Mark Dreyfus and Michaelia Cash fail to reach agreement on religious discrimination reforms

A midday meeting between Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and his opposition counterpart Michaelia Cash has placed the government’s religious discrimination reforms in further doubt.

Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash says she was ‘appalled’ by the Attorney-General’s behaviour in a meeting about the government’s draft religious discrimination reforms. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Anthony Albanese’s religious discrimination reforms are on tenterhooks after negotiations between Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and his Coalition counterpart Michaelia Cash broke down, amid claims that Australia’s first law officer was “aggressive and demeaning” towards the senior Liberal female senator.

Government sources suggested there was no chance of the reforms passing the Senate following the Tuesday meeting between the pair in Mr Dreyfus’s office, with the Coalition’s version of events furiously contested by Labor.

Senator Cash said she was ­“appalled by My Dreyfus’s behaviour … Mr Dreyfus needs to stop playing games with his religious discrimination legislation”.

“As I told Mr Dreyfus, he needs to take on board the feedback he has received from the faith communities and release his legislation publicly.”

Coalition sources said negoti­ations on the religious discrimin­ation legislation had been “de­railed by aggressive and demeaning behaviour” by Mr Dreyfus in the meeting with Senator Cash.

They said Senator Cash walked out after Mr Dreyfus told her to “take a breath” and then leant across the desk and raised his voice. According to the Coalition, Mr Dreyfus started to rise from his seat, put a hand towards Senator Cash’s face and twice told her to “pause”.

The sources claimed a senior adviser from the Prime Minister’s office intervened in an apparent attempt to calm Mr Dreyfus, who Senator Cash said should “never speak to a female like that” before she and her senior adviser left.

“It started as a robust discussion but in her 16 years in parliament Senator Cash has never been spoken to or treated in such a demeaning way by anyone else,” Coalition sources said.

Mr Dreyfus’s spokesman said Senator Cash’s claims were “not correct”.

“The Attorney-General did not raise his voice and at no point was aggressive or demeaning,” he said.

“Senator Cash interrupted the Attorney-General, described his request for the opposition’s position on religious discrimin­ation as unreasonable and walked out of the meeting.”

The Prime Minister has made it clear to his caucus that the passage of his government’s religious discrimination reforms would be conditional on bipartisan support, before also flagging possible negotiations with the Greens and Senate crossbench.

Mr Albanese on Tuesday told Labor MPs that cabinet was working on “crafting the offer” to voters for a second term in office, noting his government was in the last 12 months of its first term.

Mr Albanese criticised Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech for having “no costings, no media release, just chaos and confusion”, a Labor spokesman said, while urging colleagues to sell the government’s budget to voters.

“We have a plan to address immediate cost-of-living relief, with always an eye on the future,” Mr Albanese said, according the spokesman.

The Opposition Leader accused Labor of claiming that ­migration was not an issue and that the housing crisis would sort itself out, raising concern about Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’s ability to manage his portfolio.