Victoria Court approves plans to build mosque in Bendigo

A Victoria court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal against the building of Bendigo’s first mosque. Julie Hoskin and Kathleen Howard, residents of Bendigo, appealed against the decision of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) that upheld the planning approval of the local council for the mosque in August.

The ABC reported that after their last bid to stop the building of the mosque failed when the court declared that the grounds of appeal were not “reasonably arguable,” Hoskin said she would seek more legal advice and wants to take it to the High Court.

The grounds suggested for overturning the decision mostly included concerns that building of a mosque would increase Islamic practises and socially objectionable behaviours. But according to the judges, the grounds suggested were “overstated.”

“In the absence of any objective, concrete evidence substantiating the adverse social effects the objectors submitted the mosque could have, the Tribunal acted according to law in giving the objectors' concerns little weight,” the appeal court judgment says.

The decision to uphold the plans to build the first mosque in Bendigo sparked off controversy, and in October, large protests were held in Bendigo in response to the decision. In September as well, anti-mosque protesters gathered outside a Bendigo council meeting, which required the police to help the councillors out of the building.

The counsel for the group led by Hoskin and Howard, Barrister Peter King, had previously held that neither VCAT nor the Greater Bendigo City Council considered fully the negative social impacts of the mosque if it’s allowed to be built. But the court stated in its judgment that worshipping a religion cannot be considered to have adverse effects on the society and that freedom of religion is a human right.

The lawyers representing the city council and the developers of the mosque asked Hoskin and Howard to cover their legal cost. To this, Hoskin replied that she herself is running a crowdfunding to bear the legal costs.

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