Religious Discrimination Bill 2021

The majority voted in favour of disagreeing with amendments moved by Isaacs MP Mark Dreyfus (Labor), which means the amendments failed.

There was one rebellion, with Bass MP Bridget Archer (Liberal) crossing the floor to vote 'No' against the rest of her party, who voted 'Yes.'

What do the amendments do?

MP Isaacs explained that:

... this is an amendment which deals with in-home aged care. More than a million older Australians receive in-home service and those Australians deserve to be treated with dignity. Any suggestion that it is acceptable to discriminate against them, these older Australians, for any reason should be rejected by this parliament, and yet that is what this bill does suggest in a tricky and underhanded way. The bill in its current form would allow a religious in-home aged-care provider to discriminate on the basis of religion in the provision of services. The government did not announce this, it has not explained this and the provision in this bill but that would allow this is deliberately obscure.

What are the amendments:

(5) Clause 7, page 10 (line 18), omit "facilities", substitute "service providers".

(6) Heading to clause 8, page 11 (line 30), omit "facilities", substitute "service providers".

(7) Clause 8, page 12 (lines 1 and 2), omit paragraph (a), substitute:

(a) establishing, directing, controlling or administering a hospital; or

(aa) if the religious body solely or primarily provides aged care services—the provision of the services; or

(8) Heading to clause 9, page 12 (line 17), omit "facilities", substitute "service providers".

(9) Clause 9, page 12 (line 22), omit "facilities", substitute "service providers".

(11) Clause 9, page 12 (line 28), omit "facility", substitute "service provider".

(12) Clause 9, page 13 (lines 4 to 7), omit paragraph (2)(b), substitute:

(b) a body (a religious aged care service provider) that solely or primarily provides aged care services in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of a particular religion;

(13) Heading to subclause 9(3), page 13 (line 15), omit "facilities", substitute "service providers".

(14) Clause 9, page 13 (line 18), omit "facility", substitute "service provider".

(15) Clause 9, page 14 (line 8), omit "facility", substitute "service provider".

What does the bill do?

According to the bill homepage, the bill was introduced with the Religious Discrimination (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021 and Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 in order to:

• prohibit discrimination on the basis of a person’s religious belief or activity in a range of areas of public life, including in relation to employment, education, access to premises and the provision of goods, services and accommodation;
• establish general and specific exceptions from the prohibition of religious discrimination;
• provide that certain statements of belief do not constitute discrimination for the purposes of certain specified Commonwealth, state or territory anti-discrimination laws;
• create offences in relation to victimisation and discriminatory advertisements;
• establish the office of the Religious Discrimination Commissioner;
• confer certain functions on the Australian Human Rights Commission; and
• provide for miscellaneous matters including delegation of powers or functions, protection from civil actions and a review of the operation of the Act.

SBS News has provided a good summary of the more controversial parts of the bill, including an explanation for each rebellion that occurred during the long debate. According to this summary, the key areas for concern were:

• the parts of the bill that allowed religious schools to discriminate on the basis of sexuality and gender identity;
• the "statement of belief" that seems to protect people expressing religious beliefs even if they're offensive and therefore seem to override existing anti-discrimination protections; and
• the fact that the bill does not outlaw vilification of people of faith.