Coalition to blame for shemozzle over religious freedom

Scott Morrison yesterday twice called for an end to the “political point-scoring” on religious freedom and uncertainties for students and their parents at non-government schools.

The current debate on religious freedom has been politicised, blighted and distorted to the extent that it threatens to destroy the whole idea of religious freedom, and it is the Coalition government that is responsible. Cynical political manipulation, shameless reporting and conflation of unrelated issues — such as funding non-government schools and discrimination against students — have all filled the public space because the Turnbull and now Morrison governments have mishandled the issue.

Electoral cowardice, an apparent lack of conviction and an inability to argue clearly and cogently for religious freedom in the face of fierce secular campaigns, which smack of older sectarian fights, have combined to turn what should be a nonpartisan issue into a divisive political fight.

It is extraordinary that the purported right of religious schools to expel students just for being gay — a Labor right the schools did not want or exercise — is now the subject to urgent, contested legislation ahead of the Wentworth by-election.

Scott Morrison yesterday twice called for an end to the “political point-scoring” on religious freedom and uncertainties for students and their parents at non-government schools but the origin of division was a Liberal political decision.

The review of religious freedom was a political sop to those who feared the same-sex marriage laws would eventually lead to a further undermining of religious freedom.

Malcolm Turnbull ordered the review to deflect those concerns and postpone action or debate until after the same-sex national plebiscite had passed. He pledged priority support for religious freedom but the report was buried for months.

Flush with a historic victory on same-sex marriage, the Turnbull government, facing by-elections since the beginning of last year, didn’t want to open the issue of religious freedom.

It should be noted that amid all the sound and fury about gay teachers being sacked or students expelled, Labor frontbencher Louise Pratt still sensibly maintained that religious schools were entitled to employ teachers who “hold the values of the school” or at least don’t openly campaign against them.

This is a long way from the hyperventilation surrounding the skewed leak of the Ruddock report recommendations, which started the false campaign that gay students could be expelled and Labor’s political response.

But there’s little room for sense, calm or bipartisanship because of the political origins and delays in the religious freedom review.