Back to drawing board on faith freedoms, says Michaelia Cash

Coalition legal affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash says Labor must ‘go back to the drawing board’ on religious discrimination laws.

Senator Michaelia Cash. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The Coalition’s new legal affairs spokeswoman, Michaelia Cash, says Labor must “go back to the drawing board” on religious discrimination laws and the Australian Law Reform Commission’s proposal put forward in January “fatally undermines” the ability of faith-based schools to promote their religious ethos.

It follows religious leaders venting frustrations at the eight-month delay in the ALRC process – described by Labor as the “first crucial step” in progressing religious discrimination legislation this term – with its final report now due to be handed to government in December.

The release of the ALRC consultation paper on how sex discrimination and religious discrimination laws would work in schools sparked outrage from faith leaders, who wrote directly to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus with concerns that the proposal would see principals barred from preferencing the employment of teachers with the same beliefs as the school.

In her first interview as legal affairs spokeswoman, Senator Cash said religious leaders and institutions had expressed to her their concern over the process thus far.

“I have spoken to many parents, I have spoken to many schools and certainly they are venting their frustrations to me with the process. They’re venting their frustrations to me with the way the Labor government has now handled this issue and I have said to them, I share your frustration,” she said. “Ultimately, this should all be about families and the way parents want to educate their children.”

Senator Cash backed the ability for religious schools to be able to preference hiring teachers of the same faith, as long as this preference was made “abundantly clear” by the school from the beginning. “In relation to the teachers, it very much goes back to schools need to be able to act in a way that allows their faith-based ethos to be best implemented at schools,” she said.

“They need to be transparent in relation to what that faith-based ethos was, they need to have a policy that (is) basically up on the web site … is easily accessible, so that anyone applying for a job completely understood what that faith-based ethos was.”

The former attorney-general said rather than simply delaying its response to the current submissions before it and reporting back to government, the ALRC needed to restart consultations and directly address the concerns raised.

“They need to go back to the drawing board … and use this eight-month reprieve to literally come up with something sensible,” she said.

“I think they do need to re-talk to (religious leaders). If they intend to merely undertake an analysis of the volume of submissions received and come up with the same set of conditions, that is not taking a step forward.”

While stressing that the ­Coalition didn’t believe schools should be able to expel students on the grounds of their sexuality, Senator Cash said the party had not decided whether this should extend to expelling students on the grounds of their gender identity as well.

The Coalition’s failure to commit to protecting transgender students against such discrimination at school was a key stumbling block in its religious discrimin­ation bill last year, after numerous Liberal MPs crossed the floor over the issue.

When asked if the Coalition’s position on the matter had changed, Senator Cash said: “We need to see what the government intends to put forward.”

“This is a serious issue and I would need to see what the government is ultimately putting forward, but our overriding position is we don’t think it’s necessary for schools to have exemptions that permit students to be expelled on the grounds of sexuality. That’s all I can say at this stage,” she said.