Labor ‘deaf to the concerns of people of faith’: Julian Leeser

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Julian Leeser has called on Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to start over on religious discrimination reform.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Julian Leeser. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Julian Leeser has demanded Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus “wipe the slate clean” on an Australian Law Reform Commission review into discrimination in religious schools, accusing the Labor government of being “deaf to the concerns of people of faith”.

Mr Leeser claimed the proposed reforms take away the rights of parents to send their children to schools where they can be “educated in a community where staff adhere to or support the faith traditions of that institution”.

“This is fundamentally about the rights of parents,” Mr Leeser told The Australian.

“The law should continue to allow faith based schools to preference adherence and supporters of their tradition in decisions about employment.”

“We respect the rights of Anglicans, Jews, Catholics, Muslims and other faith traditions for their parents to raise their children in accordance with their belief.”

Mr Leeser’s comments come following revelations in The Australian that an alliance of the nation’s most senior spiritual leaders wrote to Mr Dreyfus sounding the alarm on a controversial reform proposal put forward in late January by the powerful Australian Law Reform Commission.

Under the ALRC plan, principals would be barred from preferencing the employment of teachers with the same beliefs and spiritual outlook as the educational institution.

Mr Leeser accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of “hypocrisy” by denying religious schools the right to hire staff who adhere to the religion of the institution.

“The Attorney-General, the Prime Minister and parliamentarians hire staff in accordance with support for their own personal and political ethos,” he said.

“It’s hypocrisy by Labor to deny religious communities to the right to choose staff in accordance with their own religious ethos”.

Mr Leeser said Australians should “not accept” that the ALRC’s review was independent of government.

“This is a report developed for the Albanese government under its instructions,” he said. “That report is in accordance with the Attorney-General’s Terms of Reference.”

“The fact that Labor has got this so wrong demonstrates that the government is deaf to the concerns of people of faith.”

While the reforms would allow schools to preference teachers who hold the faith of the institution for roles directly involved in religious teaching, Mr Leeser said that wasn’t enough.

“This is about schools creating communities of practice. Schools creating teachers that model a life of faith,” he said.

“If the only people that are modelling a life of faith is the religious education teacher then the school is no different to a government school where you have... a special religious education class for a session once a week.”