Albanese Abandons the Religious Schools/Discrimination Reforms to the Coalition

Prime minister Anthony Albanese, in response to a question at a 9 August 2024 presser regarding his government’s religious discrimination legislation, which it handed a copy of to the opposition to consider back in March, responded that he was kicking the rusty tin can further down the path.

Of course, in today’s political climate that might mean he’s handing the issue that involves religious discrimination and the laws that privilege religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ staff and students back to the Coalition, so it can handle this “divisive debate” when re-elected.

As attorney general Mark Dreyfus described it at the National Press Club in July, what was broadly referred to as the religious freedoms debate when it commenced circa 2016-17, involves the provision of “protections to staff and students in religious schools and protections to people of faith”.

Religious freedoms became a rising issue for the Christian Right as the nation began considering marriage equality, and two weeks after it was legalised in December 2017, soon-to-be PM Scott Morrison warned that he’d be seeking greater protections for those of faith, “particularly” Christians.

But at the time the findings of the Turnbull government-initiated Ruddock religious freedoms review became public in late 2018, the fact that religious schools can legally discriminate against teachers and students based on sexual orientation and gender identity became central to the debate.

And Morrison’s religious freedoms crusade fell over in the end because of his insistence that religious schools retain these discriminating privileges, while Albanese then came to office promising to rectify this, but he’s now waving the “social cohesion” flag again, as he frets on losing religious votes.

Officially approved discrimination

That the PM is laying down and playing dead on this issue is penalising the LGBTQ community, as there are laws on the books that allow them to be treated in a prejudicial manner because of who they are, and Albanese is leaving the laws in this manner as he’s scared of losing the religious vote.

Since 2013 changes, section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1985 (Cth) permits religious schools to discriminate against staff and students on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and since enactment, it’s permitted this bias on the basis of sex, marital status and pregnancy.

Yet, much of the population was unaware of these laws before the Ruddock review raised the flag on them, and there’s also a popular misconception circulating that these laws aren’t actually being applied, so they don’t really harm anyone.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers, however, spoke to just one of the teachers sacked in relation to this law back in 2020, and in 2022, Brisbane’s Citipointe Christian College issued an enrolment policy that made it understood that it would expel gay or trans students, prior to revoking it due to backlash.

Indeed, outrage over these laws led Morrison to state he’d remove the law targeting students, but not teachers.

Yet, when his Religious Discrimination Bill 2022 was up for debate in parliament, he resisted this to the point of stating he’d remove the law in regard to gay students but not trans ones.

At that point, Labor did support a change in the law for students, but it determined it would send the question regarding teachers to a law review if elected.

However, as the final debate on these laws took place on 10 February 2022, five Liberals MP crossed the floor to ensure that when the bill passed the lower house it did contain the protection for both gay and trans students. And Morrison then shelved his legislation because of this allowance.

Daggers wrapped as protection

When first published in 2019, the Religious Discrimination Bill clearly revealed an attack by the Christian Right on all nonreligious peoples by elevating the rights of people of faith above all others.

And as the majority religion remains Christianity, these laws would have worked to create Chrisitan liberties or privileges in a similar manner to how the discriminating laws against LGBTQ students and teachers are applied now.

The original 2019 exposure draft created laws that would permit people of faith to discriminate against all protected attributes in federal law, whether that be LGBTIQA+ people, women in general, First Nations people, people of colour and people with disabilities.

The first proposal contained the “health practitioner conduct rule”, which sought to allow all medical professionals to refuse to provide a health service to an individual if it didn’t agree with their faith beliefs, whether that be rejecting provision of care to person themselves or the type they were after.

In fact, the problematic patient was imposing a form of indirect discrimination on a doctor or a nurse in seeking their healthcare assistance, according to Morrison’s original bill.

And by the time the legislation was shelved three years later, it was a much-watered down version of the original but still a divisive piece of legislation.

The reason the Christian Right, with Morrison at the helm, was able to progress this crusade in this manner is that religion or religious faith is not a protected attribute under the nation’s federal law, and antidiscrimination law experts agree that it should be protected.

So, Morrison’s bill did contain laws that would protect people of faith from discrimination in a similar manner to all other attributes, “like a shield”, but hiding within these laws were measures that would permit the religious to discriminate against others if it was in line with their faith, “like a sword”.

The cowardly lion

Albanese came to office promising to fix this quandary. He was going to revoke the laws that permit discrimination against LGBTQ students. And he sent the question on whether to extend this to teachers to the Australian Law Reform Commission, which called on him to do just that in March.

And with this, the federal Labor leader had further pledged to include religion as a protected attribute in federal law in much the same way that sex, sexual orientation and gender identity are protected today, with neither attribute having bestowed upon it any more rights than the others.

The attorney general has even gone to the trouble of drafting these laws and providing a copy of them to the opposition’s legal spokesperson Michaelia Cash, as Albanese had stated that he wanted bipartisan approval of the laws prior to going public with them and sparking debate.

Cash hasn’t responded to Labor in relation to its draft, however. Rather last month she stated that the bill needs to be redrafted with input from faith groups.

And last Friday then saw Albanese dump the entire proposal all together citing social cohesion, which is his excuse for not acting on a range of issues, these days.

Liberty Victoria has put out a statement outlining it’s disappointed that the PM has “abandoned plans” to introduce religious discrimination laws and protections for LGBTIQA+ teachers and students, as religious organisations will retain their ability to discriminate against queer people.

This action on the part of federal Labor is also banishing the entire public to the potential for a re-elected Coalition, under the leadership of Peter Dutton, to frame how those of faith should be protected and whether he sees fit to protect these teachers and students from persecution.

“It is particularly disappointing that the prime minister has cited ‘social cohesion’ as the reason for abandoning his promises,” Liberty Victoria asserted in its 14 August statement.

“Under the current Sex Discrimination Act, schools can fire teachers and expel students because of their gender identity or sexuality,” it continued. 

“Social cohesion will only be achieved when LGBTQIA+ people are free to be themselves at school and at work without fear of being fired or expelled.”