‘Think about our team’: PM pressures moderates as party backs religious laws

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has secured party room support for a contentious religious discrimination bill package despite moderate Liberals’ concerns, forcing Labor to decide whether to back laws that protect gay students from expulsion but not transgender students.

Mr Morrison put pressure on moderate MPs who indicated they cannot support the bill, warning that their path to the election would be harder if they did not unite on the issue. The party room signed off on the amendments even as several backbenchers said they may not support it because it did not do enough to protect transgender students and teachers at faith-based schools.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned moderate Liberals they need to stay united over religious freedom.Credit: James Brickwood

“My appeal to you is to come together and think about our team,” Mr Morrison told the meeting of MPs and senators on Tuesday.

Mr Morrison argued that the government had promised a religious freedom bill and had to honour the policy, reminding the party room the proposal had been “warmly” welcomed by Australians including ethnic and religious communities including Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jews, Muslims and others.

“It would be different if we had not said at the last election that we would do this,” he said at the end of the debate, according to a Coalition spokesman.

The spokesman said Mr Morrison told the meeting that others had encouraged him to attack Labor on the issue but he had avoided this because he wanted to bring Australians together.

The resolution clears the path for the government to force a vote on the bill, despite Tasmanian Liberal Bridget Archer saying she would not support the legislation. Liberal moderates Katie Allen and Andrew Bragg were among those to voice concerns with the bill in the party room, while Dave Sharma and Fiona Martin also expressed doubts about it.

Only NSW Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman told the meeting he would reserve his rights on the bill, a position that means he could cross the floor, abstain from voting, or support amendments to it.

But a swathe of Coalition members urged their colleagues to support the legislation, including conservatives Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese will have to put the bill to his caucus to determine the party’s position. Labor struggled with religious voters in the 2019 election and the party has been careful to avoid picking a fight with faith communities months from the federal poll.

Labor frontbencher Tony Burke would not say whether the Opposition would accept the exclusion of transgender students from the scope of the amendments, but told ABC radio on Tuesday: “The Prime Minister previously said he would end discrimination for all students, and he should be true to his word on that.”

In a letter to Mr Albanese in December, Mr Morrison told his opponent there was “no place in our education system for any form of discrimination against a student on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity” and informed him the government would amend the SDA to address the issue.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday evening after the party room meeting, Ms Archer said she was “horrified” that transgender children would not be protected under the proposed reforms and implored her parliamentary colleagues to think about the long term mental health effects of affected people.

“I can’t wrap my head around this and I fear that it may risk lives,” she said. “In 2022 I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. This bill is an overreach.”

Labor MP Stephen Jones gave a moving speech about his gay teenage nephew who had taken his own life last week, and his own 14-year-old son who wears women’s clothing, as he said MPs must think about how this bill affects young people.

“What message do we want this Parliament to send to these kids? Are they as loved and cherished and respected as every other kid?” he said.

“Surely we aren’t saying to them ‘it’s okay if you’re gay, just so long as we don’t see it’.”

The bills package will create a new Religious Discrimination Act, and also amend s38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act to make it unlawful to expel students because they are gay – but the narrow amendment will leave schools with a legal basis to discriminate against gay students in other ways, and leave transgender students unprotected.

Attorney-General Michaelia Cash said the decision to protect only gay students – but not transgender students – from expulsion as part of the proposed laws was about ensuring single-sex schools were not ill-equipped to deal with students who transitioned, while also respecting the wishes of other students' parents.

“If subsection 38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act were amended to remove the exemption for religious schools to discriminate against a student on the basis of their gender identity, it could have the potential to effectively nullify the intention and ethos of religious single-sex schools,” Senator Cash said.

Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has defended the government’s proposal to protect students from being expelled at religious schools but not transgender students. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“For example, if a current student transitioned whilst enrolled at a single-sex school, a religious single-sex school would not be adequately equipped to cater to the needs of the opposite sex. Matters such as uniforms, bathrooms, as well as the wishes of other parents to send their children to a single-sex school would need to be addressed.”

Instead, the government has commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission to review the operation of s38(3) and advise whether further changes are required once the Religious Discrimination Act has been in operation for 12 months.

The Greens will move an amendment to repeal s38(3) in its entirety, setting up an opportunity for rogue Liberal MPs and Labor to vote to provide greater protections for LGBTIQ students and teachers at religious schools.

The government’s narrow SDA amendment was welcomed by the Australian Christian Lobby, which revealed on Monday that it had been negotiating with the government “about a very narrow and very precise amendment”.

“It needs to focus merely on the expulsion of students or the non-expulsion of students based on sexual orientation only,” ACL deputy director Dan Flynn told Vision Christian Radio.

“The government is wanting to know our opinion on a day-by-day basis.”

Swimming champion and LGBTQI advocate Ian Thorpe, who was in Canberra to lobby against the proposed laws, condemned the bill as “state-sanctioned discrimination” that sought to “gain rights for one group of people, whilst excluding another group of people”.

Senator Cash said the ALRC process was “an important and crucial step that cannot be rushed”.

Queensland Liberal MP Angie Bell, who had been a key hold out within the party, confirmed she would now vote for the bill in light of the amendment covering gay students, agreeing that protections for transgender students should instead be addressed by the ALRC.

“Transitioning students are at the highest risk of experiencing mental health difficulties and present particular challenges for single-sex schools. Those details will be looked at through the ALRC process and reported back 12 months after the passage of the religious discrimination bill.”

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