Anti-discrimination exemptions for religious organisations should be removed, Amnesty says

Anti-discrimination exemptions for religious organisations which receive public funding should be removed, a human rights body says.

Attorney-General Christian Porter will lead the government’s ­response to the religious freedoms review. Picture: Kym Smith

Amnesty International has called on the Turnbull government to remove anti-discrimination exemptions for religious organisations which receive public funding or provide services on behalf of the government.

Religious schools are currently exempt from federal discrimination law in relation to provision of education in accordance with their beliefs, meaning they are free to refuse to employ a teacher based on their gender or sexuality, for example.

The amendment Amnesty is calling for would make such discrimination unlawful.

The human rights charity is also calling for a federal human rights act, and failing that, a religious freedom act.

Amnesty advocacy program manager Emma Bull said public funding from a secular government should not be used to “contribute to discrimination”.

Amnesty made the proposals in its submission to former Howard government minister Philip Ruddock’s review of religious freedom, which reported to the Turnbull government on May 18 but is yet to be made public.

At the time Malcolm Turnbull revealed Attorney-General Christian Porter had been appointed to lead the government’s ­response to the review, saying it would be released “in due course”.

Mr Turnbull set up the review following the same-sex marriage postal survey last year, under pressure from religious and conser­vative groups concerned about the legalisation of same-sex marriage infringing upon their ­religious freedoms.

Ms Bull said that now that the Super Saturday by-elections were out of the way, she was hopeful the government’s response would be released soon.

“We called for its immediate release when the panel completed their review,” Ms Bull said.

“It’s now been more than two months since the Prime Minister got the review from the panel. It’s hard to see how they can justify waiting much longer to release it.”

Ms Bull said Amnesty saw a human rights act as the best way to ensure the right balance was struck between competing human rights, but recognised that such a measure may not receive sufficient support in parliament.

She welcomed a call from Social Services minister Dan Tehan and other conservatives for a religious discrimination act.

“It’s a funny position for Amnesty to find itself in to be in furious agreement with conservative politicians, but we do believe that a lack of a religious freedoms act is the obvious gap in our human rights architecture,” Ms Bull said.

“We’ve got freedom from racial discrimination but not on religion. While Australia is a secular society it’s an international human right that should be protected.”