Old Australian govt study misrepresented as 'Labor in favour of sharia law'

Australia's ruling Labor Party has not campaigned to recognise sharia law, contrary to social media users claiming otherwise. The posts share an image of a 2010 journal article cropped to exclude its conclusion that the country should not adopt the Islamic legal system.

"How many reasons do you need not to vote Labor?" reads a March 25, 2025 X post with more than 500 shares.

It features a screenshot of an article from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) website titled: "Legal recognition of Sharia law." The subheading says: "Is this the right direction for Australian family matters?"

Sharia, or Islamic law, refers to the religious legal system that traditionally governs both public and private aspects of Muslim life (archived link).

While it is increasingly being practised in varying forms in secular countries around the world, Australia -- where around 3.2 percent of the population identifies as Muslim -- does not recognise it as a legal system within its courts (archived links here and here).

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Screenshot of false post taken April 16, 2025

After suffering a decline in the polls toward the end of its three-year term, support for Australia’s governing centre-left Labor Party appears to be creeping higher in the final stretch of the tightly contested May 3 elections (archived link).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is up against right-leaning opposition leader Peter Dutton, 54, a hard-nosed former detective who advocates cutting migration by 25 percent (archived link).  

Similar posts circulated across social media, stoking anti-Muslim sentiment among users who believed it was an official Labor Party position.

But the article in the screenshot has been cropped, omitting details that show it is not a proposal from the Albanese government.

Keyword searches on Google show it corresponds to a journal article published in May 2010 by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, the country's independent family research body, in its Family Matters publication (archived link).

The article concludes sharia law should not be applied in Australia.

"This article assesses the premise for Australia’s 'one law for all' approach and canvasses the case for and against official legal recognition being given to aspects of Islamic law as the applicable law for Muslims in family law matters," the abstract's final lines say. "It concludes that, on balance, the status quo should prevail."

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Screenshot of the article with the abstract shown in full, taken April 18, 2025

As of April 18, 2025, there was no reference to sharia law or any policy targeting Muslims in Labor’s election platform (archived link).

AFP has fact-checked other misinformation about the Australian election here and here.