Labor to back coalition religious bill

Alex Mitchell and Andrew Brown | February 9, 2022

Labor will back the coalition’s religious discrimination bill, but will move a number of amendments to try and address its “big flaws”.

After a lengthy caucus meeting on Wednesday, shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said Labor supported the bill but would move amendments in four key areas in both houses of parliament.

Those amendments include prohibiting religious vilification and discrimination against children based on their sexuality or gender identity, along with clarifying the controversial “statement of belief” provision does not remove existing protections against discrimination.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese told parliament the amendments proposed by Labor should be uncontroversial.

“The idea of having legislation that removes discrimination on the basis of faith is an important one, but I don’t support doing it at the expense of increasing discrimination against others,” he said. 

“Protection against religious discrimination should be a uniting not dividing matter for the nation.” 

Equality advocates say Labor’s proposed amendments won’t fix everything, but are a step in the right direction.

“These changes should be supported, but the parliament needs to go further to fix the remaining problems with the bill, including removing Section 11, the provisions overriding state discrimination protections on the basis of religious belief,” Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown said. 

Mr Albanese said if Labor’s amendments were not agreed to in the House they would insist on them being carried when the bill moves to the Senate.

He said he expected Labor’s amendments to be carried in the upper house. 

Labor will also seek to change a section of the Sex Discrimination Act that allows schools to discriminate against children on the grounds of sexuality or gender identity.

“Labor believes religious organisations and people of faith have the right to act in accordance with the doctrines, beliefs or teachings of their traditions and faith,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“But as we have made clear from the outset, any extension of the federal anti-discrimination framework should not come at the expense of existing laws that protect Australians from other forms of discrimination.”

Equality Australia says the proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act would protect LGBTQI+ students from discrimination in religious schools.

But Ms Brown wants the opposition to ensure teachers and staff at faith-based schools cannot be fired or otherwise discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The coalition partyroom had agreed to amendments to the religious discrimination bill on Monday, including banning religious schools from expelling students based on sexuality.

However, schools would still be able to expel transgender students in order “to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion or creed”.

Multiple moderate MPs within the coalition have expressed concern with the amendments, including Tasmanian MP Bridget Archer who said she would cross the floor on the issue.

Labor MP Stephen Jones gave an emotional speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, and said the bill should not be rushed through.

He paid tribute in the speech to his 15-year-old nephew Ollie, who took his own life earlier this year.

“He was gay, he was uncertain about his gender … but now he’s gone and we’re no longer able to love and support him on his journey through life,” he said.

“It’s about all of our kids, about the families of those kids, every child who’s had the courage to swim against the tide, just to be who they are.”

Despite the division in his own party about the religious discrimination laws, Mr Morrison appealed to the partyroom to “think about our team”.

The coalition partyroom ultimately agreed to leave the question of broader changes to the Sex Discrimination Act, including the question of transgender student rights, to the Australian Law Reform Commission.

Debate is continuing on the legislation in the lower house on Wednesday, but with at least 36 speakers listed it may not get to a vote until Thursday.

It then has to run the gauntlet of the Senate.

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