Legal Letter

The Order

This submission is presented on behalf of The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer (“the Order”), a Christian religious order formed by believers who hold that Scripture binds them to be equipped with a modest blade as a matter of religious duty and conscience. The Order takes its name and foundational example from the Apostle Simon Peter, who carried a machaira (a short sword or large knife) in the Lord’s own company (John 18:10–11) and was corrected as to the occasion and manner of its use, not as to the fact of carriage itself.

Its members affirm the historic Christian faith centred on Jesus Christ as Lord and King. Membership is open to all who sincerely share the conviction that preparedness with a sheathed, discreet utility blade is a religious duty arising from Scripture, neighbour-love, and the obligations of household and community protection. The Order does not claim exclusive possession of Christian truth. It provides a disciplined community for those whose conscience is so persuaded.

Welcome

All who follow Christ are welcome, for all will be welcomed by the King Himself. With that truth held firmly, the Order welcomes its brothers and sisters in Australia who wish to reclaim a practice they regard as part of their ancestral religious inheritance, which they believe has been diluted and, in the eyes of many, defamed. The Order exists to support its members in holding this conviction in the present age, and to petition the civil authority for even-handed application of existing religious-purpose exemptions.

An address to legal and government readers

The Order asks that its creed of the carried blade not be shamed, discriminated against or governed away for reasons of unfamiliarity, for the same reason that the Christian with a pocket Bible on public transport, the Sikh with a kirpan and the Hindu with a turban should not be. The request rests on an ethical and moral position. Because moral argument is contested in this country, the Order also sets out the legal instruments of the Commonwealth on which the request is anchored.

The one idea at the centre of this letter

Every argument that follows rests on a single idea, and the reader is asked to hold it in mind from the first page. The law of every Australian jurisdiction already accepts that a person may carry a blade in public because a sincere religious duty requires it, even though the blade is carried so that the bearer may be ready to protect other people. That is exactly what the initiated Sikh does with the Kirpan. The Kirpan is carried as an article of faith, and the faith teaches that it exists for the defence of those in need. The law has looked at that justification and has accepted it.

The Apostolic Order claims the exemption on the same principled basis: a binding religious duty, grounded in Scripture, to be ready to protect the innocent, discharged under strict restraint and community discipline. The religion is different. The justification for the exemption is the same. The Order asks only that a justification the law has already accepted for one faith be tested, on the evidence of sincerity, for another.

This idea is not a rhetorical flourish. It is the load-bearing argument of the brief. It answers the statutory objection (the exclusion of self-defence and defence of another), the equality objection (why one faith and not another), the sincerity objection (who decides what a religion requires) and the safety objection (what restraint accompanies the blade). Each Part returns to it, and each State and Territory is examined against it.

The legal instruments relied on

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 116

Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion

> The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

The operative guarantee for present purposes is the prohibition on any Commonwealth law “for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion.” While s 116 binds the Commonwealth and does not of its own force invalidate State weapons legislation, it articulates the foundational constitutional principle that the free exercise of religion is a protected value in the Australian legal order. State human-rights statutes and the principle of legality give that value further practical effect.

Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 – definition of discrimination (s 3)

> “discrimination”, except in Part IIB, means:

> (a) any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin that has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation;

and continues with further limbs and exclusions. The definition expressly includes religion as a protected ground. While the Act’s discrimination jurisdiction is primarily directed to employment, the principle it embodies — that distinctions based on religion which impair equality of treatment are suspect — reinforces the equality argument developed in Part VI of this brief.

1.1 The submission

A Christian believer who sincerely holds that Scripture binds him to be equipped with a blade, as a tool and as a means of protecting the innocent, should be treated in law the same way as the initiated Sikh who carries a kirpan. Where a statute recognises “religious purposes”, “religious observance” or “genuine religious purposes” as a reasonable excuse, that excuse belongs to the believer’s genuine conviction, not to a single faith. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer exists to give organised expression and mutual support to those who hold this conviction.

1.2 The central proposition, stated precisely

The proposition can be set out in five steps, each of which is developed later and each of which the law of Australia already accepts in the case of the Sikh Kirpan.

• Step one. A person may carry a knife in a public place where the carriage gives effect to a sincerely held religious obligation. Every jurisdiction in the survey in Part II recognises this either by express words or by an executive exemption.

• Step two. The religious obligation in question may include, as part of its content, readiness to protect other people. The Kirpan is the clearest example: Sikh teaching describes it as a trust held for the defence of those in need, and it is still treated as a religious article and not as a defensive weapon.

• Step three. The statutory exclusions of self-defence and defence of another operate on the person who carries a knife as a secular precaution. They do not operate to deprive a religious obligation of its protection merely because the obligation is protective in character. If they did, the Kirpan itself would fall outside the religious excuse, which no jurisdiction contends.

• Step four. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer rests its claim on an obligation of exactly that kind: a duty of conscience, drawn from Scripture, to be equipped for the protection of neighbours and household, observed under restraint and communal discipline.

• Step five. Where the justification is the same, the law cannot lawfully or fairly accept it for one faith and reject it for another because the second faith is less familiar. The only legitimate inquiry is whether the claimant sincerely holds the belief and observes the conduct that goes with it.

1.3 What this brief does not claim

• It does not claim a right to carry anything anywhere. The argument is for a modest, sheathed, discreetly worn blade, subject to exclusion zones.

• It does not claim a right to display a blade or to threaten anyone with it.

• It does not claim that the law has no limits. It claims that the law must apply its existing religious-purpose provisions evenly.

1.4 The structure of the argument

1. The statutes already recognise religious carriage of knives (Part II).

2. The Sikh precedent shows what the law will protect, and the parallel of purpose with the Christian carried blade is close (Part III).

3. The statutory text is denominationally neutral (Part IV).

4. The legal test is sincerity, not orthodoxy, so calling believers “frauds” is both legally wrong and discriminatory (Part V).

5. Equality and human rights principles require even treatment (Part VI).

6. The Protestant doctrinal foundation shows the belief is genuine and has deep roots (Part VII).

7. Australia’s heritage shows the practice was once ordinary among an overwhelmingly Christian population, so that no special legal ruling was historically required (Part VIII).

8. There are concrete pathways to a legal remedy (Part IX).

The Sikh parallel is not confined to Part III. It is carried through Part II (jurisdiction by jurisdiction), Part IV (the construction of the statutes), Part V (sincerity), Part VI (equality and proportionality), Part VII (the doctrinal foundation, drawn from the companion thesis), Part VIII (heritage), Part IX (the remedy and its conditions), Part X (objections), and Parts XI and XII (the conclusion and the candid assessment). Wherever a legal question arises, the brief asks what the law has already decided about the Kirpan and whether the same reasoning applies to the Order.

1.5 How the Sikh parallel is used, and terms used in this brief

The Sikh parallel is used in this brief in a particular and limited way. It is not an argument that Christianity and Sikhism are the same, or that the Christian carried blade has the same history, the same ritual setting or the same standing in law as the Kirpan. It is an argument about justification. The question asked of any exemption is why the law grants it. The reason the law grants the Kirpan exemption is that the Kirpan is carried under a sincere and binding religious duty, for the protection of others, under conditions of restraint. The Order submits that this is the whole of the reason, and that it applies to the Order’s members in the same terms.

Terms used in this brief:

• “The Order” means The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer

• “The Kirpan” means the article of faith carried by initiated (Amritdhari, Khalsa) Sikhs, one of the five articles known as the Panj Kakkar or Five Ks.

• “The companion thesis” means the Order’s published doctrinal thesis, “A Thesis in Support of the Doctrine that the Disciple of Christ May and, Where Conscience So Requires, Must Go Armed”. Scripture is cited from the King James Version.

• “Protective purpose” means the purpose of being ready to protect other people, as distinct from a purpose of avenging, threatening or dominating anyone.

• “The Kirpan test” means the question this brief asks of every provision: if the provision were applied to the Kirpan, would it exclude it? If it would not, then it cannot, on the same reasoning, exclude a religious duty of the same kind held by members of the Order.

• “Sincerity” means genuine belief in the religious character and obligation of the practice, evidenced by consistent conduct, as distinct from orthodoxy, which means agreement with some external authority.

2.1 The common architecture

• Every jurisdiction prohibits carrying a knife in a public place without a “reasonable” or “lawful” excuse. Carrying a knife in a public place anywhere in Australia is illegal unless you have a lawful excuse, and self-defence never qualifies.

• The person carrying usually has to prove the excuse. In NSW, once the prosecution proves custody of the knife, the burden falls on the accused to establish a reasonable excuse on the balance of probabilities.

• Self-defence is excluded as an excuse in almost every jurisdiction. This is the central obstacle, and it shapes how the claim must be framed. The claim must rest on a religious purpose (obedience to a religious duty), never on a bare self-defence purpose. Part XII returns to this.

2.2 New South Wales

• Provision: The knife offence is now described as s 93IB of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). Recognised excuses under s 93IB include work or trade, education or training, genuine recreation, and religious observance such as a Sikh kirpan. The religious excuse is listed in s 93IB(3)(vii).

• Earlier location and wording: the offence sat in s 11C of the Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW) before the Criminal Legislation Amendment (Knife Crimes) Act 2023 (NSW) moved it into s 93IB of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). The religious excuse now appears in s 93IB(3)(a)(vii), and s 93IB(4) excludes self-defence and defence of another.

• Self-defence: Section 93IB(4) says self-defence or defence of another is not a reasonable excuse.

• Penalty: The maximum is 40 penalty units or 4 years’ imprisonment, or both. A separate offence under s 93IC covers visibly carrying a knife in a way likely to cause fear.

• Context: NSW has made police wanding powers permanent, so detection is increasingly likely in designated areas.

• The opening for this claim: The wording is “genuine religious purposes”, with no named religion. Members of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer who can demonstrate sincerity fall squarely within that neutral text.

The Kirpan parallel in New South Wales

• The religious excuse in the NSW provision is the excuse under which the initiated Sikh carries the Kirpan. The Kirpan is carried so that the bearer may be ready to protect those in need, and it is still the paradigm case of the religious excuse. The exclusion of self-defence and defence of another appears in the same section, and the two have to be read together.

• The only reading that gives effect to both provisions is one that distinguishes a purpose of defence as the reason for carrying a knife (excluded) from a religious obligation whose content includes readiness to protect others (recognised). If the first swallowed the second, the Kirpan could not be accommodated under the religious head at all.

• The Order’s claim is of the second kind. Its members carry because Scripture, as they read it, binds them to be equipped. They do not carry because they apprehend a particular attack, any more than the Khalsa does.

• The point has a practical corollary for the evidence. A member relying on the NSW excuse should be able to show that the carriage flows from a standing religious obligation, and not from a situational fear. Part IX sets out the evidence that does that.

2.3 Victoria

• Mechanism: Victoria does not use a general religious excuse for prohibited weapons. It uses an executive exemption. The Governor in Council, under s 8B of the Control of Weapons Act 1990, exempts from s 5(1) and (1A) a Sikh whose religious practice requires carrying a kirpan.

• Effect: It is not an offence under the Act for a Sikh to carry a kirpan in public out of religious observance.

• The same power serves other classes. The Governor in Council has used s 8B to grant exemptions for other classes of person, such as dagger collectors and re-enactors.

• The opening for this claim: Victoria’s exemption is class-specific by executive order. A new order for a Christian class (or specifically for members of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer whose religious practice requires the carried blade) would need no new Act of Parliament, only a Governor in Council decision. The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (ss 8 and 14) supplies the equality and religious-freedom reasoning.

The Kirpan parallel in Victoria

• The Victorian mechanism is itself the clearest statement in Australian law that a blade carried out of a religious duty is a matter for exemption and not for prohibition. When the executive made the Sikh exemption, it accepted a justification: a sincere religious practice, requiring carriage in public, under restraint, for ends the faith describes as protective of others.

• The Order asks the Governor in Council the same question about the same kind of justification. The Charter’s equality provision (s 8) and its protection of religion and belief (s 14) mean the decision-maker is not free to treat that question as one that only one faith can answer favourably.

• The use made of s 8B shows that the power is not confined to Sikhs: it has been used for other classes. A class order for members of the Order whose religious practice requires the carried blade is therefore an exercise of an existing power on an existing justification, not the creation of a new kind of exemption.

2.4 Queensland

• Provision: Section 51 of the Weapons Act 1990 says a person must not physically possess a knife in a public place or a school unless the person has a reasonable excuse, and self-defence is not a reasonable excuse.

• Religious excuse: It is a reasonable excuse to possess a knife in a public place for genuine religious purposes, such as a Sikh kirpan.

• The key precedent: Athwal v State of Queensland [2023] QCA 156 (Court of Appeal of Queensland). The Court held that s 51(5) of the Weapons Act 1990 (Qld), which prevented initiated Sikhs from carrying a kirpan in schools even for genuine religious purposes, was inconsistent with s 10 of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and therefore invalid under s 109 of the Constitution. The case concerned schools, not public places, and it is the only Australian appellate decision in this survey that deals directly with the kirpan.

• The opening for this claim: Queensland’s statute is neutral on its face, and the Court of Appeal struck down a carve-out for being religion-targeted. That reasoning supports the argument that the religious excuse must be applied without picking favourites.

• Human rights overlay: The Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) protects freedom of religion (s 20) and equality (s 15), and requires statutes to be interpreted compatibly with human rights where possible (s 48).

The Kirpan parallel in Queensland

• Queensland’s religious excuse speaks of genuine religious purposes. The Kirpan is given as an example of such a purpose, which is the way examples work in statutory drafting: an illustration of a general class, not a statement of its limits.

• Athwal v State of Queensland [2023] QCA 156 shows that a State provision which, in practice, excluded initiated Sikhs from carrying the kirpan in a school setting could not stand against federal anti-discrimination law. The Order's claim invokes the same concern from the other side: a general religious excuse should not be confined, in application, to the group the legislature happened to think of first.

• Because the Queensland excuse is framed by reference to purpose, the question for a court is the nature and sincerity of the purpose. The Kirpan shows that a protective religious duty is a genuine religious purpose.

2.5 South Australia

• Provisions: The knife offence is in the Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA) s 21E, which makes possession of a knife in a school or public place an offence without lawful excuse. Self-defence is not a lawful excuse for carrying an offensive weapon.

• Religious exemption for prohibited weapons: SA Police describe a religious exemption in Schedule 2, clause 7. A member of a religious group may possess a prohibited knife or dagger, other than a butterfly knife, flick knife, push knife or trench knife, if they possess, wear or carry it to comply with the requirements of that religion.

• The opening for this claim: The SA clause attaches to “a religious group” and “the requirements of that religion”. It is not limited to Sikhs. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer is precisely such a religious group.

The Kirpan parallel in South Australia

• The South Australian clause is the most naturally suited to the Order’s claim, and the Order itself is based in South Australia. The clause refers to a member of a religious group who possesses, wears or carries a knife or dagger “to comply with the requirements of that religion”. Initiated Sikhs rely on that language. The question it poses is whether the carriage is required by the religion’s requirements, as the claimant sincerely understands them.

• For the Khalsa, the requirement is found in the Sikh code of conduct and in the Guru’s command. For a member of the Order, the requirement is found in the Order’s written rule of life (Part IX, 9.10), which in turn rests on the scriptural duty examined in Part VII. In each case a body of religious requirement is identified, and a person who has joined that body and accepted its discipline carries to comply with it.

• The limits in the clause (it excludes butterfly knives, flick knives, push knives and trench knives) are limits the Order accepts without reservation. They match the self-imposed conditions in Part IX, 9.8.

2.6 Tasmania

• Provision: Section 15C of the Police Offences Act 1935 lists lawful excuses for carrying a dangerous article. The list includes a lawful occupation, lawful sport or recreation, lawful collection or display, the lawful purpose for which the article was intended, and “religious observance”.

• Self-defence: Tasmania Police say self-defence is never a lawful excuse for possessing a knife or dangerous article.

• Context: New laws from 16 June 2025 allow wand searches in prescribed places, including places of worship.

