IF re-elected, Prime Minister Scott Morrison faces a tough task delivering a religious discrimination act promised during the 2019 election, but withdrawn before it could pass through parliament.
New legal protection is supported by the Catholic Church because it would allow faith groups the freedom to run schools, social welfare, hospitals and aged care according to their beliefs and ethos.
“Protection from discrimination and the liberty to run religious organisations on the basis of their faith-inspired mission are fundamental human rights that deserve to be protected,” Australia’s Catholic bishops’ said in its election statement to voters.
“This includes common sense provisions to allow religious schools to preference the hiring of staff who support the school’s ethos.”
Mr Morrison was unable to deliver a bill against religious discrimination in the face of amendments being forced by Labor, the Greens party and five Coalition senators.
In particular, his opponents on the issue object to one of the provisions in the bill that would give religious schools a legal exemption to discriminate against students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity – covering both gay and transgender students – including by expelling them.
During weekend election campaigning, Mr Morrison said there was no evidence of students being expelled, however he argued that religious Australians were being discriminated against “every day” – hence his determination to press ahead with the legislation.
His opponents have refused to support religious freedom laws unless the PM agrees to simultaneously amend the country’s Sex Discrimination Act to protect LGBTQ students.
However, that is likely to prove tricky.
“They are both important issues and the position of the government has always been to deal with them sequentially,” Mr Morrison is quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald as telling reporters on the campaign trail.
When pressed on what “sequentially” meant in terms of a timeframe, the Prime Minister pointed to a year-long expert review process that would only be triggered after the passage of the religious discrimination bill.
The government has instructed the Australian Law Reform Commission to provide a draft on how best to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to protect LGBT students and teachers once the Religious Discrimination Act has been in operation for one year.
That effectively means there is no guarantee the ALRC recommendations would be legislated.
Questioned on the matter, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said Mr Morrison wrote to him last year promising to amend the Sex Discrimination Act as part of the religious bills package.
“I am astonished that he has walked away from that,” the Opposition leader said.
“We need to protect people from discrimination whether it is religious discrimination or on the basis of people’s sexuality.”
While committed to introducing religious freedom protections, the Opposition Leader has not given a timeline for the introduction of a religious discrimination act.
“Any legislation will be done in the normal way. We don’t want to do what Scott Morrison has done, which is divide the nation by introducing this type of legislation,” he said.
