more than standing up for women and girls. She has now lost her AVO appeal, lost her High Court application on that order, and lost the substance of this vilification case. At every turn, the system has sided with ideology over biological reality.
"This is not an isolated case. Since gender self-identification laws came into effect in NSW, over 1,000 men have simply signed a form and become legally recognised as women. The same ideology that lets men self-identify into women's sport, women's prisons and women's change rooms is now being used to punish anyone who dares point out the obvious.
"I know exactly what Kirralie is going through, because I am currently before the courts myself for opposing the sexualisation of children at a taxpayer-funded library event. Truth-tellers across this country are being bankrupted and bullied into silence by laws that Liberal and Labor politicians refuse to touch.
"Liberal and Labor have had years to fix these unjust laws and have done nothing. It falls to Family First to be the only party with the courage to repeal this censorship regime, abolish gender self-ID, and restore the right of every Australian to speak the truth without fear of being sued into bankruptcy," Mr Shelton said.
"Family First stands shoulder to shoulder with Kirralie Smith today. Her fight is our fight, and it is the fight of every Australian who still believes a man cannot become a woman by signing a form. If elected, I will move to abolish self-ID laws and repeal the anti-vilification provisions being used to silence common sense."
ENDS
* Lyle Shelton is the Binary Chairperson