• Constitutional overlay: section 46 of the Constitution Act 1934 (Tas) guarantees to every citizen freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion, subject to public order and morality, and bars religious oaths and tests (s 46(2)). A 2015 commentary noted that no court had then considered its meaning, and this has not been checked since. It is therefore a supporting argument, not an established one. The Police Offences Amendment (Knives and Other Weapons) Act 2025 (Tas) amended the Police Offences Act in 2025, so s 15C should be read in its amended form.

• The opening for this claim: “Religious observance” is the broadest wording in the country, and nothing in it names a faith.

The Kirpan parallel in Tasmania

• “Religious observance” is the most open phrase in any Australian statute on this subject. The Kirpan is carried as religious observance, and the observance is protective in its meaning. The phrase therefore already carries a protective religious duty within it.

• Section 46 has now been checked against the text of the Act. If the argument is pressed, it supports the claim that a restraint-bound, discreet, sheathed carriage by members of a disciplined religious body is consistent with public order. The statutory argument in s 15C does not depend on it.

• The Tasmanian text names no faith, and the Kirpan is not mentioned in the list. If the Kirpan fits within “religious observance”, it fits because of what it is (a sincere, binding religious duty carried under restraint), and not because of who carries it.

2.7 Australian Capital Territory

• Provision: section 382 of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT), inserted by the Crimes (Amendment) Act 1998 (ACT), makes it an offence to possess a knife in a public place or school without reasonable excuse. Subsection (2) lists genuine religious purposes among the reasonable excuses, and subsection (3) excludes possession “solely for the purpose of self-defence or the defence of another person”. The current location of the provision in the ACT statute book must be confirmed before filing (Appendix D).

• Self-defence: Subsection (3) says it is not a reasonable excuse to possess a knife solely for self-defence or defence of another.

• Important drafting point: The ACT text uses the word “solely”. A person whose purpose is religious obedience, which includes a duty to protect others, has an argument that the purpose is not solely self-defence. This is the best textual hook for the “religious duty of protection” framing anywhere in Australia.

• Penalty: The maximum is 10 penalty units, imprisonment for 6 months, or both.

• Human rights overlay: The Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) protects freedom of religion (s 14).

The Kirpan parallel in the Australian Capital Territory

• The ACT provision is the most explicit of all. It lists religious purposes among the reasonable excuses, and in the next breath excludes carriage “solely” for self-defence or defence of another. The two are placed side by side in the same section, and a court construing them must give each its work to do.

• The word “solely” concedes the point that matters. A purpose that includes protecting others but is not solely that purpose is not excluded. A religious duty is never solely defensive: it is first an act of obedience, and the protection of others is the end that obedience serves. The Kirpan and the Order’s carried blade have exactly that shape.

• This is the strongest textual support in the country for the proposition that the protective content of a religious duty does not take the duty outside the religious excuse.

2.8 Western Australia

• Provisions: the Weapons Act 1999 (WA) s 6A makes it an offence to carry or possess an edged weapon without a lawful excuse. Section 5A defines lawful excuse and includes lawful employment, duty or activity, lawful sport, recreation or entertainment, and lawful collection, display or exhibition. Section 11 places the burden of proving a lawful excuse on the accused. The Police Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (WA) increased penalties for edged weapons.

• Lawful excuse: WA Police list lawful employment, duty or activity; lawful sport, recreation or entertainment; and lawful collection, display or exhibition, and say it does not include carrying for defence.

• Burden: Section 11 places the burden of proving a lawful excuse on the accused.

• No express religious item. WA’s list names no religious purpose. Sikhs in WA and the NT rely on the general exemption when wearing a kirpan.

• The opening for this claim: “Lawful … activity” is broad enough to cover religious observance, and WA already treats the kirpan on that basis. The same reading should cover a sincere Christian practice of the Order.

The Kirpan parallel in Western Australia

• Western Australia names no religious purpose in s 5A. Whether Sikhs carry the kirpan there under the general “lawful … activity” limb has not been confirmed in this review, and the statutory text does not list religious observance expressly. Counsel must check whether any such carriage has been accepted on that basis before the Order relies on it. The argument for the Order in Western Australia therefore rests on the general lawful-excuse words, not on established practice.

• The same reading must apply to any other sincere religious duty of the same character. A reading under which “lawful activity” embraces the Khalsa’s observance but not the Order’s would introduce a distinction that appears nowhere in the Act.

• The claim in Western Australia is the one most exposed to the burden on the accused (s 11). It therefore calls for the fullest documentary evidence of membership, belief and discipline.

2.9 Northern Territory

• Provision: The Weapons Control Act 2001 (NT) s 7 prohibits possessing, carrying or using a controlled weapon in a public place or school. The person must prove a lawful excuse, which includes pursuing lawful employment or duty and taking part in lawful sport, recreation, entertainment or activity.

• Self-defence: Self-defence is excluded as a lawful excuse.

• The opening for this claim: As in WA, there is no express religious item, but the open-ended “lawful activity” wording is the route the kirpan already travels.

The Kirpan parallel in the Northern Territory

• The Territory’s position is the same as Western Australia’s. The Kirpan is carried on the footing that a religious duty is a lawful activity. The Order claims the same footing for the same kind of duty.

• In both jurisdictions, the absence of express religious words makes the argument one of consistent administration: a general provision that is applied to the Kirpan must be applied on the same principle to others.

2.10 Summary of the pattern

• Express religious wording: NSW, Qld, SA (for prohibited weapons), Tas and the ACT.

• Executive exemption naming one faith: Victoria.

• General “lawful activity” wording only: WA and NT.

• In no jurisdiction is the statutory text restricted to Christians, Sikhs or any named faith, except by Victoria’s executive order.

2.11 What the survey shows about the Kirpan parallel

Three conclusions follow from the survey of the eight jurisdictions.

• First, in every jurisdiction the Kirpan is accommodated, whether by a named exception, by a general religious excuse or by a general lawful-activity limb. No jurisdiction treats the Kirpan as a prohibited weapon that the Sikh may carry only by special leave of a kind unavailable to others, other than Victoria, where the special leave is itself a class power that has been used for several classes.

• Second, in every jurisdiction that excludes self-defence or defence of another, the exclusion coexists with the accommodation of the Kirpan. The legislatures and executives that drafted these provisions therefore cannot have understood the exclusion to reach a religious duty whose content includes protecting others. If they had, the accommodation would have been empty.

• Third, nowhere does the text of any provision depend on the religion of the person carrying. Where religion appears in the text, it appears as a purpose or an observance. The justification for the Kirpan exemption is therefore a justification of general application, and the Order submits that it is the one the legislatures meant.

3.1 What the kirpan is and why it is carried

The Kirpan is one of the Panj Kakkar (Five Ks), the uniform that all initiated (Amritdhari / Khalsa) Sikhs are required to wear. Pronounced ‘kir-paan’. The word ‘Kirpan’ translates to ‘Mercy (kirpa) & Honour (aan)’. It is carried by all initiated Sikhs and represents a solemn obligation to uphold the safety of humankind. Initiated Sikhs are expected to be Saint-Soldiers (Sant-Sipahi), embodying spiritual qualities while battling injustices in the world. To call the Kirpan a knife or dagger is seen within the Sikh tradition as inappropriate; it is a religious article of faith.

History

Sikhs have been fighting religious fundamentalism, terrorism and state-led oppression since Sikhi was first practiced. In April 1699, the 10th Sikh Guru established an initiation ceremony where Sikhs who were willing to sacrifice their lives were bestowed with the gifts of being ambassadors of compassion, justice, courage and tolerance. Initiated Sikhs were then considered to be part of the Khalsa army. The Guru gifted the Khalsa sovereignty by declaring they are of equal status to The Guru. This is akin to the Queen giving the crown to each committed devotee. Hence, every initiated Sikh is considered part of Guru’s royal family.

Who wears one

The 300+ year old initiation ceremony continues unaltered today, carried out by 5 Khalsas who represent the Guru. The initiation is carried out in the presence of the Sikh scriptural Guru where Sikhs (male or female) pledge to live a lifestyle of the Khalsa, as per Guru’s teachings. Once initiated they are given a distinct uniform so that wherever the Khalsa may be, they are easily recognised — just like the police who are easily spotted in their uniform. An initiated Sikh (Khalsa) is taught that all other means must be exhausted before the Kirpan is considered. It is only to be used for the protection of those in need.

How one becomes entitled to carry it

To carry a Kirpan a person must be initiated into the Khalsa and agree to the rules set. These include: not cutting one’s hair, never consuming intoxicants including alcohol and drugs, not having extra-marital affairs, and not consuming ritually slaughtered meat. The five compulsory items of the uniform are: Kes (uncut hair), Kanga (wooden comb), Kara (iron bangle), Kashera (long shorts) and the Kirpan. Khalsas should visit the Gurdwara regularly, partake in selfless service, meditation and complete prayers throughout the day. The Khalsa was created to fight oppression, uphold freedom and ensure access to basic needs for all people, so one must strive to encompass these qualities.

Legal recognition (United Kingdom and Australia)

In the United Kingdom it is legal under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (section 139(5)(b)) and the Offensive Weapons Act 1996 (sections 3 & 4) for a Sikh to carry a Kirpan for religious reasons. Official guidance states: ‘Examples of good reasons to carry a knife or weapon in public can include [..] if it’ll be used for theatre, film, television, historical reenactment or religious purposes, for example the kirpan some Sikhs carry’ (police.uk and gov.uk). Australian jurisdictions have adopted equivalent accommodations, either by express statutory language or by executive exemption.

Practical discipline and security

Kirpans come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Sikhs have their own specific martial arts (Shastar Vidiya and Gatka) which focus on handling various types of arms and will often include larger Kirpans. It is extremely difficult to take a Kirpan from a Khalsa as it is often kept out of sight, for example under the clothes in a sheath on a shoulder belt called a gatra. The gatra has a specific safety strap to prevent the Kirpan ever being drawn suddenly and forcefully. Since all Khalsas live a Saint-Soldier lifestyle, they are expected to have adequate training in handling this kind of situation.

3.2 The Sikh theology of protection: the Kirpan as a duty owed to others

The law’s treatment of the Kirpan can only be understood once the reason for the Kirpan is understood, and the reason is not the bearer’s own safety. This brief states Sikh belief as Sikhs themselves state it, on the sources summarised in 3.1 and on commonly cited accounts of Sikh history, and it has not yet been reviewed by Sikh institutions (Part XII; Appendix D). Where Sikh scholars or Sikh institutions would put a point differently, their account governs, and the legal submission does not depend on any contested question of Sikh doctrine.

• A trust, not a trophy. The word Kirpan joins kirpa (mercy) and aan (honour). The article is described within the tradition as a solemn obligation to uphold the safety of humankind. It is the opposite of a personal sidearm. It is a standing commitment to others.

• The Saint-Soldier. The Khalsa, founded by the tenth Guru in 1699, is formed as Sant-Sipahi: spiritual qualities joined to a readiness to resist injustice. The Khalsa was created, in the tradition’s own account, to fight oppression, uphold freedom and ensure access to basic needs for all people. Each of those ends is an end for others.

• The two swords. Sikh tradition remembers the sixth Guru as wearing two swords, one representing spiritual authority and one representing temporal responsibility (miri and piri). The point of the image is that holiness and the readiness to protect the vulnerable are joined in one person, not divided between a priest and a soldier.

• The giving of one’s life for another community’s freedom. According to Sikh tradition, the ninth Guru was put to death in 1675 for defending the right of another community to practise its religion. The tradition holds that the willingness of a Sikh to stand between the oppressed and the oppressor is the heart of the Khalsa ideal. Again the object of the duty is the other person.

• The last resort. The Khalsa is taught that all other means must be exhausted before the Kirpan is considered, and that it is to be used only for the protection of those in need. Sikh tradition commonly cites the tenth Guru’s Persian letter, the Zafarnama, for the principle that recourse to the sword is righteous only when every peaceful means has failed. The restraint is part of the obligation, not an afterthought to it.

The submission from this theology is simple. The Kirpan is carried under a binding religious duty whose object is the protection of others and whose use is confined to the last resort. The Australian legislatures and executives that accommodate the Kirpan did so with that purpose in plain view. It follows that the law has already decided that a blade carried under a religious duty to protect others is a blade carried for a religious purpose. That decision is the foundation on which the Order’s claim rests.

3.3 The parallel with the Christian carried blade

The reasons for which initiated Sikhs carry the Kirpan map closely onto the reasons advanced in the companion thesis for the Christian carried blade:

• Solemn religious obligation. The Kirpan is a required article of the Khalsa uniform, representing a binding duty. The Christian claim rests on the dominical imperative of Luke 22:36 and the example of Simon Peter’s machaira, which for the believer so persuaded likewise constitutes a religious duty of preparedness.

• Protection of the innocent and the upholding of justice. The Kirpan embodies the obligation to uphold the safety of humankind and to exhaust all other means before force is contemplated. The Christian tradition of neighbour-love, household provision (1 Tim 5:8) and readiness to protect the vulnerable supplies an analogous moral end.

• Saint-Soldier ideal. The Khalsa is formed as Sant-Sipahi — spiritual qualities joined to the capacity to resist injustice. The Christian reading of Luke 22:36 and the Petrine example likewise joins discipleship with practical preparedness; the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer exists to give disciplined communal form to that joining.

• Communal discipline and recognisable practice. The Khalsa has a formal initiation, a uniform, and clear rules of life. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer, though younger and smaller, likewise provides organised membership, a written statement of belief, mutual accountability, and self-imposed conditions of discreet, sheathed carriage. The legal test of sincerity does not require centuries of institutional history; it requires genuine belief and consistent conduct. The existence of an organised religious body strengthens both.

• Not a licence for violence. Both traditions insist that the blade is carried under strict moral and practical restraints. The Sikh teaching that all other means must be exhausted before the Kirpan is used is mirrored in the Christian insistence on sheath, discretion, exclusion zones, and the correction of Peter’s impulsive strike.

The submission is therefore that the two practices occupy the same moral and legal space: a sincerely held religious duty to be equipped for the protection of the innocent, exercised under conditions of restraint and community discipline. The law already accommodates the Sikh expression of that duty. Equality requires that it accommodate the Christian expression as well.

3.4 The identical justification: a comparison element by element

The strongest form of the parallel compares the justification for each exemption element by element. Six elements are enough to state it. In each, the question is the same: what is the reason the law accepts for the Kirpan, and does the same reason apply to the Order’s members?

Element one: the source of the obligation

• The Kirpan. The obligation arises from the Guru’s command at the founding of the Khalsa and is carried forward in the Sikh code of conduct. It binds the initiated Sikh as a condition of membership of the Khalsa.

• The Order. The obligation arises from the dominical command of Luke 22:36 (“he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one”), from the example of Simon Peter’s machaira at John 18:10-11, and from the duties of neighbour-love and household provision. It binds the member who has been persuaded of it, on Paul’s rule that whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Rom 14:23). The Order’s rule of life (Part IX, 9.10) records it in writing.

• The legal point. Both are canons of conduct accepted to give effect to belief in the supernatural, which is the second limb of the test in Church of the New Faith. Neither is a mere preference.

Element two: the object of the duty

• The Kirpan. The Kirpan is to be used only for the protection of those in need. Its object is the vulnerable other.

• The Order. The companion thesis grounds the duty in the second great commandment (Matt 22:39), the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), the watchman of Ezekiel 33:6, and the commands to deliver the poor and needy and those drawn unto death (Ps 82:4; Prov 24:11-12). Nehemiah’s builders were told to fight “for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses” (Neh 4:14). Its object is the neighbour and the household.

• The legal point. In both cases the protective object is part of the religious duty. In neither case is the duty a personal-safety measure.

Element three: the order of resort

• The Kirpan. All other means must be exhausted first.

• The Order. The companion thesis draws from Gethsemane a model of conduct: the disciples asked, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” (Luke 22:49), before acting, and Peter was corrected when he acted without waiting. The thesis states the principles as: seek direction before force where time permits, never resist lawful process, limit the harm, heal where possible. The same thesis confines the duty to defensive carrying and excludes aggression, vengeance, intimidation and vigilantism.

