Scott Morrison delays LGBTI student protections and promises Religious Discrimination Act
Image: Image: Scott Morrison / Facebook.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has abandoned a pledge to take action on discrimination against LGBTI students in unveiling the full Ruddock religious freedom review.
With Attorney-General Christian Porter alongside him, Morrison promised a Religious Discrimination Act to protect Australians’ religious freedoms, an issue which will likely be taken to the next federal election in May.
“If you support a multicultural Australia, you’ll be a supporter of religious freedoms,” Morrison said.
“You’ll understand that religious faith is synonymous with so many different ethnic cultures in Australia.
“The protection of religious freedoms is therefore synonymous with our identity and it’s particularly relevant in Australia, because of our incredibly diverse multicultural society.”
Ditching his promise to remove discrimination exemptions for LGBTI students in schools by the end of 2018 – which he had already failed to fulfil by not taking action last week – means the issue cannot be addressed until 2019, with the matter referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission.
If introduced, a Religious Discrimination Act would make discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs’ equivalent to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, age, disability, among others.
“Australia is a secular democracy but that does not mean that Australians are a godless people,” Morrison said.
The Greens have spoken out against the proposals, saying that a Religious Discrimination Act should not serve to undermine state-based anti-discrimination laws.
“Religious freedom cannot be viewed in isolation, nor should it be used as a political weapon in an act of vengeance for the marriage equality vote,” said Greens Justice spokesperson Senator Nick McKim.
“We need a Charter of Rights to balance the right to religious freedom against other important rights, such as freedom from discrimination.”
Greens LGBTIQ+ Spokesperson Senator Janet Rice warned that the Religious Discrimination Act could weaken protections for queer people.
“Scott Morrison’s Religious Discrimination Act must not be a Trojan horse to expand discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, like his proposed discrimination in schools bill.
“Discriminating against someone because they are LGBTQ+ is not religious freedom, it’s discrimination. Plain and simple.
“The Prime Minister has already demonstrated he is out of touch with Australians who want discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in schools removed.
“Freedom of religion is not a licence to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people,” said Rice.
Morrison blamed Labor for delaying student protections after demanding Labor allow MPs a conscience vote.
Advocates warned that the Coalition’s bill, which would have allowed “indirect discrimination”, would have left LGBTI students and teachers vulnerable or potentially put them in more danger of being discriminated against.
Morrison also announced the creation of a Freedom of Religion Commissioner within the Australian Human Rights Commission, something Phillip Ruddock’s review expressly recommended against.
Draft legislation for the bill is expected to be released early in 2019, with a mere seven parliament sitting days before the budget is announced in April, meaning the government – which is running a minority government – is unlikely to pass the bill before the election.
It’s time for a human rights bill for all not selective bills back by politicians who have conflicts of interests and personal faith based bias they are not meant to bring into their jobs.
The lack of impartially and backdooring by sending it to the religious ALRC president sarah who blocked lbgtqi from being included in the family law review – which lbgtqi marriage was the biggest social policy changed needing to be tied into family. Shows again ” we are still not family”
Start equity – Australia has no human rights bill unlike the UK and USA and we have no regional one either and we have just pasted the worst national security laws in the western world without propritionate human rights protection inclusion.
Diversity is our super power but liberals divide and segregate is not to public interests
The courts already removed 6 constitutional rights of lbgtqi tom altobelli who was placed by ruddoch to set law precedents against equal rights – so this is just another failure to be fair independent and its not progressing Australia its hurting harming good people who love each other vs a government who only love their kind and hate everyone else they are paid to respect and protect – they don’t.
Wow. Just wow. After the Liberals nearly killed themselves trying to make sure marriage equality was done and dusted by the next federal election, because Turnbull knew what a killer it would be if it was still unresolved, ScoMo has thrown the campaign bus into reverse and is hurtling back into the fray where his religious buddies got their collective arses so seriously kicked only a year ago.
So many points to make I don’t know where to begin. Just wow.
My big prediction about this however is that churches may be decidedly less on board than you might initially suspect. The biggest discriminators on religious grounds are the religious, not secular atheist types (we regard all religions as dumb, but they regard each other as evil and hell-bound, that’s a much bigger deal). ScoMo is already announcing this is about protecting minority religions. They don’t need protecting from me (although I am critical of religions which are inherently sexist, homophobic or violent), but you’ll hear a lot of God-based anti-Muslim rhetoric from the Christian crowd I can assure you.
As for discriminating against so-called “lifestyles” which are incompatible with their church doctrine, my suspicion is that this will become a legal minefield for churches and related schools etc who try too hard to overtly discriminate.
Oh I’m so glad my first post is time-stamped. I just saw Andrew Bolt on Sky News go to town on ScoMo’s religious freedom bill. As I predicted Bolt fears it will be terrible for Christians. He put it quite well: the best freedom for religion comes from less not more laws. Bolt wants existing discrimination legislation pared back and he’s not falling for ScoMo’s bullshit. Personally I support existing discrimination law but Bolt is right when he says churches don’t.
Today ScoMo effectively announced this will be an election issue. The safe money says he will withdraw this well before the election, tail between legs, begging forgiveness for his sins.