Archbishop’s warning to Canberra on ‘broken’ religious freedoms

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has warned existing legal protections for faith-based schools are “broken’’.

Archbishop Glenn Davies at St Andrew's Cathedral. Picture: Justin Lloyd

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has warned that existing legal protections for faith-based schools are “broken” and urged the ­government to fundamentally reframe them in its response to the Ruddock review into ­religious freedoms.

Writing in The Australian today, Glenn Davies provides a reassurance that Anglican schools do not want to discriminate against gay students or teachers, but notes the only protections for religious freedoms in commonwealth law are framed as a “negative” right rather than a “positive” right.

This is because the protections are expressed as “exemptions” in the Sex Discrimination Act. Instead of upholding the ability of faith-based schools to promote their own ethos and values, ­religious educators are given the right to “discriminate” in certain circumstances.

Dr Davies says this is “misleading, confusing and totally ­unsatisfactory” because it ­“im­medi­ately frames the debate in terms of sex and discrimination”.

“Anglican schools in Sydney do not expel students for being gay and do not sack teachers for being gay. It is an absurd proposition,” he says.

“The Sex Discrimination Act was introduced by the Hawke government and, regrettably, relegated religious freedom to the unsatisfactory category of an exemption. In other words, it ­legislated the rights of schools to discriminate.”

The Australian reported last week that principals of the 34 Sydney Anglican diocese schools had written an open letter to all federal MPs — including Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison — to sound the alarm on a push by Labor and Greens MPs to remove key exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act.

If implemented, this would have removed the ability of ­religious schools to discriminate against teachers on the basis of their sexual orientation.

The principals clarified in their open letter that they did not want to discriminate against gay teachers, but warned that the exemption was the “only significant” legal protection for “schools to maintain their ethos and values with regard to core issues of faith”.

Dr Davies today throws his support behind the letter from the heads of the Sydney Anglican schools, saying the “thrust of the letter was to advance the case for protecting religious freedom for Anglican schools in particular, and across the educational sector as a whole”.

“They pointed out that schools never used these exemptions in the area of sexual identity and orientation … The heads want the parliament to provide positive protection for religious freedom.”

The review into religious freedoms, led by former Liberal ­attorney-general Philip Ruddock, was leaked in the days ­before the by-election in Wentworth, which is home to one of the largest LGBTI communities in Australia.

It triggered a ferocious backlash by drawing attention to the current system of exemptions, strengthened by Labor in 2013, ­allowing schools to discriminate against gay students — derailing the government’s agenda ahead of the by-election.

The government has not ­responded to the review but it is understood Attorney-General Christian Porter will take the key recommendation for a religious discrimination act to cabinet.