• The legal point. The duty in both is subordinated to a rule of last resort. That is the opposite of a purpose of menace.

Element four: the manner of carriage

• The Kirpan. It is kept out of sight, commonly under clothing, in a sheath on a shoulder belt (the gatra) with a safety strap that prevents sudden drawing.

• The Order. Peter’s blade had a sheath (the Greek thēkē of John 18:11) and was returned “into the sheath” when the Lord commanded. The Order’s members carry sheathed, secured and discreet, and never draw except in genuine emergency.

• The legal point. Both traditions treat sheathing as part of the obligation. The scriptural phrase and the Sikh safety strap serve the same end.

Element five: community and discipline

• The Kirpan. The Khalsa has a formal initiation, a uniform and a code of conduct. A Khalsa Sikh lives under the rules of that community and is expected to be trained.

• The Order. The Order offers organised membership, a written statement of belief, a rule of life, mutual accountability and self-imposed conditions. It is younger and smaller than the Khalsa, and the brief says so openly, but the legal test of sincerity asks for genuine belief and consistent conduct, not a particular age.

• The legal point. In both, the exercise of the duty is embedded in a community that can vouch for the bearer and can discipline him.

Element six: submission to the civil power

• The Kirpan. The Kirpan is carried within the framework of the exemptions the law makes, with conditions and excluded places.

• The Order. Scripture binds the believer to be subject to the higher powers (Rom 13:1) and to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake (1 Pet 2:13). The Order therefore petitions the civil power and does not defy it. Membership of the Order does not itself give any person a defence, and members are required to obey the law.

• The legal point. Both rest on the proposition that the legal order and the religious duty can be reconciled by an exemption with conditions.

The conclusion of the comparison

On each of the six elements, the reason that supports the Kirpan exemption supports the Order’s claim. The differences (age, size, ritual setting, historical depth) are differences in the evidence of sincerity and not in the justification for the exemption. They are addressed in 3.11 and in Part XII. They are not differences in kind.

3.5 The defence-of-others question: what the law’s acceptance of the Kirpan decides

This is the central legal argument of the brief, and it deserves to be stated in full.

The problem

In the ACT, s 382(3) of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT) says it is not a reasonable excuse to possess a knife solely for self-defence or defence of another. Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory exclude self-defence, or carriage for defence, in their own words. An opponent will say that the Order’s claim, however labelled, is a claim to carry a knife for self-defence or the defence of others.

The answer

• The exclusion and the religious excuse coexist in the same statutes. Each of those statutes accommodates the Kirpan. The Kirpan is carried, in the words of the tradition, so that those in need may be protected.

• If the exclusion applied to every religious duty whose content included the protection of others, it would exclude the Kirpan. No jurisdiction says it does. Every jurisdiction treats the Kirpan as a recognised religious carriage.

• The legislatures must therefore have understood the exclusion to operate on the secular purpose of defence, and not on a religious duty whose content includes protection. A religious duty is a duty of obedience first. The protection of others is the end the obedience serves, as the thesis states: the duty is directed at the neighbour and not at the self.

• This is not a gloss invented for the Order. It is the reading that makes the Kirpan exemption work. Courts are required to read statutes so that every provision has effect (Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority (1998) 194 CLR 355). A reading of the exclusion that destroyed the religious excuse for its own paradigm case would not give effect to both provisions.

The dilemma for the opponent

The opponent must choose between two positions.

• Position A: the exclusion of defence of another reaches a religious duty with protective content. On this position the Kirpan is not within the religious excuse. That is contrary to the express religious excuses in the ACT, Queensland and NSW, to the Victorian exemption, to the South Australian clause, and to the practice in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

• Position B: the exclusion does not reach a religious duty with protective content. On this position the Order’s claim is not defeated by the protective content of its duty, and the only live question is sincerity and the other statutory requirements.

There is no third position that admits the Kirpan and excludes the Order without relying on the identity of the religion. Any distinction that is drawn must be drawn on a ground that is not the identity of the faith, and every candidate ground is considered below.

Candidate distinctions

• “The Kirpan is symbolic and the Christian blade is functional.” The Sikh sources summarised in 3.1 describe the Kirpan as an article of faith that may take a variety of forms and sizes and is associated with martial training (Shastar Vidiya and Gatka). The statutes do not ask whether the article is symbolic. They ask whether the carriage is for a religious purpose.

• “Every initiated Sikh must carry the Kirpan, while no Christian denomination requires a blade.” The Kirpan is carried only by initiated Sikhs and not by every Sikh. The law protects a practice held by a sub-set on the footing that it is genuinely required of that believer (3.8). The Order’s members hold the duty under the Order’s rule of life and by conscience.

• “Parliament had the Kirpan in mind.” That may be so, but Parliament chose general words (religious purposes, religious observance) and the one jurisdiction that names a faith does so in an executive instrument, not in the Act. The text, not the unexpressed intention, is what the court construes.

• “The Khalsa tradition is three centuries old.” No statute contains an age test, and the High Court in Church of the New Faith accepted a religion of recent origin.

The reason for carrying, and the content of the duty

The honest distinction is between the reason a person carries and the content of the duty he obeys. The man who carries a knife because he fears being attacked on his way home is carrying for self-defence. The Khalsa Sikh who carries the Kirpan, and the member of the Order who carries a sheathed utility blade, carries because he is under a standing religious obligation that he accepted before any particular threat arose, that does not vary with the risk of the street, and that is discharged under a rule of life. The evidence that marks the difference is the same in each case: long-standing practice, membership, discipline, and conduct consistent with the belief. Part IX sets it out.

The limit

The argument is stated here at its strongest. It is untested, because no Australian court has yet been asked whether a Christian protective duty qualifies for the religious excuse. A court that looked at the substance and concluded that a particular claimant’s carriage was in truth personal precaution would be entitled to reject the claim on the facts. Part XII treats that risk frankly. The submission here is that the legal principle is clear: protective content does not disqualify a religious duty, and the law’s own acceptance of the Kirpan proves it.

3.6 Restraint, discipline and manner of carriage

• The Kirpan model of restraint. The Kirpan is worn under clothing and secured so that it cannot be drawn suddenly. Initiated Sikhs are expected to be trained in handling arms, precisely so that the capacity to protect is joined to the discipline not to misuse it. Community guidance encourages the Kirpan to be kept concealed because its purpose is religious and not for show.

• The Order’s model of restraint. The companion thesis takes from the Gethsemane narrative a model of conduct: carry sheathed, seek direction before force where time permits, never resist lawful or divinely ordained process, limit the harm, heal where possible, and do not use the weapon for pride or provocation. In the same thesis, the obligation is conditional on lawfulness, on capacity and training, and on circumstances, and it forbids pre-emptive aggression, vengeance and the use of force beyond what is necessary.

• The match. The Sikh teaching that all other means must be exhausted first, and the Christian insistence on the sheath, discretion, exclusion zones and the correction of Peter’s impulsive strike, are the same safeguard in two idioms.

• The safety consequence. The risk that the law accepted when it accommodated the Kirpan is the risk of a sheathed, secured, discreetly worn blade carried by a trained and accountable person in a disciplined community. The Order accepts the same conditions (Part IX, 9.8, 9.10). The incremental risk of extending the same exemption on the same conditions is accordingly nil in principle and small in practice. A brief for the Order cannot ask the law to accept more risk than the Kirpan carries, and it does not.

3.7 The Canadian authority: Multani

Multani v Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys 2006 SCC 6 is the leading common-law decision on the Kirpan and is persuasive in Australia, though it applied the Canadian Charter and is not binding here. It is relevant to this brief on four points.

• Sincerity. The Supreme Court of Canada applied the approach in Syndicat Northcrest v Amselem 2004 SCC 47: the claimant must sincerely believe that the practice is connected to his religion. It is not necessary that religious authorities consider it obligatory, and the fact that other adherents of the same faith take a different view is not decisive. In Multani the school board pointed to Sikhs who accept a symbolic substitute. The Court did not treat that as defeating the claimant’s sincere belief.

• Conditions as the answer to safety. The Court did not treat the Kirpan as inherently unsafe. It accepted that the safety concern was real and answered it with conditions of the kind the claimant himself had accepted: sheathing, securing and wearing beneath clothing. A blanket prohibition failed because less restrictive conditions would protect safety. That is the structure of the Order’s own proposal.

• A religious object, not a weapon. In context, the Court treated the Kirpan as a religious object and not as a weapon, and it observed that school settings contain other objects capable of causing harm. The reasoning supports the proposition that the character of a carried blade depends on the purpose and the discipline of its carriage.

• The narrower claim here. Multani concerned a school, which is the most sensitive setting for a blade. The Order does not ask to carry in schools. Its self-imposed conditions exclude schools, courts, airports, aircraft and licensed venues, so its claim is narrower than the one the Canadian court upheld.

The submission is that the Multani reasoning, on sincerity and on conditions, travels. The Australian claim does not depend on the Canadian Charter, because the Australian statutes already contain the religious excuse. Multani is cited for what it shows about how a court approaches a sincerely held protective religious duty, and for the answer it gives to the safety objection.

3.8 The exemption protects a practice, not a headcount

• Only initiated (Amritdhari) Sikhs carry the kirpan. Victoria’s exemption applies to a Sikh whose religious practices require it. Many Sikhs do not carry one.

• The law therefore protects a practice held by a sub-set of a faith community, on the basis that it is genuinely required for that believer. It does not demand that every adherent share the belief.

• The submission: The same logic covers a Christian believer whose conscience, formed by Scripture, requires preparedness — and specifically members of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer who have formally associated themselves with that conviction. That others in the broader Christian tradition disagree does not defeat the claim, just as Sikhs who do not carry do not defeat the Amritdhari claim.

3.9 The exemption survives public concern

• In Victoria a shopping-centre complaint led to calls to overturn the exemption, but authorities found no reason for concern about Sikhs complying with their religious observances.

• The Sikh community has itself encouraged members to keep the kirpan concealed, since the purpose is religious and not for show.

• The submission: Discreet, sheathed carriage with community guidance is a workable model and answers the public safety objection. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer adopts precisely this discipline.

3.10 Courts police discrimination in the exemptions

• Athwal shows that when the state carves out one group’s religious carriage, the carve-out is tested against anti-discrimination law. The Court held the provision singled out Sikhs in practical effect and was inconsistent with s 10 of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth).

• The submission: The principle runs both ways. A state cannot single out a group for exclusion, and a state should not single out a group for inclusion by naming it exclusively.

3.11 Answers to the usual points of difference

• Age and institutional depth. The Khalsa dates from 1699, and the Order is recent. That goes to the weight of the evidence of sincerity. It does not go to the justification for the exemption, which is the same. Church of the New Faith itself concerned a religion that was new, and the High Court treated its newness as irrelevant to whether it was a religion. The Order does not claim centuries of continuity. It claims a Scripture-based duty, held sincerely, and organised under discipline (Part XII is candid on this point).

• Ethnicity. In Mandla v Dowell Lee [1983] 2 AC 548, a non-Australian decision of the House of Lords cited for comparison only, Sikhs were held to be an ethnic group for the purposes of the Race Relations Act 1976 (UK). That characterisation is not established in Australian law, and the Order does not rely on it (Part VI, 6.2). The argument in this brief does not depend on the RDA. It depends on the neutral words of the weapons statutes and on the evenhanded application of an existing justification.

• Uniform and visibility. The Khalsa wear a distinct uniform so that they can be recognised. The Order’s members do not. The relevance of visibility is to accountability. The Order supplies accountability through membership records, a rule of life and an officer who can vouch for the member. Discreet carriage is in any event the Kirpan community’s own practice, so visibility is not what protects the public.

• Numbers. The Sikh community in Australia is larger than the Order. The statutes do not turn on numbers. A practice held by a small group is protected on the same footing as one held by a large group if it is sincerely held (3.8).

• Source of doctrine. The Khalsa’s obligation comes from the Guru, and the Order’s from the New Testament. The legal test does not rank sources. Church of the New Faith asks whether canons of conduct are accepted to give effect to belief in the supernatural. Scripture read by a sincere believer is a source of canons of conduct beyond serious dispute.

3.12 Summary of Part III

• The Kirpan is carried for the defence of others, under a binding religious duty, with restraint and discipline.

• The law accommodates it in every Australian jurisdiction, notwithstanding the exclusion of self-defence and defence of another that appears in the same statutes.

• That accommodation proves that a protective content does not take a religious duty outside the religious excuse.

• The Order’s members hold a duty with the same justification: a scriptural, conscience-binding obligation to be ready to protect neighbours and household, observed sheathed, discreetly and as a last resort, within a community rule of life.

• The differences between the two are differences of age, scale and evidence. They do not touch the reason the law gives for the exemption.

• Different religion; identical underlying justification for the exemption.

4.1 Plain meaning

• The statutes say “religious purposes”, “religious observance” and “genuine religious purposes”, with no faith named. Under ordinary rules of interpretation, general words in a statute carry their general meaning unless the text or context limits them.

• Parliament knows how to name a faith when it intends to, and Victoria does so in an executive instrument. The silence elsewhere is deliberate.

4.2 The principle of legality

• Australian courts presume Parliament does not abrogate fundamental rights unless it speaks with unmistakable clarity (Coco v The Queen (1994) 179 CLR 427). Freedom of religion is a fundamental right.

• Where a provision is ambiguous, it should be read in favour of the right. “Genuine religious purposes” should therefore be read broadly.

4.3 Human rights interpretation duties

• Victoria (Charter s 32), Queensland (Human Rights Act s 48) and the ACT (Human Rights Act s 30) require courts to interpret legislation compatibly with human rights where possible.

• The submission: The compatible reading of a “religious purposes” exemption is the one that applies to all sincere believers, including members of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer.

4.4 The self-defence exclusion does not defeat a religious purpose

• The exclusions target the person who carries a knife because he fears attack. They do not address the person who carries because his religion requires it.

• The religious claim is about obedience to a command, and the fact that the duty also contemplates protecting others is an incident of the belief, not its purpose.

• The ACT’s use of “solely” shows Parliament contemplated mixed purposes.

• This is the hardest point in the case, and Part XII treats it frankly.

4.5 The Kirpan as an example of the genus, not a limit on it

• Where a statute, its explanatory material or official police guidance mentions the Kirpan, it does so in the manner of an example: “genuine religious purposes, such as a Sikh kirpan”. The words “such as” and “for example” introduce an instance of a class. They do not close the class.

• The class is defined by the general words: religious purposes, religious observance, genuine religious purposes. A court construing those words asks what they mean, and the example tells it that a protective religious duty carried as a religious article is within them. It does not tell the court that nothing else can be.

• The principle that general words are not cut down by a single illustration is an ordinary one. If the legislature had meant to protect only Sikhs it could have written “a Sikh carrying a kirpan”, as the Victorian executive instrument in substance does. It chose, in the statutes, to speak of purposes.

• The submission is that the Kirpan is the instance that proves the class. The class is the sincere, binding, protective religious duty carried under restraint. The Order’s members are within it if they prove sincerity.

4.6 Purposive construction and the work the religious excuse must do

• Each jurisdiction’s interpretation legislation directs a construction that promotes the purpose of the statute in preference to one that does not (for example, s 33 of the Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW)).

• The purpose of a religious-purpose excuse in a knife-carrying offence is to avoid criminalising religious practice that poses limited risk to the public when it is carried under restraint, while keeping the offence for secular carriage. That purpose is served equally by a Christian sincerely bound to carry sheathed and discreetly as by a Sikh bound to carry the Kirpan.

• A construction that gave the excuse to the one and denied it to the other would serve no purpose that the statute states. It would serve only the purpose of familiarity, which is not a statutory purpose.

