LGBTI rights groups have slammed Christian Porter’s new religious freedom bill. The Attorney General revealed the legislation that has been signed off by cabinet, while speaking at The Great Synagogue in Sydney this morning.
Porter said the creating the new law was a “necessary and difficult balancing exercise” but rights advocates have shared their dismay that the bill will override Tasmania’s exisiting laws, something the Attorney General has previously promised would not happen.
The proposed legislation will stop employers from being able to take action against employees who make religious based statements in a private capacity, the move comes in the wake of the high profile sacking of rugby player Israel Folau.
The bill states the employers will not be able to take action against employees unless there would be extreme financial hardship for the business. While the bill does not make specific mention of what the religious activities that are protected may be, its additional explanatory note highlights evangelism as something that may be permitted.
“For example, evangelising may constitute a religious activity where adherents of that religious group are required, or encouraged, to evangelise,” it said.
The legislation also explicitly override Tasmania’s laws. The current state based legislation says it is an offence to “offend, insult or humiliate” based on protected grounds including gender, race, age, sexual orientation, disability and relationship status. The federal government will nullify this law if the person making the statement is making it based upon their religious beliefs.
Groups representing women, LGBTIQ+ people, and people of colour have condemned the government’s draft Religious Discrimination Act Exposure Draft saying it overrides existing protections in the name of religion.
“Laws must apply equally to everyone – this Act enshrines religious exceptionalism by giving new privileges to people of faith, while overriding existing protections from discrimination for others.”, said Anna Brown CEO of Equality Australia.
“These new, radical provisions go too far and hand a sword to people of faith to use their religious beliefs to attack others in our community.”
Of particular concern was the affect the laws will have in overriding Tasmania’s existing anti-discrimination laws which were seen as the best in the country.
“There appears to be a specific override of Tasmanian prohibitions on conduct which ‘offends, humiliates, intimidates, insults or ridicules’ other members of our community, including LGBTIQ+ people.
“We must not go backwards or remove any protections from harmful behaviour which have already been achieved – at great cost.” Anna Brown said.
“It’s really disappointing that the Government has drafted a series of special measures for religious individuals and organisations without speaking to those who could be targeted if those measures are passed.”
“The Bill explicitly privileges religious beliefs over secular beliefs. In a multicultural free country like Australia – this is simply unacceptable.
“It introduces a carve-out to stop employers from upholding their inclusive non-discriminatory policies when staff express negative religious beliefs about LGBTQ people outside the workplace such as on social media, except where necessary to avoid unjustifiable financial hardship’.
“But people who aren’t religious don’t have the same level of protection. Our laws need to treat all beliefs equally – regardless of whether they’re based on religion or a person’s individual moral view.” Brown said.
Tasmanian LGBTI advocates have also slammed the proposed legislation describing it as a “direct federal override of Tasmania’s offensive language laws.”
Rodney Croome from Equality Tasmania said the bill unveiled by Attorney General Christian Porter nullifies the offensive conduct provision of the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act if the offensive language is religious in nature.
This is despite the State Parliament knocking back the same proposal as recently as 2017, and despite Porter repeatedly promising his bill would not interfere with state discrimination laws.
“Canberra is directly interfering to weaken a Tasmanian human rights law that protects vulnerable people.” Croome said.
“A significant proportion of complaints under this section are from people with disability, so Canberra is directly weakening protections for them, as well as for women, LGBTI people and anyone else who falls foul of traditional religious doctrines.”
“Our offensive language laws have helped foster a more inclusive island society and we will do everything in our power to keep them intact.”
“We call on Mr Porter to stick to the promise he made not to interfere with state law, and we call on Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, and the Senate cross-bench to commit to voting against this provision.”
“We also call on Premier Will Hodgman to stand up to Canberra and defend the right of Tasmanians to make our own human rights laws.”
Equality Tasmania argue that there is no need for the provision noting that a similar attempt to weaken Tasmania’s offensive language law was rejected by the State Parliament in 2017, and in 2018 the State Supreme Court found such laws do not breach the right to religious freedom.
Croome said the attack on Tasmania has come partly as the result of a complaint against a marriage booklet distributed by the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart, Julian Porteous, being misrepresented.
“The complaint against Archbishop Porteous’ was about two or three sentences in the booklet that suggested same-sex partners are not whole people and that we mess with kids.”
“The complainant, Martine Delaney, said she was a motivated by a desire for there to be a more mature debate about same-sex marriage, and she withdrew her complaint when the Archbishop refused to budge.”
In his speech the Attorney General also noted that the issue of whether religious based schools could expel students or sack teachers who married a same-sex parter had not been addressed, saying this was an issue for the sex discrimination legislation and the issue had already been referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission.
Christian Porter also said that protections would not extend to bodies who were run by religious bodies, but sole or primary purpose was commercial.
“The definition of religious body, in section 10 of the draft bill, does not extend to bodies whose sole or primary activity is commercial. That would include, on this draft, hospital and aged care providers.” Porter said.
The bill is expected to be introduced into parliament in October.
Graeme Watson
