Religious freedom bill: Christian Porter expands bill to protect hospitals, aged care providers

Hospitals and aged care providers will have the same staffing discretion as schools and other faith-based organisations.

Attorney-General Christian Porter at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Attorney-General Christian Porter’s claim that faith-based hospitals and aged-care providers do not “make decisions about the admission of patients” based on religion has come under fire as the government agreed to widen employment protections in its religious discrimination bill.

The Australian understands senior religious leaders are concerned about workplace impacts at aged-care and hospital facilities and an Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry looking at equalising sex discrimination and Fair Work acts with religious discrimination laws.

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After failing to capture religious hospitals and aged-care operators in the original draft religious discrimination bill released on Aug­ust 29, Mr Porter on Wednesday said he would broaden protections so they could employ staff according to their beliefs.

Speaking at the National Press Club, Mr Porter said religious hospitals and aged-care operators had stressed the importance of retaining a “religious ethos and culture” within their organisations.

He said they had “reasonably sought an exception to the general prohibition on religious discrimination in employment that allows them to make staffing decisions in accordance with their faith”.

Mr Porter said consultation with religious care providers had made it clear they did not “make decisions about the admission of patients based on any given ­patient’s religion or absence of religion, and do not seek to do so”.

“Likewise for aged-care providers (with very few exceptions) … they do not appear to consider religion or lack of religion before making a decision to accom­modate a person,” Mr Porter said.

Notre Dame School of Law adjunct associate professor Mark Fowler said there were circumstances where faith-based providers might wish to “exercise some discretion in the context of service supplies in which the presence or absence of religious conviction on the part of the customer is relevant … for example, a faith-based aged-care provider may wish to refuse a request from a resident that their facilities be used for the performance of euthanasia,” Professor Fowler told The Australian.

“A faith-based hospital that provides IVF services may, consistent with their religious convictions, wish to refuse a single woman.

“These are circumstances that could ground a claim for discrimination on the basis of the presence or absence of the recipient’s ­religious convictions.”

Professor Fowler said “where they already provide such ser­vices, the proposal would remove the ability of these bodies to conduct themselves in a way that is consistent with their ethos”.

Mr Porter, who will table his final bill in parliament before ­December 5, confirmed he had no deadline for a final vote in parliament to push through the ­religious discrimination bill.

The Australian understands the legislation is likely to be referred to a Senate inquiry, and a vote will be dragged well into next year.

Mr Porter confirmed his bill did not “affect the current exemptions that exist for religious bodies within other discrimination acts, at either state or commonwealth level”.

At a Senate estimates hearing on October 22, ALRC president Sarah Derrington said the inquiry, which will not report back until December next year, was aimed at harmonising legislation.