• A caution about the human rights interpretation duty. In Momcilovic v The Queen (2011) 245 CLR 1 the High Court treated the Victorian Charter’s interpretive direction as an ordinary principle of statutory construction and not as a power to depart from the meaning of the words. The Order therefore does not need to rely on the Charter, the Queensland Act or the ACT Act to reach its construction. Their work is to confirm the construction in any case of doubt. The words of the excuse are neutral and, on their ordinary meaning, include the Order’s claim.

• Purposive construction in Australia. The High Court's current approach treats legislative intention as the outcome of applying the principles of construction, not as a fixed intention that exists before construction begins (Lacey v Attorney-General (Qld) (2011) 242 CLR 573). On that approach the excuse is read by its text and purpose, which is the approach this brief takes.

4.7 Mixed purposes and the dominant purpose

• A person who carries a knife will often have more than one purpose. A fisherman carries a knife as a tool and may also carry it as a protective article. The companion thesis notes, for Simon Peter, that a blade is at once an instrument of the trade and a means of protection, and says plainly that this is an inference from the occupation and not a statement of the text.

• The law generally looks to the real and dominant purpose, and the ACT’s “solely” confirms that mixed purposes were in contemplation. A purpose that is partly protective is not thereby excluded.

• The Kirpan is the example. It is a religious article whose function includes protection. It is not treated as a defensive weapon in religious dress because its dominant purpose is obedience.

• The Order’s members must be able to show the same: that the dominant purpose is the religious one. Utility is an additional excuse in some places (work, trade, recreation, lawful activity), and the religious claim is strongest where it stands on its own footing and the utility claim is held in reserve.

4.8 Burden and evidence

• In NSW the burden of proving a reasonable excuse lies on the accused on the balance of probabilities once custody is proved. In Western Australia and the Northern Territory the accused likewise bears it. The claimant will therefore need to produce evidence.

• The Kirpan is, in practice, proved by evidence of initiation and of the Sikh code of conduct. The equivalent for a member of the Order is evidence of membership, a written statement of belief, a rule of life, a letter from an officer and a record of consistent practice (Part IX, 9.7).

• The burden is a reason for care. It is also the guarantee against abuse. A person who cannot show sincerity does not get the benefit of the excuse, which is the answer to the floodgates objection (Part X).

4.9 Summary of Part IV

• The text is neutral, the Kirpan is an example and not a limit, and purposive construction supports a reading that gives the excuse to every sincere believer who meets the conditions.

• The exclusion of defence of another cannot be read so as to swallow the religious excuse without excluding the Kirpan.

• The practical work lies in evidence, because the burden lies on the claimant.

5.1 The legal test — how Australian law defines religion

The leading High Court authority is Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax (Vic) (1983) 154 CLR 120 (often called the Scientology case). The Court held that, for the purposes of the law, the criteria of religion are twofold:

• first, belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle; and

• second, the acceptance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief,

though canons of conduct which offend against the ordinary laws are outside the area of any immunity, privilege or right conferred on the grounds of religion.

The Court said the definition of religion must be flexible, while remaining alert to disingenuous claims.

Crucially, the Court does not ask judges to decide whether a belief is true or orthodox. The question is whether the claimed system meets the legal criteria of religion and whether the particular claimant sincerely holds the relevant belief and accepts the associated canons of conduct.

Persuasive foreign authority is consistent. Syndicat Northcrest v Amselem 2004 SCC 47 and Multani v Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys 2006 SCC 6 (the Canadian kirpan case) hold that the question is the claimant’s sincerity, not whether the practice is obligatory in the eyes of religious authorities. Thomas v Review Board, 450 US 707 (1981), says religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others.

The submission: A court may ask whether the belief is genuinely held. It may not ask whether the believer (or the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer) has interpreted Scripture correctly according to some external orthodoxy.

5.2 Why “frauds” and “misinterpreters” is the wrong frame

• It makes the state a theologian. To say that a believer “misreads” Luke 22:36 is to adjudicate a doctrinal dispute that Australian law has declined to adjudicate.

• It privileges one reading. Christian traditions disagree about Luke 22:36, Matthew 26:52 and Romans 13. The pacifist reading (Mennonite, Quaker) is one reading among several, and the state has no basis for treating it as the correct one.

• It is inconsistent. No one tells a Khalsa Sikh that the kirpan is a misreading because most Sikhs do not carry one.

• It reverses the burden. A presumption of fraud turns a sincerity inquiry into an orthodoxy test, and religious minorities within a faith are the people such a test hurts most.

5.3 The argument from Christian pluralism

• Christianity has no single doctrinal authority in Australian law. The Protestant churches alone include Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal and Anabaptist streams, with different views on arms and the sword.

• A rule that only a denomination’s official teaching counts would exclude every conscience that departs from its denomination’s majority, and Protestantism began with exactly such a departure.

• The Westminster Confession (1646), chapter 20, states the principle in words that Protestants will recognise: “God alone is Lord of the conscience.”

5.4 The argument from Australia’s own accommodation of Christian conscience

• Australian law has long accommodated Christian conscientious objection to bearing arms (for example under the Defence Act 1903 (Cth) and the National Service Act 1951 (Cth)). That accommodation protected the pacifist reading of Christ’s teaching.

• The submission: If the state respects a conscience that forbids arms, equal treatment requires it to respect a conscience that requires preparedness, so long as both are sincere. Neutrality means the state takes neither side. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer asks only for that neutrality.

5.5 The Luke 22:36 duty as a canon of conduct

• The second limb of the test in Church of the New Faith asks for canons of conduct accepted to give effect to belief in the supernatural. The Order’s canon of conduct is drawn from the dominical command of Luke 22:36 and from Simon Peter’s carried blade (John 18:10-11).

• The companion thesis grounds the canon in the grammar of the passage: the verbs are imperatives (take the purse, take the scrip, sell the garment and buy the sword), they follow the contrast marked by “but now”, and they place the sword in the same list as the purse and bag, which are ordinary provision for travel. On the thesis’s reading, the sword is classed as equipment for a new circumstance. The cost demanded (the outer garment, a poor man’s bedding and cover) shows the priority.

• The Court does not decide whether that reading is right. It asks whether the claimant holds it and conducts himself according to it. The thesis itself says that others read the passage as addressed to the Twelve on one night, and that many Christian traditions disagree. The submission is that the state is not equipped to adjudicate between them and does not need to.

• The thesis also fixes the scope of the duty, in a way that supports sincerity. It binds the person who has been persuaded of it, and it is not a universal rule enforceable on others. It is conditional on lawfulness, on capacity and training, and on circumstances. The claim is therefore the claim of a conscience and not a claim to impose a view on anyone.

• The Khalsa’s rule is of the same kind. It binds the initiated, not every Sikh, and it comes with its own conditions.

5.6 New religions are religions

• Church of the New Faith concerned a body that had been incorporated only in 1969. The High Court's test is flexible and is not confined to long-established faiths. It asks for belief in the supernatural, ideas about man's place in the universe, codes of conduct accepted by adherents, and an identifiable group of adherents, and it remains alert to disingenuous claims.

• The Order is a young body. Its theology is not young: it rests on the New Testament and on the Protestant tradition of private judgment. The Order organises a conviction that Scripture supports. It does not invent a god.

• Novelty is nonetheless a reason for evidential care, because a court may ask whether a practice was adopted for legal advantage. The answer lies in evidence of long-standing belief, consistent conduct and conditions that cost the member something and gain him nothing beyond the ability to practise his belief lawfully.

5.7 What sincerity looks like on the evidence

Sincerity is a question of fact, and the courts in Australia, Canada and the United States ask the same kind of question. The following indicators are the ones a court would expect to see.

• Contemporaneous belief. The belief was held before any charge, and documents (letters, notes, membership records, posts, sermons) can show it.

• Consistent conduct. The member carries sheathed and discreetly every day, not only in places he considers dangerous, and does not draw or display the blade.

• Conduct consistent with the stated duty. The member observes the exclusion zones, respects the blade-type limits, and has taken training in restraint.

• Costs borne. The member has accepted the discipline of the Order, including the obligation to obey the law and to refrain from carriage where it is forbidden, which is not the conduct of someone seeking an excuse.

• Religious reasons given first. In any interview or statement, the member describes the obligation in religious terms and describes it in the same terms each time.

• Absence of inconsistency. There is no evidence of carrying a larger or more threatening blade after an incident, of carrying in a way designed to be seen, or of statements treating the practice as a pretext.

• Community corroboration. An officer or elder of the Order can speak to the member’s belief and practice, as a Gurdwara committee or an initiated Sikh’s community can speak to the Kirpan.

6.1 The equality argument

• Where an exemption protects one faith’s carriage of a blade and refuses the same protection to another sincere faith, the difference needs a justification other than familiarity.

The relevant provisions:

• Victoria: Charter s 8 (equal protection of the law without discrimination) and s 14 (freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief).

• Queensland: Human Rights Act 2019 s 15 (recognition and equality before the law) and s 20 (freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief).

• ACT: Human Rights Act 2004 s 14.

• Tasmania: Constitution Act 1934 s 46 (verified; see 2.6).

• Commonwealth: s 116 of the Constitution restrains Commonwealth laws only, so it adds limited direct force here; its free-exercise principle nevertheless informs the broader legal culture and the principle of legality.

6.2 The limits of the discrimination argument

• The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) route in Athwal turned on s 10 of that Act and its application to a provision affecting Sikhs. Whether the reasoning depends on Sikhs being an ethnic group has not been confirmed in this review. If it does, that route is largely closed to a claim by Christians as a whole.

• The human rights statutes are weaker tools than they look. They allow reasonable limits under a proportionality test, and public safety is a heavy counterweight. They also bind public authorities and courts in specific ways and do not create a free-standing right to override a criminal statute.

• Federal religious discrimination legislation was proposed in 2021 and 2022 but did not pass. The Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 definition of discrimination (quoted in the Preamble) remains the principal federal statutory recognition that religion is a protected ground.

6.3 The submission

The strongest equality argument is the interpretive one: the religious-purpose exemptions already exist, are neutrally worded, and must be applied evenly to sincere members of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer as to any other religious group. The weakest is a free-standing constitutional right to carry.

6.4 The comparator: the Sikh who carries for the defence of others

• Equality arguments ask for a comparator: a person in a relevantly similar position who is treated more favourably. The comparator here is the initiated Sikh who carries the Kirpan.

• The relevant respects are: a sincere religious duty to carry; a protective object; restraint and last resort; a disciplined community; and carriage in the same discreet manner. The Order’s members are alike in each.

• The difference in treatment, if the excuse is denied to them, is a difference in outcome from the same justification. That is the kind of difference that equal-protection provisions (Charter s 8; Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) s 15; the ACT Act) require a decision-maker to justify.

• Familiarity is not a justification. A state that accommodates one faith’s blade because it knows that faith, and denies another’s because it does not, treats unfamiliarity as a ground. The Order submits that this is the very mischief the equality provisions address.

• The comparator argument is strongest as an argument about administration: police, prosecutors, executive decision-makers and magistrates apply the religious excuse. Each of them is under an obligation of even-handedness, and in Victoria, Queensland and the ACT the obligation is made express for public authorities (for example, Charter s 38; Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) s 58; Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) s 40B).

6.5 Proportionality, with the Kirpan as the benchmark of accepted risk

• The human rights statutes allow limits on religious practice that are reasonable and demonstrably justified, with a proportionality analysis (Charter s 7(2); Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) s 13; Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) s 28). The analysis asks whether the limit serves a legitimate purpose, whether it is rationally connected to that purpose, whether a less restrictive means would achieve it, and whether the balance is fair.

• Public safety is a legitimate purpose. That is not in dispute, and it is a heavy counterweight (Part XII).

• The question is what a total refusal of the excuse to the Order’s members adds to safety once the Kirpan is accepted on the same conditions. The Kirpan benchmark provides the answer: the law has already judged that a sheathed, secured, discreetly worn blade carried by a disciplined person under a religious rule is compatible with public safety.

• On the least-restrictive-means limb, conditions are the less restrictive alternative to prohibition. The Order proposes the same conditions as govern the Kirpan: excluded places, blade-type limits, sheathing, discretion, evidence of membership and a rule of life. A prohibition that ignores those conditions is not the least restrictive means.

• A fair balance includes the burden placed on the believer. The Order’s members cannot practise a duty of conscience at all without committing an offence. The Kirpan benchmark shows that the legislature has been prepared to remove that burden for others.

• The Order does not say that the proportionality analysis will necessarily come out in its favour. A court may weigh the evidence differently, and may take account of the legitimate public concern about knife crime. The submission is only that the Kirpan is the right benchmark, and that the burden on the State to justify a difference falls on the State.

6.6 Section 116 and the free-exercise tradition

• Section 116 restrains the Commonwealth and not the States, and the High Court has read it narrowly. In Adelaide Company of Jehovah’s Witnesses Inc v Commonwealth (1943) 67 CLR 116 the Jehovah’s Witnesses succeeded on the free-exercise limb of s 116 against Commonwealth regulations that had declared their association subversive. The decision is the High Court’s clearest use of s 116 to protect a religious body against federal action, but it was decided on its own facts (the precise orders should be checked against the full judgment). In Kruger v Commonwealth (1997) 190 CLR 1 Brennan CJ held that a law is invalid under s 116 only if its purpose is to achieve an object that s 116 forbids, so laws that affect religion only indirectly are not caught.

• In Krygger v Williams (1912) 15 CLR 366 the Court held that compulsory military training did not infringe s 116 against a conscientious objector. The consequence is that the accommodation of Christian conscientious objection in Australian law (Part V, 5.4) was a legislative accommodation and not a constitutional right.

• That is the model for the Order’s claim. The Order does not assert that s 116 gives a right to carry. It asserts, with the history of conscientious-objection accommodation behind it, that accommodation of sincere religious conscience is a recognised function of the legislature and the executive, that the Kirpan exemption is an instance of it, and that the same accommodation should be extended on the same justification.

• The principle of legality (Part IV, 4.2) draws on the same free-exercise tradition. It is why a neutral religious-purpose excuse should be read generously and not grudgingly.

The evidence of a genuine belief rests on Scripture (KJV) and Protestant principles of conscience. This is the case a believer, or the Order on behalf of its members, would put to a court as evidence of sincerity. The companion thesis (“A Thesis in Support of the Doctrine that the Disciple of Christ May and, Where Conscience So Requires, Must Go Armed”) sets out the full textual and lexical case.

7.1 Sola scriptura and the freedom of conscience

• Protestantism holds that Scripture is the supreme authority and that each believer may read and test it for himself.

“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11, KJV)

Paul’s teaching on disputed matters points the same way:

“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Rom 14:5, KJV)

“Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth.” (Rom 14:4, KJV)

“…for why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience?” (1 Cor 10:29, KJV)

The submission: On a contested question, the Protestant rule is that the believer answers to his Master and not to a rival interpreter, which is exactly the point of Part V.

7.2 The dominical command

“…he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” (Luke 22:36, KJV)

A believer who reads this as an instruction to carry a blade is reading the plain grammar of the text, and the reading has been defended in good faith by serious interpreters. The companion thesis sets out the full textual case, including the lexical demonstration that the Greek μάχαιρα (machaira) denotes a practical knife, dirk or short sword rather than a large battlefield weapon, and including Simon Peter’s sheathed machaira at John 18:10–11.

7.3 Conscience as the measure of obligation

“…for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” (Rom 14:23, KJV)

A believer persuaded that preparedness is his duty sins by neglecting it, on Paul’s own rule. That is a statement of religious compulsion, which is what a religious-purpose exemption exists to protect.

7.4 Headship, household and neighbour

“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” (1 Tim 5:8, KJV)

• Within the complementarian stream of Protestantism, the man is the head of his household and answers for its protection. This is one doctrinal basis for framing the duty.

• The wider Protestant tradition (and many complementarians) would put the duty on every believer. The legal claim does not depend on any male framing, and Part XII notes the cost of tying it to one sex. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer welcomes all sincere believers without restriction of sex.

7.5 Obedience to the law

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.” (Rom 13:1, KJV)

“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake…” (1 Pet 2:13, KJV)

The submission: The believer and the Order seek a lawful exemption because Scripture also binds them to obey the law. The claim is a petition, not defiance. This distinguishes it from vigilantism and strengthens the sincerity case.

