John Howard demands religious freedom for schools

John Howard says religious schools must be able to continue employing staff based on their beliefs and have the right to tell teachers to ‘get a job somewhere else’.

Former prime minister John Howard. Picture: Jane Dempster

John Howard says religious schools must be able to continue employing staff based on their beliefs and have the right to tell teachers to “get a job somewhere else” if they behave in a way contrary to a school’s religion.

In a fresh intervention in the religious freedoms debate, the former Liberal prime minister said pushback against schools and faith institutions being able to hire and fire staff based on religion was “outrageous”.

“If you send your child to a Catholic school, you expect them to be educated in the ambience of the religion and I think it’s outrageous that that’s not ­accepted,” Mr Howard told the Catholic Weekly.

The comments follow ­Anthony Albanese revealing he would not proceed with an election promise to introduce a religious freedom bill ­unless he secured bipartisan support.

In a caucus meeting in March, the Prime Minister said two ­pieces of legislation were in draft form and the government had produced a balanced position that protected religious liberty and the right of schools to employ, while also protecting the rights of children.

He indicated he would also be willing to work with the Greens, who have long been critical of ­allowing religious institutions any rights to discriminate against staff and students on the basis of faith.

But religious groups raised alarm with the potential for the Greens to have a role in shaping any legislation, with 40 faith leaders saying in a letter that any move to work with the minor party rather than seek bipartisan support would be “a betrayal of trust”.

Mr Howard said it was critical schools were able to fire teachers if they acted in a way that contravened that school’s religion.

“It’s very simple. You have a perfect right, if you are running a Catholic school or an Anglican school, if you’ve got a teacher who is kicking against the fundamentals of the religion, you’ve got a perfect right to say, ‘Wish you well, God bless you, but get a job somewhere else’,” he said.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher said Mr Howard was bringing “clarity and common sense about a matter that should not be controversial”. “That this type of reasonableness is rare in contemporary political debates is ­regrettable,” he said. “Religion and faith-based ­institutions have made an ­enormous contribution to the life of our country, whether it be in education, health, welfare, and general community cohesiveness.”

Mr Howard also criticised proposed changes for the upcoming census that would effectively wipe religion from the questions, accusing the public service of being pitted against ­religion.

“You’ve got to worry that the anti-religious lobby in the public service is quite strong,” he said.

Archbishops including Archbishop Fisher and Perth’s Timothy Costello have raised alarm in recent months with potential changes to the census, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which may no longer provide a checklist of religions for a person to choose from.

Instead, people would be able to tick “no” in response to the question “does this person have a religion” or else tick “yes” and write which religion they affiliate with.

Archbishop Costello said the changes would undermine the accuracy behind the census for religious communities.