Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Dec. 13 that the government intends to draft new laws, being reviewed in the Religious Discrimination Bill, that would make it illegal to discriminate based on a person’s religious beliefs.
The Morrison government plans to seek feedback on the draft legislation to be presented to Parliament in early 2019. The laws will be part of the Coalition’s promise ahead of the elections due May 2019.
If passed, they will be the first stand-alone laws to protect Australians’ freedom of belief.
Morrison also announced that the government would appoint a freedom of religion commissioner within the Australian Human Rights Commission.
“For those who think that Australians of religious faith don’t feel that the walls have been closing in on them for a while, they’re clearly not talking to many people in religious communities,” Morrison told reporters in Sydney on Dec. 13.
WATCH: Former Labor leader Mark Latham discusses the need to protect religious freedom in Australia
Religious Freedom Review
The prime minister’s announcement is a response to the religious freedom review (pdf), chaired by Philip Ruddock, which was also formally released on Dec. 13.Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull initiated the review on Nov. 22, 2017.
The review concluded that more can be done to further protect the right to freedom of religion under Australian law, and set forth 20 recommendations to that end.
The review and its recommendations were handed to the Turnbull government for consideration on May 18. Parts of it were leaked to the press in October.
Morrison announced the government has accepted 15 of the 20 recommendations “either directly or in principle,” and said that 14 of them are “to be implemented as soon as practicable.”
“Australians have a diversity of faith and religious backgrounds and these should all be respected.
“This is an essential part of multiculturalism, in the same way no Australian should be discriminated against for their ethnicity or sexuality. Protecting freedom of belief is central to the liberty of each and every Australian.”
According to the last of the 15 recommendations, Recommendation 15, the proposed legislation—to make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of a person’s religious belief or activity, including on the basis that a person does not hold any religious belief—will necessitate a new Religious Discrimination Act to be drafted and passed, or the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 to be amended. For this recommendation, the government said it will be seeking bipartisan support before presenting the bill to Parliament.
Among them was a recommendation that concerned the rights of students’ sexuality with that of religious schools.
Attorney-General Christian Porter said religious discrimination stood as a final “pillar” alongside anti-discrimination laws for race, sex, age, and disability.
“This is the fifth and final pillar of an overarching architecture that prevents discrimination directed to Australians based on attributes which should never be the basis for discrimination,” Porter said, according to AAP.