7.6 The Protestant constitutional inheritance

• The English Bill of Rights 1689, art 7, declared that Protestant subjects may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, as allowed by law. It is a founding document of the constitutional tradition Australia inherited.

• The submission: The text ties arms for defence to Protestant subjects as a matter of constitutional heritage.

• The limit, stated plainly: The words “as allowed by law” qualify the provision, and later weapons statutes govern. The Bill of Rights is rhetorical support, not a legal trump card.

The sections that follow (7.7 to 7.19) draw on the companion thesis, and only on those parts that strengthen a legal argument. The thesis is not reproduced. Each section states what the thesis argues, why that matters to the legal claim, and where the Sikh parallel falls.

7.7 The method of the companion thesis

• The thesis argues cumulatively. No single verse carries the whole weight; the case rests on the convergence of independent lines of evidence. Its order of argument is: the Old Testament background shows that defence is lawful; Luke 22 establishes a command; the example of Peter establishes the practice; the ethic of love establishes the motive; the apostolic and civil context establishes the limits; only then is the duty drawn.

• It adopts stated canons of reading: the plain sense of direct grammar; non-abrogation (Matt 5:17: “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil”); apostolic silence where Christ and the apostles meet an armed person and do not require disarmament; harmony between Luke 22 and Matthew 5; and cumulative probability.

• It does not claim that the New Testament mentions kirpans, firearms or modern carry laws. It claims that principles, precedents and commands, applied to new circumstances, yield the duty, which is the way the Church derives doctrines the text does not name in terms.

• Legal use. A court asked to assess sincerity wants to see that the belief is the product of a reasoned engagement with a source the believer treats as authoritative, that it is consistent, and that it is held with its limits in view. This method supplies that. The thesis is not offered to prove the doctrine true. It is offered to show that a member who holds it holds it for stated, scriptural reasons.

• The Sikh parallel. The Khalsa’s obligation likewise rests on a source the Sikh accepts as authoritative (the Guru’s command and the Sikh code of conduct), applied to the circumstances of the Sikh’s life.

7.8 The Old Testament foundation of protective force

• The law of the night intruder (Exod 22:2) declares defensive force against a thief breaking in by night to be without bloodguilt. The thesis reads in the day-and-night distinction the origin of the principle of reasonable apprehension, and notes that the New Testament does not repeal the provision.

• Abram, the father of the faithful, armed his trained servants, three hundred and eighteen, to rescue a kinsman taken captive (Gen 14:14), and was blessed by Melchizedek immediately after (Gen 14:19-20). The thesis reads the blessing as approval of an armed rescue of another person.

• Nehemiah’s builders worked with one hand and held a weapon with the other, “every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded” (Neh 4:17-18), and were told to fight for their brethren, sons, daughters, wives and houses (Neh 4:14). The text pairs prayer with preparation (Neh 4:9). The thesis’s point is that holy work and armed readiness stand together: it is faith and arms, not faith or arms.

• Ehud’s dagger, girded under his raiment (Judg 3:16), is the Old Testament’s clearest example of a blade carried beneath a garment. The thesis cites it only for the narrow point that carrying a blade under one’s clothing is not treated as intrinsically wicked. It states in advance the limit that Ehud’s act was an assassination in a time of oppression and was not personal defence.

• The wisdom literature praises foresight (Prov 22:3), the Psalmist blesses the LORD who teaches his hands to war (Ps 144:1), and the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Exod 20:13) is read, from the Hebrew verb ratsach, as a prohibition of unlawful killing, in a book that also prescribes defensive killing and judicial execution.

• Legal use. The Old Testament material establishes that, on the believer’s own source, the protection of others by force is not forbidden and may be honourable. That removes the objection that the Order’s claim is contrary to the faith it professes.

• The Sikh parallel. Abram’s armed rescue of a kinsman and Nehemiah’s call to fight for brethren and households have the same shape as the Khalsa’s mandate to protect those in need. In each, the arms are taken up for another’s sake.

7.9 Luke 22:35-38 examined

• The passage reads: when I sent you without purse, scrip and shoes, lacked ye any thing? Nothing. “But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” (Luke 22:35-36). The thesis reads “but now” (alla nyn) as a deliberate contrast with the earlier mission, and the three imperatives (take, take, sell and buy) as a single reversal.

• The sword is listed with purse and scrip, which are ordinary provision for travel. The thesis argues that this classes the sword as standard equipment for the new circumstances. The price to be paid, the outer garment, shows the priority.

• Verse 37 cites Isaiah 53:12 (“he was reckoned among the transgressors”). On the thesis’s position the prophecy is a reason offered for the command, not a withdrawal of it.

• The disciples produce two swords, and Jesus does not order them cast away. The reply “It is enough” is read by the thesis as an assessment of sufficiency. The thesis adds that the disciples already had swords, so that Peter’s blade is part of a pre-existing practice and not a sudden improvisation.

• At the Garden the disciples ask permission before use: “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” (Luke 22:49). The thesis notes that the KJV reply, “Suffer ye thus far”, marks a limit and is not a blanket prohibition, and that Jesus then heals the wounded servant (Luke 22:51).

• Legal use. The passage is the textual root of the Order’s canon of conduct (5.5). A court does not decide whether the thesis’s reading is correct. It decides whether a member who holds it sincerely does so as a religious duty.

• The Sikh parallel. The Khalsa’s duty also begins in a command at a founding moment, given to a community and carried in a written code, and it is also read as imposing a continuing obligation and not a single act.

7.10 Simon Peter’s carried blade

• John 18:10 describes Peter as “having a sword” (echōn machairan). The thesis notes that the participle denotes ongoing possession, and that no Gospel suggests Peter acquired the sword that night.

• The Lord’s command, “Put up thy sword into the sheath” (John 18:11), uses the word thēkē, a scabbard. A weapon with a sheath is a weapon worn on the person. The reply in Matthew, “into his place” (Matt 26:52), does not order the blade discarded. A thing with a proper place has a proper use. The verb for drawing it (heilkysen) implies that it had not been in the hand before.

• The word machaira is used in Greek for a large knife and a short sword, as distinct from the romphaia, the large broadsword. The thesis concludes that Peter’s blade was of personal scale: portable, wearable, and capable of being worn beneath a cloak. It adds, as cultural background only, that Josephus describes the sicarii of the period carrying short daggers hidden under their garments, and it expressly refuses to treat them as moral models. It also notes that Peter was a fisherman, that fishermen ordinarily carried a knife, and that this is an inference from occupation and not a statement of the text.

• The thesis states candidly that concealment is an inference. No Gospel says Peter’s sword was hidden. It says the argument for carrying stands whether the blade is worn openly or covered, and that nothing in the narrative treats a worn blade, visible or not, as scandalous.

• Legal use. The lexical argument matters to the legal claim in a particular way. It supports a modest utility-scale blade, which is what the Order’s conditions (Part IX, 9.8) specify, and is the opposite of the dagger-class or prohibited blades that several jurisdictions treat separately. The Order’s doctrine and its legal conditions point the same way.

• The Sikh parallel. The sheath of John 18:11 and the gatra with its safety strap are the same safeguard. Both traditions place a safety condition inside the religious obligation.

7.11 The rebuke analysed

• The strongest text against the Order is the Lord’s rebuke of Peter. The thesis addresses it directly. The reason the Lord gives is the redemptive purpose of the arrest: the cup the Father has given must be drunk (John 18:11), and the Scriptures must be fulfilled (Matt 26:53-54). The reason given is not the intrinsic wrongness of carrying a blade.

• “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matt 26:52) is read by the thesis as a statement about the one who takes the sword in the sense of seizing or initiating, and as a warning against unauthorised aggression. The thesis notes that, read as a universal prohibition, the saying would condemn the magistrate who bears the sword under Romans 13:4 and the centurion whom the Lord praised.

• Peter was not disarmed: the instruction was to put up, not to hand over. He was restored and commissioned afterwards (John 21:15-17), with no restoration conditioned on the surrender of a blade.

• The statement “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight” (John 18:36) is conditional, and the thesis reads it as explaining why the servants did not fight to prevent the delivery to the cross.

• Legal use. The correction of occasion and manner, not of carriage, is the doctrinal counterpart to the legal conditions the Order accepts: sheathed, discreet, never drawn except in genuine emergency, and never against lawful process.

• The Sikh parallel. The rule that all other means must be exhausted before the Kirpan is drawn is the same rule: the instrument is not condemned, its occasion is limited.

7.12 The duty to the neighbour

• The second great commandment (Matt 22:39) is a command of action, as John says: “let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). The thesis asks in what sense a person who could assist a brother in need of rescue from violence, and does not, has loved in deed and in truth.

• In the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) the Jericho road was notorious for banditry and the Samaritan travelled it knowingly. The priest and the Levite are condemned for failing to act. The Lord’s instruction, “Go, and do likewise”, sets the pattern of the neighbour as the person who is able to help and does.

• Ezekiel’s watchman is held to account if he sees the sword come and does not warn the people (Ezek 33:6). The thesis generalises: every disciple is, within his circle, a watchman.

• The commands to deliver the poor and needy and to rid them out of the hand of the wicked (Ps 82:4), and to deliver those drawn unto death (Prov 24:11-12), reject the excuse “we knew it not”. The thesis adds that deliverance from violence cannot always be accomplished by words.

• Legal use. This is the doctrinal source of the protective object of the Order’s duty, and it is why the claim is a claim of religious obligation and not of personal convenience.

• The Sikh parallel. This is the closest alignment in the whole brief. The Khalsa’s Kirpan is carried for the protection of those in need, and the Samaritan’s “Go, and do likewise” is the Christian form of that duty. In both, the person who is able to protect and does nothing has failed in the religious duty.

7.13 The self and the neighbour: the reconciling principle

• The thesis’s central reconciling principle is the distinction between the self and the neighbour. The disciple may be called to endure insult and persecution for the faith (Matt 5:39; 1 Pet 2:21-23). The disciple is called to protect the weak and innocent (Ps 82:4; Prov 24:11). These are different duties directed at different persons. The first governs what the disciple surrenders of his own. The second governs what he owes to those who cannot defend themselves.

• On the thesis’s reading, “turn the other cheek” concerns an insult to honour and a surrender of one’s own, and it cannot be applied to another person’s cheek. The two sayings of the Lord are harmonised, and need not be set against each other.

• Legal use. The distinction explains why the Order’s claim is not a claim of self-defence. The member who holds this doctrine does not carry to protect himself against insult or to avenge. He carries as a duty owed to others, and the doctrine itself requires him to bear personal wrong. That doctrinal fact is evidence of the character of the purpose.

• The honest limit. The statutes of some jurisdictions exclude defence of another as well as self-defence (NSW s 93IB(4); ACT s 382(3), “solely”). The self/neighbour distinction does not by itself dispose of those exclusions. What disposes of them is the Kirpan test (3.5): a religious duty with a protective object is not, by that fact, outside the religious excuse.

• The Sikh parallel. The Kirpan, too, is directed outward. It is not a tool of private vengeance. The law has accepted a duty of that outward-facing character as a religious one.

7.14 Household, prudence and preparedness

• The Lord’s image of a strong man armed keeping his palace, whose goods are in peace (Luke 11:21-22), takes armed guarding of a household as a sensible norm. The thesis acknowledges that the passage’s immediate subject is spiritual, and uses it only to show that the Lord chose an illustration in which the armed householder is taken for granted.

• The householder who would have watched had he known the hour of the thief (Matt 24:43) is praised for vigilance. “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt 10:16) joins innocence of intent to wisdom of preparation. The king counting the cost before war (Luke 14:31) is held out as an example of sense.

• In 1 Timothy 5:8, “provide” translates pronoeō, which the thesis explains as thinking ahead for. Forethought for a household includes forethought against foreseeable violence, and the gravity of the penalty (“denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel”) shows that the duty is grave.

• Legal use. These texts explain why the duty is a standing one. It is a duty of preparedness held before any threat arises, which is exactly the feature that separates a religious obligation from the situational fear of a person who carries on a particular night because he is afraid.

• The Sikh parallel. The Khalsa Sikh wears the Kirpan at all times, as part of a uniform, and not only when danger is apprehended. Preparedness as a standing condition is the common feature.

7.15 The civil context and the limits on the duty

• Romans 13:1 and 1 Peter 2:13-14 bind the believer to the law. The thesis accepts the limit fully: where carrying is unlawful, the duty of obedience prevails and the duty of protection is met by other lawful means. It acknowledges the counter-reading that Romans 13:4 reserves the sword to the state alone.

• The thesis points out that neither John the Baptist nor the Lord told the soldiers to leave the army (Luke 3:14), that the Lord held up an armed centurion as a model of faith (Luke 7:9), that Cornelius was converted without any record of an order to lay down arms (Acts 10), and that Paul accepted an armed escort of nearly five hundred (Acts 23:23). It treats these as apostolic silence, which it admits is a weak argument by itself.

• Paul’s appeal to Caesar (Acts 25:11) is read as a model of the proper balance: using every lawful means to preserve life while being prepared to suffer unjustly.

• Legal use. This is the doctrinal basis for the Order’s method. It petitions. It does not defy. It carries only where and as the law permits, and it seeks the law’s recognition by lawful means. The Order’s published position is that membership does not itself give any person a legal exemption or defence, and that members are required to obey the law. That position is evidence of good faith.

• The Sikh parallel. The Kirpan exemptions were obtained and are held through the law and within its conditions. The Order seeks the same course.

7.16 From permission to obligation

• The thesis states its step from permission to obligation as a syllogism. The major premise is that the disciple is bound to obey the Lord’s commands and to love his neighbour in deed. The minor premise is that, where violent harm to the innocent is a foreseeable danger, genuine capacity to prevent it is a necessary part of loving in deed, and the Lord expressly commanded his disciples to acquire a machaira in anticipation of hostility. The conclusion is that the disciple who is lawfully able and whose circumstances reasonably warrant it is obliged to be equipped for defence.

• It gives four reasons for “required” and not merely “allowed”: the imperative grammar of Luke 22:36; the affirmative structure of the duty to the vulnerable; the principle that one who is obliged to an end is obliged to the necessary means; and the role of conscience (Rom 14:23).

• It states the limits of the obligation: lawfulness, capacity and training, circumstances, and the fact that it is a duty of conscience binding the person persuaded of it, and forbidding pre-emptive aggression, vengeance and excess.

• Legal use. The law of religious exemption does not require a court to decide that the syllogism is sound. It requires a court to decide that the claimant sincerely treats the conclusion as binding on him. This section shows that the member’s belief has a structure and limits, which is what sincerity looks like.

• The Sikh parallel. The Amritdhari Sikh treats the Kirpan not as permitted but as required, and the law accepts the requirement as sincere though many Sikhs do not carry. The Order’s members hold their duty in the same way.

7.17 Scriptural objections and replies

The thesis addresses ten objections. In summary form, with the legal relevance noted afterwards:

• “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matt 26:52): a statement about the one who takes up the sword to resist a divinely ordained event, not a ban on carriage. Peter was not disarmed.

• “Resist not evil” (Matt 5:39): it governs what the disciple surrenders of his own, and concerns a slap to honour. It does not address the defence of another.

• “Do violence to no man” (Luke 3:14): in context a prohibition of extortion by soldiers. The soldiers were not told to leave their service.

• “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36): it explains why the Lord’s servants would not fight to prevent his delivery to the cross.

• “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal” (2 Cor 10:4): it describes the spiritual contest and does not say the believer may never use a lawful instrument to protect an innocent person.

• “Avenge not yourselves” (Rom 12:18-19): defence and vengeance are different acts, and the verse is qualified by “if it be possible, as much as lieth in you”.

• “It is enough” as a rebuke (Luke 22:38): the Lord habitually corrects misunderstandings explicitly, and here lets the two swords stand.

• The swords as mere fulfilment of Isaiah 53:12: a prophecy fulfilled by the possession of swords does not make the command to acquire them a nullity.

