Government forced to push back religious freedom bill, Matt Canavan says

Government delays new religious discrimination laws as groups express dissatisfaction with protections.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has backed the government’s decision to push back the religious discrimination bill until next year. Picture: Supplied

Resources Minister Matt Canavan said the government was forced to push back plans to introduce laws to outlaw religious discrimination until next year as some religious groups weren’t satisfied with the protections offered under the draft legislation.

“Obviously some groups (are) saying there (are) some issues that need to be tackled — that’s why we’ll do another round of consultation now, so the bill will go back out, (but) it’s not like we’ve been sitting on our heels,” Senator Canavan told Sky News Australia

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Canavan said he understood questions from religious groups “to get greater certainty” on who was exempt from the provisions, but praised Attorney-General Christian Porter, saying he had done a “fantastic job in consulting widely with a range of groups”.

“We’ll put out an updated bill with some changes from the previous one and more consultation before we take to the parliament directly. And then there’ll be a parliamentary inquiry I’d imagine as well. So there’ll be a lot of time here to try and get this right,” he said.

“At the fundamental level, we’ve got to get this right. These sort of legislative changes … have long standing ramifications over time as courts interpret them, it’s very important that we get that as correct as possible.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison took to Facebook on Saturday to announce he was delaying the bill until 2020.

“So, we’re going to take a bit more time to get this right. We’ll have the draft exposure bill out over the summer to get it in and next year, bring a bill into the parliament to make it law,” Mr Morrison said in video, filmed in front of a Christmas tree.

“There will be some who will try to make this process more difficult or be opportunistic or try to derail it. They’re not engaging in good faith. I’m engaging in good faith with the Australian people and people of all different beliefs to ensure that we can get this law right. It’s an important protection for our society in Australia.”

Attorney-General Christian Porter and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher supported the prime minister’s decision to delay the bill for further consideration.

A spokesman for the church said: “The Archbishop of Sydney has said (of the bill’s delay) that he is pleased that the government has listened to the concerns of people of faith and welcomes the opportunity for further consultation and looks forward to seeing the second exposure draft very soon.”

Attorney-General Christian Porter initially promised the bill would be introduced before Christmas. Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen described the bill as “friendless”.

“ I mean … they have cocked it up so badly that I’ve got my religious leaders saying ‘we don’t like it and it’s a pretty ordinary piece of legislation’,” Mr Bowen told ABC radio.

“I also met with other people, I spent a lot of time meeting with gay and lesbian representatives and they don’t like it. I’ll have my say internally but it’s a friendless piece of legislation.”