NTEU stands against the Coalition's Religious Discrimination Bill

As most members will know, the Morrison Government has recently re-introduced a complex series of laws nominally intended to protect people from discrimination on the basis of religion – a goal that is not particularly controversial.

What has been controversial in these laws is that they aim to create special new rights:

• For people to express religious views that may be offensive but that are not explicitly intended to cause harm or harass (in any context).

• For religious organisations to discriminate in hiring, admissions and service provision on religious grounds where their views are articulated in a policy or statement of beliefs.

The state of these laws has been a moving feast, as the Government has made several amendments since the first version was published in 2019, and promised a series of other amendments and trade-offs as internal support in the Coalition has waned.

On 10 February 2022, five Government MPs crossed the floor to vote in favour of Labor amendments that would see current special exemptions for religious schools to discriminate on sexuality removed from the current Sexual Discrimination Act. The removal of these exemptions is contingent upon the passage of the other parts of the Religious Discrimination Bill.

However, these amendments do not address several other issues with the Bill, which the NTEU outlined in its recent submission to two concurrent parliamentary inquiries. In particular, we outlined our concern that religious universities may impose discriminatory views in their statement of belief policies, which potential staff would have to sign and abide by. We also highlighted the potential for university teaching staff to be exposed to legal liability in classroom contexts where students make protected statements of belief – an issue that has gone largely under the radar but could affect our members.

For example, if a student in a tutorial were to consistently express offensive views about women or LGBQTI+ people on religious grounds, and the teaching academic was to ask them to leave, would they be violating the law that protects this speech? Universities may also become entangled in legal difficulty in dealing with extreme religious groups on campuses. It is not clear how these special protections would play out in the university environment and there is a risk that self-censorship will occur among academic staff in these contexts.

Notwithstanding this issue, it is clear that the Bill in its current form will likely increase, rather than decrease discrimination.

For these reasons the NTEU, and many other community groups have strongly opposed this Bill. ◆

Kieran McCarron, Policy & Research Officer

Image: Protesting against the Religious Discrimination Bill, Mardi Gras 2021. Bruce Baker