• “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt 5:9): a person prepared to prevent violence is more likely to preserve peace than one who is helpless before it.

• The early Church as pacifist: the record is mixed, early objections to military service were often tied to idolatrous oaths, and the Fathers are not canon.

• Legal use. A belief that has been tested against the strongest objections to it, and held with an account of each, is not a pretext. It is the mark of sincere engagement. The court need not agree with the replies.

7.18 The thesis’s own candour

The thesis states, in its own critical chapter, the points at which an informed opponent will press hardest. This brief records them because a belief held with open awareness of its weaknesses is the opposite of an opportunistic one.

• The step from allowed to required is the weakest, and critics hold that Luke 22:36 was addressed to the Twelve on one night.

• The concealment of Peter’s blade is inference and not text, and the Ehud and sicarii parallels are weak as moral models.

• The rebuke carries real weight, and many readers see no basis for distinguishing use from carriage.

• “Enough” may mean “enough of this”, and two swords cannot plausibly defend thirteen men.

• The fulfilment reading is respectable, and silence is a weak argument.

• Many traditions disagree, and even traditions that accept defence do not generally call carrying a weapon a duty.

• Protection does not require a blade, since the duties of neighbour-love and watchmanship can be met by alerting others, calling for help, intervening without a weapon, or building community safety.

• The law is a real limit, and where it forbids carriage the Order’s own position is that the believer complies.

• Pre-emptive action is the least supported idea, and nothing in the New Testament endorses striking first.

• Legal use. These concessions go to the weight a court may give the theology. They do not go to sincerity. The legal question is whether the member believes the doctrine, and a member who knows its difficulties and holds it anyway, under conditions, is not a fraud.

7.19 Concordance: the Khalsa and the Order

• Command. The Guru’s founding command of the Khalsa; the Lord’s command of Luke 22:36.

• Standing obligation. The Panj Kakkar, worn at all times; the duty of preparedness of 1 Tim 5:8 and Luke 12:35 (“Let your loins be girded about”).

• Object. Those in need; the neighbour, household and vulnerable (Ps 82:4; Luke 10:36-37; Neh 4:14).

• Last resort. All other means exhausted first; “Lord, shall we smite?” and “Suffer ye thus far”.

• Sheath and safeguard. The gatra and its safety strap; “into the sheath” (John 18:11).

• Self and other. The Kirpan directed outward, not towards vengeance; the self/neighbour distinction of Matt 5:39 and Ps 82:4.

• Healing after force. The tradition of mercy in the word Kirpan (kirpa); the Lord’s healing of Malchus’s ear (Luke 22:51).

• Community. Initiation, uniform, code; membership, rule of life, elders.

• Law. The exemption sought and kept within conditions; Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:13-14.

8.1 Christian Australia and the ordinary pocket knife

At Federation the Australian population was overwhelmingly Christian. The 1901 census (the closest systematic national figure to 1900) recorded 96.1 per cent of the population as Christian (Anglican approximately 39.7 per cent, Catholic approximately 22.7 per cent, other Christian denominations approximately 33.9 per cent). Figures for the late nineteenth century were in the high 96–97 per cent range among those stating a religion; non-Christian and “no religion” responses together were under 2–3 per cent.

In that overwhelmingly Christian society, the carrying of a pocket knife by adult men was a widespread practical norm. No reliable national survey quantifies the exact percentage, but qualitative historical evidence is consistent and strong:

• Commentators and personal recollections from the mid-twentieth century, looking back to earlier generations, note that “most of them carried pocket knives,” treating them as everyday utility tools rather than weapons.

• Knives featured in Boy Scout culture, rural work, farming, droving, fishing and ordinary household life.

• Drawing a knife in a fight was often viewed as cowardly, which itself indicates that ordinary carriage was understood as utilitarian, not aggressive.

Because the practice was ordinary, no special legal ruling or religious exemption was required for Christian men — including those who attended church — to have a knife in their pockets. The carried blade was part of the settled background of a Christian society. It required no petition, no test case, and no declaration of religious purpose. It was simply how adult men equipped themselves for daily life.

8.2 The demographic shift and the arrival of restrictions

Australia has no single national knife law; regulation is by state and territory. A key modern restriction — making it an offence to possess or carry a knife in a public place or school without a reasonable or lawful excuse (self-defence generally not accepted) — was introduced in New South Wales by the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Police and Public Safety) Act 1998 (in force from July 1998), following concerns over knife-related violence. Similar or subsequent controls on public carry, prohibited types (for example flick and automatic knives), and sales appeared in other jurisdictions around the same broad period or later.

By the time these major public-carry restrictions were introduced, the Christian proportion of the population had already declined substantially:

• 1996 census: 70.9 per cent Christian

• 2001 census: 68.0 per cent Christian

Thus approximately 70–71 per cent of Australians identified as Christian around the late-1990s introduction of the key modern restrictions. Christian affiliation has continued to decline, reaching 43.9 per cent in the 2021 census.

Summary comparison

• ~1900: approximately 96 per cent Christian; pocket-knife carry by adult men was a widespread practical norm (exact percentage unknown, but qualitatively very common).

• Late 1990s (key public-carry restrictions): approximately 70–71 per cent Christian.

The point for the present argument is not that the decline in Christian affiliation caused the restrictions, nor that non-Christians are responsible for them. The point is historical normalcy: when Australia was almost entirely Christian, the modest carried blade was an ordinary part of adult male equipment and required no special legal permission. The modern regime that treats ordinary carriage as presumptively unlawful, and that forces the Christian believer to prove a “religious purpose” excuse, is a recent legislative development, not a timeless feature of Australian law or of Christian practice in this country.

8.3 The agency argument

• The advocate argues that a modern pattern of statutory restriction has shifted the default from presumed lawful to presumed unlawful, with the burden placed on the citizen to prove an excuse for what was once ordinary.

• The Christian man’s (and woman’s) duties of provision, protection and watchfulness were exercised through personal capability, and the argument is that the law has progressively removed that capability while leaving the duty in place.

• On this account, a religious exemption does not create a new privilege. It preserves a small remnant of an older settled practice. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer exists in part to recover and discipline that remnant.

8.4 The legal use of the heritage argument

• WA and NT recognise any “lawful activity” as an excuse. A person who carries a sheath knife as an ordinary working tool for bush, farm or fishing use has an established lawful excuse independent of religion, and the historical practice shows that carriage as a tool is ordinary.

• Religious purpose and tool purpose can coexist: the believer’s duty is to be equipped, and a utility blade is equipment.

• The historical normalcy of the pocket knife among Christian men in churches and in ordinary Australian life supplies background context for why a religious-purpose claim is not exotic or invented. It is a claim to continue, under modern conditions of statutory restriction, a practice that was once the unremarkable background of Christian Australia.

8.5 A caution on the historical evidence

The claim that “most adult men carried a pocket knife” is broadly supported by the material culture and personal recollections of rural and working Australia, but the evidence is qualitative rather than statistical, and it is mostly evidence of utility carriage. A court is more likely to treat the heritage as background colour than as freestanding legal authority. The historical story supports a utility excuse more securely than a pure religious-duty claim, which is why the Order’s case rests primarily on the sincerity of the religious purpose and the neutrality of the existing statutory language, with heritage as reinforcing context.

8.6 Two heritages: why one practice needed an exemption and the other did not

• The Kirpan exemptions were written because Sikh carriage was visibly unusual in a society that was not predominantly Sikh. The Kirpan was never part of the settled background of ordinary Australian life, and so it needed express accommodation when carry offences were introduced or tightened.

• The Christian carried blade, as Part VIII has shown, was part of the settled background of Christian Australia. It needed no express accommodation because it was not an exception. Nobody had to say that a church-going man could carry a pocket knife.

• The result is an asymmetry that is accidental. One practice was visible and received an express exemption, and the other was invisible and received none. When the background was withdrawn and carriage became presumptively unlawful, the invisible practice was left with no express provision at all. The submission is that this accident of history should not decide the question.

• This is the reasoning behind the Order’s request for even-handedness. It is not a request for a new privilege. It is a request that an existing accommodation, grounded in a justification the law already accepts, be extended to a practice that lost its unspoken protection without anyone deciding that it should.

These are lawful avenues for seeking recognition. Speak to a lawyer before carrying anything on the strength of this argument.

9.1 Legislative reform (all jurisdictions)

• Petition state parliaments to adopt neutral wording where it does not exist and to clarify that “religious observance” covers any sincerely held faith practice, including that of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer.

A model clause for jurisdictions without express wording:

It is a reasonable excuse for a person to have a knife in a public place if the person carries it, sheathed and worn discreetly, to give effect to a sincerely held religious belief, other than in a place listed in subsection (3).

Subsection (3) would list schools, courts, airports, aircraft, licensed premises and other prescribed secure sites. This mirrors the conditions that already apply to kirpans.

9.2 Victoria: executive exemption

• Apply to the Governor in Council under s 8B for an exemption for a class of person — members of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer (or more broadly, Christians whose sincere religious practice requires a carried blade) — in the way the Sikh and collector exemptions were made.

• Consider also an approval from the Chief Commissioner under s 8C where it applies.

9.3 Queensland and NSW: test cases

• Both statutes have neutral wording (“genuine religious purposes”). A properly prepared test case would argue that the excuse extends to a Christian whose belief is sincere and documented, including members of the Order. Athwal shows that Queensland courts will entertain such constitutional and statutory arguments.

9.4 Tasmania

• Seek recognition that “religious observance” in s 15C(e) is faith-neutral, using the Constitution Act s 46 guarantee as an interpretive aid.

9.5 The ACT

• Use the word “solely” in s 382(3) of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT) to argue that a religious-duty purpose that includes protecting others is not solely self-defence.

9.6 WA and NT

• Use the “lawful activity” limb and the kirpan precedent, with documentary evidence of the belief and membership in the Order.

9.7 Evidence of sincerity

Courts test sincerity through evidence. A claimant, or the Order on behalf of its members, would be wise to assemble:

• Membership in the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer and a letter from an officer or elder of the Order.

• A written statement of belief with scriptural references.

• Consistent, long-standing practice (not a belief first discovered after being charged).

• Evidence of conduct consistent with the belief: sheathed carriage, no display, compliance with exclusion zones.

• Training in lawful use and restraint, which is also the best answer to the safety objection.

9.8 Self-imposed conditions (the kirpan model)

• A fixed or folding utility blade of modest size, in a secured sheath.

• Worn discreetly and never drawn except in genuine emergency.

• Left behind in schools, courts, airports and aircraft, licensed venues and any place where the law or a lawful direction forbids it.

• Excluded categories respected, so no butterfly or flick knives, push knives or machetes, and a modest utility blade rather than a dagger. Several jurisdictions treat daggers as prohibited weapons, so a dagger-class blade would need the specific prohibited-weapon exemption described above.

9.9 South Australia: the home jurisdiction

• The Order is based in South Australia, and the South Australian clause (Schedule 2, clause 7, as described by SA Police) is framed by reference to a member of a religious group carrying “to comply with the requirements of that religion”. It is the provision in the country that most closely tracks the Order’s own form of claim.

• The first step is to seek written advice from the responsible South Australian authority on how the clause is administered, and whether it has been, or would be, applied to a religious group other than Sikhs. The question put should be neutral and specific: what evidence of a religious group’s requirements does the authority expect, and what conditions would attach.

• The second step is to assemble the evidence in 9.7 and the rule of life in 9.10, so that the “requirements of that religion” can be shown on paper.

• The third step is to observe the clause’s own limits. It excludes butterfly knives, flick knives, push knives and trench knives, and the Order’s rule of life excludes them as well.

• The fourth step, if the authority declines to apply the clause, is to seek a clarifying amendment that makes explicit what the text already implies, namely that the clause applies to any religious group whose requirements can be shown. South Australia amended its knife laws in 2025, which is both a difficulty (the climate is tightening) and an opportunity (the law is open for discussion).

• Members must not carry in reliance on this analysis until that advice is received and they have taken legal advice (9.13).

9.10 A proposed Rule of Life for members

The Kirpan is carried within a code of conduct. The Order’s claim is strongest if it can show a comparable written discipline. The following draft is offered for the Order’s consideration, and it should be settled by the Order and reviewed by counsel before adoption.

1. Statement of belief. A member affirms the historic Christian faith, and holds the conviction that Scripture (Luke 22:36 and the example of Simon Peter at John 18:10-11), together with the duties of neighbour-love, watchfulness and household provision, binds him or her to be equipped for the protection of the innocent.

2. Membership. Open to adults of either sex who sincerely share the conviction. Admission follows a period of instruction and a written declaration. Membership is recorded.

3. The blade. A modest sheathed utility blade, fixed or folding. Never a butterfly knife, flick knife, push knife, trench knife, machete or dagger unless a specific legal exemption applies.

4. Manner of carriage. Sheathed and secured, worn discreetly, and never displayed, brandished or touched in anger.

5. Use. The blade is a last resort. A member seeks every other means first (retreat, calling for help, placing himself between the vulnerable and the danger without a weapon) and draws only in genuine emergency, for the protection of another, and within the law. After any use, the member preserves life where possible and renders aid, following the example of Luke 22:51.

6. No vengeance, no vigilantism, no intimidation. A member does not carry to menace, to avenge or to seek out conflict, and does not pre-empt.

7. Excluded places. A member does not carry into schools, courts, airports, aircraft, licensed premises, secured government sites, or any place where the law or a lawful direction forbids it.

8. Obedience. A member complies with lawful directions of police and officials, discloses the blade when lawfully asked, and surrenders it when lawfully required. A member does not carry where the law as then understood forbids it.

9. Sobriety. A member does not carry while affected by alcohol or other drugs.

10. Training. A member undertakes training in conflict avoidance, restraint, lawful use of force and first aid, and renews it at stated intervals.

11. Accountability. A member makes an annual declaration of compliance to an officer of the Order. A breach is dealt with by the Order, up to and including removal.

12. No legal immunity. Membership gives no person a legal exemption or defence. Members seek their own legal advice and obey the law. The Order’s work is petition, not defiance.

9.11 Outline of a petition to the Governor in Council

• Applicant and class. Identify the Order and define the class of persons (members of the Order whose sincere religious practice requires the carried blade, subject to the rule of life).

• Power. Refer to s 8B of the Control of Weapons Act 1990 (Vic) and to the existing exemptions made under it, including that for a Sikh whose religious practice requires carrying a kirpan.

• The justification. Set out the Sikh exemption’s justification (sincere religious duty, protective object, restraint, discipline) and show element by element (Part III, 3.4) that the Order’s claim rests on the same.

• The religious basis. Summarise the doctrinal foundation (Part VII) in a short form, with the doctrine’s limits and the Order’s own candid statement of its weaknesses.

• Human rights. Refer to the Charter, ss 8 and 14, and to the proportionality framework in s 7(2).

• Conditions. Offer the rule of life as the conditions of the exemption, including excluded places and blade types, and offer to accept additional conditions the Government considers necessary, including a requirement for membership evidence to be carried.

• Consultation. Offer to meet Victoria Police and the responsible Department, and to provide the rule of life, membership procedures and training syllabus.

• Relief. Request the making of an order in terms comparable to the Sikh exemption, or, in the alternative, such order as the Government considers appropriate.

9.12 Sequencing and strategy

• First, verification and counsel. Have every statutory provision in this brief checked against the current official consolidation, and take legal advice on the strategy (Appendix D).

• Second, evidence. Adopt the rule of life, begin membership records and training, and collect the documentary record of belief that a court or decision-maker will want.

• Third, engagement with regulators. Seek written guidance in South Australia and Victoria. A neutral request for guidance costs little and shows good faith.

• Fourth, legislative submissions. Make submissions in law-reform and parliamentary inquiries in Tasmania, the ACT, NSW and Queensland. The submissions should ask for faith-neutral wording and for express reference to the principle that a religious-purpose excuse applies to every sincere believer.

