Labor demands changes to government’s contentious religious discrimination bill

Labor is demanding gay and transgender students be protected immediately and protections for religious speech be scaled back, piling pressure on moderate Liberals to cross the floor to vote for amendments to the Coalition’s contentious religious discrimination bill.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese says the opposition will fight in the lower house and in the Senate to protect LGBTQI students and stop state and federal anti-discrimination laws being overridden to protect religious statements of belief – but has not confirmed whether his party will ultimately vote for the bill if the amendments fail.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese says amendments must be made to the religious discrimination bill.Credit: James Brickwood

Time is running out for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to legislate his promised Religious Discrimination Act, with just a handful of sitting days left before the federal election, which must be held no later than May. In a sign Labor’s push could succeed, Liberal member for North Sydney Trent Zimmerman revealed on Wednesday evening he had made “the difficult decision to part with my party” and indicated he would support the two key amendments.

“I could not live with myself if I didn’t seek to address those issues,” Mr Zimmerman told the chamber.

In a speech to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Mr Albanese said he supported the principle of protecting Australians from religious discrimination, but the government’s bill was “flawed” and Labor would seek to “fix it”.

“I’ll stand up for the rights of people to practice their religion, but I won’t support anyone who uses their religion as an excuse to be cruel, and to deny the rights of others who just happen to be different,” Mr Albanese said.

He said the Parliament had an opportunity to protect the right of Australians to practice their faith, but if the bill was “not amended by either the House or the Senate it will only succeed in driving us apart”.

In a key amendment, Labor will seek the support of moderate Liberal MPs and crossbenchers to abolish s38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act, which makes it lawful for religious schools to discriminate against gay and transgender students. This will go further than the government’s much narrower proposal to amend the section to only ban the ability of religious schools to expel students because they are gay, while leaving unaddressed broader discrimination against gay students, and leaving transgender students unprotected entirely.

Labor will also seek to fundamentally change the bill’s statement of beliefs clause, which as currently drafted will override state and federal anti-discrimination laws to protect religious comments provided they are not malicious, threatening, harassing or vilifying.

As debate on the proposed laws continued late into the evening on Wednesday, Mr Zimmerman said the statement of beliefs clause “puts religious faith on a pedestal above other rights in a way that I have serious problems with”. He said he had been “disturbed” by the debate around transgender students, and the attempt to draw a line to protect gay students but not gender diverse children.

“For me, there is nothing different about your sexuality or your gender than the colour of your skin. And I don’t believe that this Parliament would waste a second if there was some old law, which said that a school or any institution could discriminate against you because of your race and allow that to stand on the statute books,” Mr Zimmerman said.

Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch, in his contribution to the debate, said the government’s amendment to the SDA was “far too narrow” but he would not oppose the bill, saying: “my concern is that if we just reject the bill now, we can lose the opportunity of capturing the positives.”

Tasmanian Liberal Bridget Archer has already declared she will not support the bill, while other moderate Liberal MPs including Dave Sharma and Katie Allen have also expressed concerns about its impact on LGBTQI youth.

Independent crossbenchers Helen Haines and Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie will not support the bill in its current form, but it is unclear whether they will support Labor’s amendments. Independent MPs Zali Steggall and Andrew Wilkie are also seeking changes to the bill.

The Australian Christian Lobby said if Labor’s amendments passed the government should withdraw the bill in its entirety.

“If moderate Liberals were to support the ALP amendments in either of the houses, they are essentially supporting Mr Albanese as their leader in an election year,” ACL director Wendy Francis said.

After a caucus meeting that ran for almost three hours, Labor resolved to support the bill in the House of Representatives if its amendments failed ahead of a potential vote on the proposed laws. This position was adopted after an unsuccessful push by backbencher Josh Burns to convince his colleagues to reject the legislation if its amendments were not successful.

Mr Albanese told the Parliament that even if Labor’s amendments failed in the lower house, he expected they would be carried in the Senate where the opposition would “insist” on them, potentially creating an impasse over the bill.

Labor’s other amendments will seek to ban religious vilification and clarify that in-home aged care service providers cannot discriminate on the basis of religion.

Labor will not move to immediately protect LGBTQI teachers, with Mr Albanese saying the issue was too complex to be “rammed through the Parliament”. It will instead mirror the government’s proposal to have the Australian Law Reform Commission consider the issue if it wins government at the election.

Mr Morrison on Tuesday night secured party room support for the Religious Discrimination Bill package, despite moderate Liberals’ concerns. In a bid to assuage their concerns, the government is considering shortening the timeframe from 12 months to 6 months for the Australian Law Reform Commission to review the broader operation of s38 of the SDA, which also gives religious schools the right to discriminate against LGBTQI teachers.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Sharma said he had “significant concerns” about the bill, including the lack of protections for LGBTQI teachers and the limited protection for gay students, and was still weighing up how he would vote.

“We need to bear in mind here that a student can quite easily be forced out of a school without being expelled. If they are harassed or intimidated or bullied or made to feel unwelcome or unsafe, of course they’re going to leave,” Mr Sharma told the ABC on Wednesday.

“Certainly, I’m aware of stories like that and students who have been in that predicament. I think that’s the sort of stuff we need to be addressing. I’d hope to do it in this bill, but if not I want to make sure that there is a process set up and under way that will address these things very quickly.”

Queensland Liberal Angie Bell said she would support the bill on the basis of the government’s SDA amendment, calling it a “net gain for gay rights for students in students across the country”.

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