As Australian politicians prepare for debate over proposed recent religious discrimination laws, senior faith leaders have warned that because the proposed laws currently stands faith groups in Australia could go a “good distance backwards”.
The proposed laws features a move to simply accept recommendations from the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) report into religious educational institutions and anti-discrimination laws and take away section 38 from the Sex Discrimination Act—which offers protections for schools and other institutions taking religious beliefs under consideration when hiring and firing staff.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has proposed giving religious institutions the flexibility to preference teachers based on their faith through the creation of a recent Religious Discrimination Act, a move that has drawn fierce criticism from each religious organisations and churches, in addition to the Federal Opposition.
In a letter signed by Melbourne Archbishop Peter A Comensoli, Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, and National Catholic Education Commission executive director Jacinta Collins, the writers stated that any removal of section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act would require it to get replaced by laws offering more precise protections for religious schools and corporations.
“If the (Government’s) amendments to the SDA and the proposed Religious Discrimination Bill were enacted as currently drafted, there could be a really real and substantial reduction in existing legal and operational freedoms for religious education institutions,” the archbishops and Ms Collins said.
“In essence, we might go a good distance backwards. The current proposals wouldn’t provide sufficient legal and operational freedoms for religious educational institutions to keep up their religious ethos and fidelity to spiritual beliefs and practice.”
In the letter, the Catholic leaders also laid a series of amendments that they claimed would ensure religious schools would retain the flexibility to “appropriately manage” student conduct when vital “to preserve the institutions’ religious ethos”.
Archbishop Fisher, one among Australia’s most senior Catholic leaders, warned that the Church may need to resort to more radical measures in response to an infringement of non secular freedoms, raising the potential of withdrawing its educational services as had happened throughout the 1962 Goulburn school strike.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian, he said closing Catholic schools ought to be considered “if we were told we weren’t allowed to take religion under consideration in who we employ, or within the ethos of our schools, which is sort of a push in the intervening time”.
He added, “So there’s an example of, I believe, a crunch point that will force us to think about withdrawal from a ministry.”
According to the Australian national newspaper The Australian, which acquired a replica of the letter, the Anglican Church has recommend similar proposals, adding to the objections which have already been raised by quite a few religious groups for the reason that discussion around the brand new laws began.
The proposed amendments have also turn out to be the topic of political debate, with the Opposition demanding that the governing Labor party take the concerns of religion groups into consideration when drafting the brand new laws, and the minority Greens party and LGBT groups pressuring the federal government to implement the ALRC’s recommendations.
The Prime Minister has already flagged that he wouldn’t try to introduce a recent Religious Discrimination Act unless it had bipartisan support, but to date the 2 major parties have been unable to search out a consensus. Late last month, allegations surfaced that negotiations between Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and his Coalition counterpart Michaelia Cash had broken down, after Senator Cash claimed that the Attorney-General was “aggressive and demeaning” towards her during a gathering held to debate the laws.
Senator Cash said Mr Dreyfus “must stop playing games along with his religious discrimination laws”.
“As I told Mr Dreyfus, he must tackle board the feedback he has received from the religion communities and release his laws publicly,” she said.