• Fifth, a test case, only if it is right. A test case carries risk for the claimant, and it should be run only with experienced counsel, on strong facts, with a claimant of unimpeachable sincerity and conduct. The Order should not encourage any member to become a test case by carrying in reliance on this brief.

• Sixth, respect for the Sikh community. The Order relies on the Kirpan exemption as an example of what the law has accepted. It does not speak for the Sikh community, and it should approach Sikh organisations respectfully, offer to hear their views on how the parallel is presented, and correct any statement of Sikh belief in this brief that they consider inaccurate.

9.13 What members must not do

• Carry any blade in reliance on this brief or on membership of the Order.

• Carry into any excluded place, or in any manner that displays or threatens.

• Carry a blade of a prohibited type or of a size outside the rule of life.

• Claim the exemption after being charged if the belief and practice were not held beforehand.

• Misstate the Order’s doctrine or the law to police, prosecutors or the court.

• Treat the Order’s petition as a licence, or the Sikh parallel as a guarantee of the outcome.

Objection 1: “The kirpan is mandatory and symbolic. A Christian blade is neither.”

Reply: The legal test is sincerity of a genuinely held religious purpose. The statutes do not require that the article be symbolic or that the religion mandate it universally. Both the Kirpan and the Christian carried blade are real blades carried under a solemn religious obligation to protect the innocent. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer treats the carried blade as a real duty of preparedness, not merely a symbol. The parallel of purpose is close: both are carried so that the bearer may act as a guardian of the vulnerable when all other means are exhausted.

Objection 2: “Christianity has no tradition of carrying a blade as a religious duty.”

Reply: Sincerity does not depend on how many believers share the practice, as the Amritdhari example itself shows. The Protestant tradition of private judgment makes individual reading the norm. The textual basis (Luke 22:36 and the Petrine example) is in the shared Christian canon. Moreover, in the overwhelmingly Christian Australia of 1900–1901, the ordinary pocket knife was already a settled practical norm among adult men, including church-going men; no special religious exemption was needed because the practice was background, not exception. The Order exists to give communal form and discipline to a conviction that has both textual and historical roots.

Objection 3: “Self-defence is expressly excluded, and this is self-defence in religious dress.”

Reply: The claim is for obedience to a command and for preparedness to protect others, which is broader than personal self-defence. The ACT’s “solely” supports this. Both the Sikh and the Christian traditions insist that the blade is not to be drawn lightly and that all other means must first be exhausted. The believer and the Order would also accept conditions (Part IX) showing the purpose is religious service and not personal fear.

Objection 4: “Public safety outweighs religious claims. Knife crime is a serious problem.”

Reply: The kirpan exemptions already operate alongside these safety laws. Conditions (discreet carriage, exclusion zones, defined blade types) answer the safety concern proportionately, and the human rights statutes call for exactly that proportionality test.

Objection 5: “Pacifist Christians say this is a distortion of the faith.”

Reply: That is a doctrinal dispute the state is not competent to settle (Part V). The pacifist reading is respected in law through conscientious objection, and equal respect is asked for the contrary conscience. The Order does not deny the sincerity of pacifist Christians; it asks only that its own sincerity likewise be respected.

Objection 6: “This opens the door to anyone claiming religion to carry a weapon.”

Reply: The sincerity test, the burden on the claimant, the evidence requirements and the conditions are the safeguards. The same objection was made about kirpans. Organised religious bodies such as the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer supply an additional layer of accountability and discipline.

Objection 7: “A Christian blade is a defensive weapon, and the Kirpan is not.”

Reply: The Kirpan is carried, on the Sikh tradition’s own account, for the protection of those in need and as a last resort. That is a defensive and protective purpose, and the law accommodates it as a religious one. The distinction the objection asks the law to draw therefore does not exist at the level of purpose. Both are protective religious duties, and what the law asks of each is sincerity and restraint. The objection, if accepted, would exclude the Kirpan, which no one proposes.

Objection 8: “The Order was formed to obtain a legal exemption, and so is not a genuine religious body.”

Reply: The legal test in Church of the New Faith looks to belief in the supernatural and canons of conduct accepted to give effect to it. The Order’s doctrine is drawn from the New Testament and the Protestant tradition of private judgment, and the companion thesis is a doctrinal work that sets out the case and its weaknesses. The suggestion that a body formed to petition for the recognition of its practice is therefore insincere would condemn many religious bodies that have sought legal accommodation of their practice. The Order accepts that a court may probe sincerity closely, which is why Part IX emphasises evidence that pre-dates any legal dispute and conduct that costs the member something.

Objection 9: “Sikhs can carry a symbolic kirpan, so the blade is not essential. Christians can be equipped in other ways.”

Reply: In Multani the school board argued that a symbolic substitute would do, and the Supreme Court of Canada did not treat that as answering a sincere belief that the real article is required. The same reasoning applies here. The Order’s members hold that the duty is of preparedness with a real blade, as the thesis explains from the Greek word and the sheath. The thesis also acknowledges that protection does not always need a blade and that other means may meet the duty for those who are not so persuaded. That is why the claim is limited to the member whose conscience requires it.

Objection 10: “If the state cannot test orthodoxy, anyone can claim a religious duty to carry.”

Reply: The state cannot test orthodoxy, but it can test sincerity, and it does so every day with evidence. The same objection has been made about the Kirpan, about conscientious objection and about every accommodation of conscience. The answers are the burden of proof on the claimant, the need for corroborating evidence, the conditions and the consequences of a false claim. A person who claims a religious duty falsely, without a record of belief or practice, will not satisfy a court.

Objection 11: “The state has police to protect the public, and Romans 13 gives the sword to the magistrate alone.”

Reply: The thesis acknowledges that many interpreters read Romans 13:4 as reserving the sword to the state. It also points out that the state exercises its power on behalf of its people, and that where the state is not present at the moment of danger a person acting to protect life exercises a small share of the same protective function. The Kirpan exists in the same legal world as the police. Its recognition shows that the existence of police does not displace a sincere religious duty of last-resort protection. In any event, the legal question is not whether the theology is right, but whether the belief is sincere.

Objection 12: “Sikhs are an ethnic group and Christians are not, so the cases differ.”

Reply: That difference matters to the Racial Discrimination Act route in Athwal and the Order accepts it (Part VI, 6.2). It does not matter to the neutral wording of the weapons statutes, which speak of religious purposes and observances and not of ethnicity. It does not matter to the justification for the exemption, which is a religious justification. The brief does not rely on the RDA.

Objection 13: “Knives are dangerous in schools, courts, airports and places of worship, and wanding laws are expanding.”

Reply: The Order does not seek carriage in those places and its rule of life forbids it. The self-imposed conditions are narrower than the claim upheld in Multani, which concerned a school. The expansion of wanding powers is an administrative answer to detection, and the Order’s members, who are required to disclose and surrender the blade when lawfully asked, are committed in advance to compliance.

Objection 14: “Christians are still a large share of the population, so the exemption would be taken up widely.”

Reply: The size of the Christian population is not the measure. The measure is the number of persons who sincerely hold a binding duty of this particular kind and accept the discipline that goes with it. The Kirpan is carried only by initiated Sikhs, a subset of the Sikh community. The duty the Order describes is likewise a duty of conscience that binds only the person persuaded of it, and the thesis itself says that many Christians would reject it. The rule of life is demanding. The exemption is self-limiting.

The advocate, on behalf of THE APOSTOLIC ORDER OF SIMON PETER, BLADE-BEARER INC., submits that:

1. The statutes of NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT recognise religious carriage of a knife in neutral words, and Victoria does so by executive exemption that can be extended.

2. In WA and the NT the same result is reached through the “lawful activity” limb.

3. The test is sincerity, and the state may not rank denominations or dismiss minority readings as fraud. The Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer and its members satisfy the legal criteria of religion established in Church of the New Faith.

4. Equality and human rights principles, informed by s 116 of the Commonwealth Constitution and the definition of discrimination in the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986, require the religious-purpose provisions to be applied evenly.

5. The reasons for which initiated Sikhs carry the Kirpan — solemn religious obligation, protection of the innocent, the Saint-Soldier ideal, and disciplined restraint — are closely analogous to the reasons for which members of the Order carry the Christian blade. The law already accommodates the one; equality requires that it accommodate the other.

6. The Protestant doctrines of conscience, private judgment and household duty provide a genuine and long-standing foundation for the belief.

7. Australia’s heritage shows that when the nation was approximately 96 per cent Christian, the modest carried blade was an ordinary practical norm among adult men, including church-going men, and required no special legal permission. The modern regime of presumptive prohibition is a recent legislative development. A modest, discreet, lawfully conditioned exemption restores a small part of that older settled practice.

8. The justification the law accepts for the Kirpan (a sincere, binding religious duty to be ready to protect others, carried under restraint and last resort and within a disciplined community) is the justification on which the Order’s claim rests. The religions differ. The justification is the same.

9. The exclusions of self-defence and defence of another cannot be read to deprive a religious duty of its protection merely because the duty has a protective object, because that reading would deprive the Kirpan of its protection, which every jurisdiction accepts.

10. The companion thesis, which sets out the scriptural basis (Luke 22:36; John 18:10-11; the duty to the neighbour; the distinction between self and neighbour; household and prudence; the limits of Romans 13), supplies the evidence that the belief is reasoned, textual, limited and sincerely held, and it does so with an open acknowledgement of its own weaknesses.

11. The proportionality analysis under the human rights statutes should take the Kirpan as the benchmark of accepted risk. The Order offers the same conditions, and no greater risk follows from extending the same exemption on the same justification.

The remedy sought is a faith-neutral statutory or executive recognition that a sincere Christian believer — and specifically a member of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer — may carry a sheathed utility blade, under the same conditions that govern the kirpan.

Specific relief sought, by jurisdiction

• Victoria: an order of the Governor in Council under s 8B for members of the Order whose religious practice requires the carried blade, in terms comparable to the Sikh exemption and subject to the rule of life.

• South Australia: confirmation that Schedule 2, clause 7 applies to members of the Order, or an amendment that makes explicit that it applies to any religious group whose requirements are shown.

• New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT: recognition, by guidance, by legislative clarification or by judicial construction in a properly prepared case, that the religious-purpose excuse applies to a sincere member of the Order who carries within the rule of life.

• Western Australia and the Northern Territory: confirmation that “lawful activity” includes a sincere religious duty of the kind accepted in the case of the Kirpan, and, preferably, an express religious excuse.

• All jurisdictions: administrative even-handedness, so that police, prosecutors and decision-makers apply the existing religious excuses on the evidence of sincerity and not on the identity of the faith.

The Order does not ask for more than the Sikh community already has. It asks that what has been accepted for one faith on a stated justification be considered, on the same justification and the evidence of sincerity, for another.

All are welcomed to follow Christ. Those whose conscience is persuaded of the duty of the carried blade are welcomed into the Order, that together we may support one another and petition the civil power for even-handed justice.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of THE APOSTOLIC ORDER OF SIMON PETER, BLADE-BEARER INC.

An honest brief states where an opponent, or a judge, would press hardest.

• The self-defence exclusion is the biggest barrier. Nearly every jurisdiction says self-defence is not a reasonable excuse. A court looking at the substance of the claim (“a Christian must carry a blade to protect himself and others”) is likely to see the purpose as defence and apply the exclusion, however it is labelled. The ACT’s “solely” is the only textual relief identified, and it is untested for this claim. This remains the single most difficult point in the entire case.

• Sincerity is tested on evidence. No major Australian denomination teaches that carrying a blade is a religious duty. A court could accept that an individual claimant (or member of the Order) is sincere but still find the purpose is not “religious” within the statute, or doubt sincerity if the belief appears after a charge. The existence of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer strengthens the communal and accountable character of the claim and supplies documentary evidence of membership, belief and discipline, but it does not eliminate the difficulty created by the relative novelty of the organised expression.

• The kirpan comparison is strong on purpose and moral structure, but still imperfect on institutional history. The parallel of purpose is close and should be pressed: both the Kirpan and the Christian carried blade are carried under a solemn religious obligation to protect the innocent, under conditions of restraint, by members of an organised religious body that understands itself as charged with a protective vocation (Saint-Soldier / Christian preparedness). That parallel of purpose is not a weak point; it is one of the strongest features of the case. The remaining difference is historical and institutional: the Kirpan rests on a continuous 300-year Khalsa tradition with formal initiation and a community-wide uniform, whereas the Christian carried-blade conviction, though textually grounded in the New Testament and historically continuous with ordinary Australian practice, has not until recently been organised into a distinct religious order with the same public visibility. A court may therefore treat the Sikh practice as more “established.” The existence of the Apostolic Order of Simon Peter, Blade-Bearer is the beginning of an answer to that concern, but it cannot invent centuries of formal institutional continuity overnight. The honest position is that the moral and purposive parallel is strong; the institutional-history parallel is still developing.

• The RDA reasoning in Athwal turned on s 10 of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). Whether Sikhs were treated as an ethnic group for that purpose is not confirmed in this review. If they were, the precise RDA pathway is not available to a claim by Christians. The broader equality and human-rights arguments remain.

• Courts and parliaments are moving toward tighter knife controls. NSW, WA and Tasmania have recently expanded wanding powers and raised penalties, and South Australia amended its knife laws in 2025. Judges apply these laws against that background.

• Human rights statutes allow proportionate limits. Public safety is a legitimate aim, and courts routinely uphold knife restrictions as proportionate.

• Tying the duty exclusively to men invites complications. Restricting the claim to men invites sex-discrimination questions and weakens the individual-conscience framing that gives the argument its strength. The legal claim is stronger as a claim of any sincere believer; the Order accordingly welcomes all.

• The Bill of Rights and heritage arguments are rhetorical. Both are qualified by “as allowed by law” and by later statutes. The historical normalcy of the pocket knife supplies useful background, but a court is unlikely to treat it as freestanding legal authority.

• Dagger-class blades face separate prohibited-weapon rules. A Peter-style machaira may fall into a prohibited category in several jurisdictions, and only a specific exemption would cover it.

• The penalties are real. Carrying without an established excuse risks prosecution (up to 4 years in NSW and substantial terms in WA). Treating this argument as a defence you can rely on without a lawyer would be a serious mistake.

• Many Christian traditions would reject the premise. Anabaptist and Quaker traditions, and many Catholic, Reformed and other Protestant voices, hold that Scripture permits defence at most and does not command carrying a weapon. They would say a duty to be armed is not a Christian duty at all. The Order respects those consciences and asks only for reciprocal respect.

Further weaknesses, stated for the same reason

• The Kirpan test is an argument from inference, and it is untested. Its force lies in the structure of the statutes, in which the exclusion of self-defence and defence of another sits beside the accommodation of the Kirpan. A court may answer that the legislatures accommodated the Kirpan as a special case. The existence of Victoria’s executive exemption cuts both ways: it shows that the justification for the Kirpan has been accepted, and it also shows that, in that State, a protective religious article needed a specific exemption because the general law would otherwise have caught it. The Order’s submission is that the justification, and not the label, is what the law accepted. A court is not obliged to agree.

• The line between a standing religious duty and situational precaution will be drawn on the facts. The Kirpan is carried at all times as part of a uniform. A claimant whose carriage began after a threat, or who carries more in some places than others, will find the distinction hard to maintain. The Order’s rule of life is designed to address this, but no rule of life can supply a history that the claimant does not have.

• The thesis is persuasive as an expression of sincerity and weaker as proof of obligation. It states, in its own critical chapter, that the step from permission to obligation is the weakest. A court is entitled to note that the thesis itself concedes that no major tradition calls carrying a weapon a religious duty. That concession goes to the weight of the doctrine, and does not touch the question of sincerity, but a judge may find the point difficult to separate.

• The inference that Peter’s blade was concealed is not in the text, and the use of the sicarii and of Ehud as cultural background is open to criticism because both involve killing. The argument for the Order’s form of carriage does not depend on concealment, but the submission should not overstate it.

• The parallel with the Kirpan depends on an accurate account of Sikh belief. This brief states that belief from the sources summarised in Part III, and it has not been reviewed by Sikh scholars or institutions. Any error in the account weakens the parallel, and the account should be checked with the Sikh community before the brief is used in a formal submission (Part IX, 9.12).

• Section 116 and the older High Court authorities (Krygger v Williams; the Jehovah’s Witnesses case; Kruger) give little direct support. They show that accommodation of conscience in Australia is a matter of legislative and executive grace, which is why the Order’s pathways are legislative and executive, and why a litigated outcome is uncertain.

• Most Australian jurisdictions have no statutory bill of rights. Only Victoria, Queensland and the ACT do, and the interpretive duty in those jurisdictions has been read modestly (Momcilovic). The equality and proportionality arguments are therefore available in some places and not in others.

• A court may find that a purpose is protective and not religious. If it regards the Order’s doctrine as a philosophy of armed preparedness expressed in religious language, it may decline to treat it as religion within Church of the New Faith. The Order’s response is the evidence of belief in the supernatural, of canons of conduct accepted to give effect to it, and of an identifiable group of adherents.

• The brief is advocacy. Statutes are summarised from police pages, legislation extracts and commentary. Section numbers, penalties and the current wording must be verified (Appendix D), and nobody should carry a blade in reliance on this document.

Each row states the element, the Kirpan, and the Order.

Element	The Kirpan (Khalsa)	The Order
Source of duty	The Guru’s command and the Sikh code of conduct	Luke 22:36, John 18:10-11, the duties of neighbour-love and household provision, and the Order’s rule of life
Who is bound	The initiated (Amritdhari) Sikh	The member persuaded in conscience (Rom 14:23) and admitted to the Order
Object of the duty	Those in need; the safety of humankind	The neighbour, household and vulnerable (Ps 82:4; Luke 10:36-37; Neh 4:14)
Ideal	Sant-Sipahi, the Saint-Soldier	Discipleship joined to practical preparedness
Order of resort	All other means exhausted first	“Lord, shall we smite?”; seek direction; limit the harm; heal
Manner of carriage	Sheathed, under clothing, with a gatra and safety strap	Sheathed (John 18:11), discreet, secured, never displayed
Training	Martial training in Shastar Vidiya and Gatka	Training in restraint, lawful force, conflict avoidance and first aid
Community	Khalsa initiation, uniform and code	Membership, written belief, rule of life, officer and elder accountability
Relation to law	Exemption within conditions and exclusions	Romans 13, 1 Pet 2:13-14; petition and not defiance
Legal footing	Religious excuse or observance; executive exemption in Victoria; general lawful-activity limb in WA and NT	The same provisions, on the same justification, on the evidence of sincerity
Difference	Three centuries of continuous institutional history	A younger organised body whose conviction rests on a long-standing scriptural reading

• Old Testament: Gen 14:14, 19-20; Exod 20:13; Exod 22:2-3; Judg 3:15-16; Neh 4:9, 14, 17-18; Ps 82:4; Ps 144:1; Prov 22:3; Prov 24:11-12; Eccl 3:3, 8; Isa 53:12; Ezek 33:6.

• Gospels: Matt 5:9, 17, 39; 10:16; 22:39; 24:42-43; 26:47, 51-56; Mark 14:47; Luke 3:14; 7:9; 10:30-37; 11:21-22; 12:35; 14:31; 22:35-38, 49-51; John 18:3, 10-11, 36; 21:15-17.

• Acts: 10:1-2; 17:11; 21:38; 23:23; 25:11.

• Epistles: Rom 12:18-19; 13:1, 4; 14:4, 5, 23; 1 Cor 10:29; 2 Cor 10:4; Eph 6:13, 17; 1 Tim 5:8; Heb 4:12; 1 Pet 2:13-14, 21-23; 1 John 3:17-18.

• Amritdhari: an initiated Sikh, one who has taken the vows of the Khalsa.

• Gatra: the shoulder belt on which the Kirpan is carried, with a safety strap.

• Gatka and Shastar Vidiya: Sikh martial arts concerned with the handling of arms.

• Khalsa: the Sikh community of the initiated, founded in 1699.

• Kirpan: the article of faith carried by initiated Sikhs, one of the Panj Kakkar (kirpa, mercy, and aan, honour).

• Machaira: the Greek word translated “sword” in Luke 22:36 and John 18:10-11, denoting a large knife or short sword.

• Miri and piri: temporal and spiritual authority, symbolised in Sikh tradition by the two swords of the sixth Guru.

• Panj Kakkar: the five articles worn by initiated Sikhs, the Five Ks.

• Romphaia: the large broadsword, as distinct from the machaira.

• Sant-Sipahi: the Saint-Soldier, the Khalsa ideal.

• Sicarii: the dagger-men described by Josephus, mentioned in Acts 21:38.

• Thēkē: the sheath or scabbard of John 18:11.

• Zafarnama: the letter of the tenth Guru, commonly cited for the principle that the sword is righteous only when peaceful means have failed.

• Confirm each statutory provision cited in Part II against the current official consolidation, including section numbers, the text of the religious excuse and the exclusion of self-defence and defence of another, and the penalties.

• Confirm the instrument and clause reference for the South Australian religious exemption and how SA Police administer it, including the effect of the 2025 amendments.

• Confirm the current Victorian s 8B order for the Sikh class, its terms, and any conditions.

• Confirm the commencement and current text of the human rights statutes in Victoria, Queensland and the ACT, and the section numbers for the interpretation duty, the proportionality test and the public authority duty.

• Confirm the citations and holdings of the authorities listed in Appendix E, including Church of the New Faith, Multani, Amselem, Adelaide Company, Krygger, Kruger, Momcilovic, DPP v Smith, Project Blue Sky, Coco, Lacey and Mandla, and confirm the holding of Athwal from the full judgment, which the letter previously misdescribed.

• Review the account of Sikh belief and practice in Part III with Sikh scholars or institutions, and correct it as they advise.

• Check the census figures in Part VIII against the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

• Take advice on whether any member should carry, and if so under what conditions, before any practical step is taken.

This table lists every statute and case relied on in the brief, in APA 7th edition style adapted for Australian legal materials: case names are in italics, jurisdiction and section appear in brackets, and each entry carries a link. Where a link could not be retrieved, the entry gives an official or secondary location and says so. Each status note records the verification pass: “Verified” means the text or holding was checked against a retrieved official or court source; “Partly verified” or “Not verified” means the entry must be checked before reliance.

Legislation (Australian)

Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (Imp) s 116. https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/s116.html [Status: Verified: the text is quoted in High Court and Parliament material.]

Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth) s 3. https://www.legislation.gov.au/ [Status: Partly verified: secondary material says unlawful discrimination is defined in this Act. The section number and the religion limb are not yet confirmed.]

Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) s 10. https://www.legislation.gov.au/ [Status: Verified through the Athwal reports, which record s 10 as the basis of the invalidity finding. The Act itself was not retrieved.]

Weapons Act 1990 (Qld) s 51(4)–(5). https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/ [Status: Verified through the Queensland judgment summary in Athwal.]

Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) ss 8, 13, 15, 20, 58. https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2019-005 [Status: Verified: ss 8, 13 and 58 through Queensland Government guidance. Ss 15 and 20 are confirmed through secondary sources.]

Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) ss 7, 8, 14, 32, 38. https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/cohrara2006433/ [Status: Verified: section numbers and titles from the AustLII table of provisions; s 32 holding through High Court summaries. The subsection detail of s 7(2) was not checked separately.]

Control of Weapons Act 1990 (Vic) s 8B. Victoria Police. (2022). Quick guide: Sikh kirpan (v2.0). https://www.police.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-05/Quick%20Guide%20-%20Sikh%20Kirpan_v2.0.pdf [Status: Verified: a Governor in Council exemption under s 8B covers a Sikh whose religious practice requires a kirpan.]

Control of Weapons Act 1990 (Vic) s 8B. Victoria Government Gazette, G 23 (5 June 2014), Exemption to possess swords – martial arts. https://www.police.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-09/Swords-Martial-Arts-Exemption.pdf [Status: Verified: shows the s 8B power used for other classes.]

Victoria Police. Governor in Council exemption orders. https://www.police.vic.gov.au/governor-council-exemption-orders [Status: Verified: exemptions apply to classes of persons and are published in the Gazette.]

Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) s 93IB. https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s93ib.html [Status: Verified: s 93IB(3)(a)(vii) lists religious purposes; s 93IB(4) excludes self-defence and defence of another.]

Criminal Legislation Amendment (Knife Crimes) Bill 2023 (NSW). https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/bill/files/18452/Second%20Print.pdf [Status: Bill text verified. The enacted Act should be checked before citing it by its final name.]

Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW) s 11C (repealed; historical). https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/ [Status: Superseded by Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) s 93IB. Earlier location confirmed through secondary material.]

Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA) sch 2 cl 7. SA Police. Prohibited weapons exemptions: Religious purposes (clause 7). https://www.police.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1185711/Template-Clause-7-Religious-Purposes.pdf [Status: Verified: the SA Police template reproduces the clause.]

Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA), current consolidation. https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/__legislation/lz/c/a/summary%20offences%20act%201953/current/1953.55.auth.pdf [Status: Consolidation located on the official site. The clause text was confirmed through SA Police.]

Summary Offences (Knives and Other Weapons) Amendment Act 2025 (SA) (No 10 of 2025). https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/__legislation/lz/v/a/2025/summary%20offences%20(knives%20and%20other%20weapons)%20amendment%20act%202025_10/2025.10.un.pdf [Status: Verified: assented 12 March 2025.]

Crimes (Amendment) Act 1998 (ACT), inserting s 382 into the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT). https://legislation.act.gov.au/DownloadFile/b/db_13213/19980520-15091/PDF/db_13213.PDF [Status: Verified: amending text. The current location of s 382 is not yet confirmed (see Appendix D).]

Crimes Act 1900 (ACT) s 382 (current location). https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/ [Status: Not verified: the current location of this provision has not been confirmed.]

Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) ss 14, 28, 40B, 40C. https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/DownloadFile/a/2004-5/current/PDF/2004-5.PDF [Status: Verified: section numbers and titles from the current republication; s 14 wording confirmed through the ACT Human Rights Commission.]

Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW) s 33. https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/ [Status: Not verified in this review.]

Police Offences Act 1935 (Tas) s 15C. Tasmania Police. Knife laws education. https://police.tas.gov.au/services-online/knife-laws-education [Status: Verified that s 15C lists religious observance as a lawful excuse. Note that the Police Offences Amendment (Knives and Other Weapons) Act 2025 (Tas) amended the Act (passed 28 May 2025), so check the amended text.]

Police Offences Amendment (Knives and Prohibited Weapons) Bill 2026 (Tas) (consultation draft). https://www.police.tas.gov.au/uploads/Police-Offences-Amendment-Knives-and-Prohibited-Weapons-Bill-2026-Consultation-Draft.pdf [Status: Consultation draft only (consultation ran 9 July to 13 August 2026). Whether the Bill has been introduced or passed was not confirmed. Not law as at this review.]

Constitution Act 1934 (Tas) s 46. https://legislation.tas.gov.au/view/pdf/authorised/2022-12-14%202023-01-04/act-1934-094 [Status: Verified: s 46 (Religious freedom) guarantees freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion, subject to public order and morality. Check that this is the current authorised version.]

Weapons Act 1999 (WA) ss 5A, 6A, 7, 11. https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/prod/filestore.nsf/FileURL/mrdoc_48364.htm/$FILE/Weapons%20Act%201999%20-%20%5B01-h0-00%5D.html [Status: Partly verified: sections 5A, 6A, 7 and 11 were checked in an earlier compilation. The current consolidation, after the 2024 amendments, has not been checked. Religious observance is not listed in s 5A.]

Police Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (WA). https://wa.gov.au/media/74535/download [Status: Partly verified through a WA Government retailer guide. The Act itself should be checked.]

Weapons Control Act 2001 (NT) ss 7, 8. https://legislation.nt.gov.au/api/sitecore/Act/PDF_History?id=17088 [Status: Verified for the text as in force on 8 August 2001. The current version has not been checked.]

Cases (Australian)

Athwal v State of Queensland [2023] QCA 156; (2023) 16 QR 218 (Court of Appeal of Queensland, 1 August 2023). https://www.queenslandjudgments.com.au/caselaw/qca/2023/156 [Status: Verified: s 51(5) held inconsistent with s 10 RDA and invalid under s 109. The case concerned schools.]

Adelaide Company of Jehovah's Witnesses Inc v Commonwealth (1943) 67 CLR 116; [1943] HCA 12 (14 June 1943). https://www.hcourt.gov.au/sites/default/files/eresources/1943/HCA/12.pdf [Status: Partly verified: the Witnesses succeeded on the s 116 ground. The precise orders should be checked from the full judgment.]

Church of the New Faith v Commissioner for Pay-Roll Tax (Vic) (1983) 154 CLR 120; [1983] HCA 40 (27 October 1983). https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1983/40.html [Status: Verified: the four indicia of Wilson and Deane JJ are confirmed through Hansard.]

Krygger v Williams (1912) 15 CLR 366; [1912] HCA 65 (15 October 1912). https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases-and-judgments/judgments/1-clr-100-clr/krygger-v-williams [Status: Verified: the Defence Act provisions did not infringe s 116 as applied to a religious objector.]

Kruger v Commonwealth (1997) 190 CLR 1; [1997] HCA 27 (31 July 1997). https://www.austlii.edu.au/ (search for [1997] HCA 27); secondary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruger_v_Commonwealth [Status: Verified: Brennan CJ at 40 held that s 116 invalidity requires a law whose purpose is to achieve what s 116 forbids. The AustLII page was not retrieved.]

Momcilovic v The Queen (2011) 245 CLR 1; [2011] HCA 34 (8 September 2011). https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases-and-judgments/judgments/judgments-1998-current/momcilovic-v-queen [Status: Verified: a majority treated s 32(1) of the Charter as an ordinary principle of interpretation.]

DPP v Smith [2024] HCA 32; (2024) 98 ALJR 1163 (11 September 2024). https://www.hrlc.org.au/?p=2435 [Status: Verified: decided 11 September 2024 and applies s 32 of the Charter. The judgment itself was not retrieved; the link is to the HRLC case summary.]

Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority (1998) 194 CLR 355; [1998] HCA 28 (28 April 1998). https://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases-and-judgments/judgments/judgments-1998-current/project-blue-sky-v-australian-broadcasting-authority [Status: Verified: the principles of construction are cited for reconciling conflicting provisions so that each has effect.]

Coco v The Queen (1994) 179 CLR 427 (High Court of Australia). https://www.austlii.edu.au/ (search for (1994) 179 CLR 427) [Status: Verified: the principle of legality at 437–8 (Mason CJ, Brennan, Gaudron and McHugh JJ). The judgment itself was not retrieved.]

Lacey v Attorney-General (Qld) (2011) 242 CLR 573 (High Court of Australia). https://www.austlii.edu.au/ (search for (2011) 242 CLR 573) [Status: Citation confirmed in academic commentary. The judgment itself was not retrieved.]

Foreign authorities (comparative only; not binding in Australia)

Multani v Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys, 2006 SCC 6; [2006] 1 SCR 256 (Supreme Court of Canada, 2 March 2006). https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/15/1/document.do [Status: Verified: the Court held a total ban on the kirpan at school was not justified. Comparative only.]

Syndicat Northcrest v Amselem, 2004 SCC 47; [2004] 2 SCR 551 (Supreme Court of Canada). http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2004/2004scc47/2004scc47.html [Status: Verified: citation and the sincerity test. Comparative only.]

Mandla v Dowell Lee [1983] 2 AC 548; [1982] UKHL 7 (House of Lords, 24 March 1983). https://hrcr.org/safrica/equality/Mandla_DowellLee.htm [Status: Verified: Sikhs held to be an ethnic group under the Race Relations Act 1976 (UK). Comparative only; not Australian law.]

Thomas v Review Board, 450 US 707 (1981) (Supreme Court of the United States). Not retrieved. [Status: Not verified. This case appears in the letter (section 6.1) but was not previously listed. Comparative only.]