Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

International Women's Day was last Sunday, 8 March. It's a wonderful celebration of the contributions of women across Australia and the world. As much as it is a celebration, though, International Women's Day is also a reminder that equality is something we need to defend, protect and advance every day of the year. That means confronting the inequalities that still exist within our own laws.

In 2026, our nation still lacks equality in our discrimination protections. A notable example of this is section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, which provides carve-outs that allow religious education institutions to discriminate against staff and students on the basis of certain characteristics. These include somebody's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or relationship status or pregnancy. In effect, this provision enables faith based and religious education institutions to fire or refuse to hire staff, as well as to suspend, expel, refuse to enrol, or disadvantage students simply because they are gay, trans, pregnant, divorced or unmarried. Section 38 enables them to discriminate with impunity. In Australia's recent history, there are documented cases of teachers who've been dismissed, refused employment or pressured to resign for being gay, for marrying a divorcee, for becoming pregnant out of wedlock or even for becoming pregnant with the assistance of IVF. There are cases where students have been forced out of schools or denied leadership positions based on their sexuality. There are cases of children who have been denied enrolment because a parent is trans or because their parents are in a same-sex relationship. All of these instances are and remain lawful under section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act.

A version of these exemptions dates back to 1984, when Australia's Sex Discrimination Act was first introduced. It's been said that the exemptions which emerged at that time were in response to strong representations from private schools seeking the right to refuse to employ teachers in de facto relationships or women who became unmarried mothers. At the time, Labor stalwart Senator the Hon. Susan Ryan—no relation—was Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women. At that time, in 1984, she considered that the proposed exemption was not consistent with the objectives of the Sex Discrimination Act. She proposed that the exemption be subjected to a two-year sunsetting provision, and that, in the meantime, an inquiry into the provision be conducted by the commission. Ultimately, however, that exemption was passed without any time limit being attached. Subsequent inquiries by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner in 1992 and the Australian Law Reform Commission in 1994 both recommended repeal of section 38. It's hard to comprehend that we recognised back then what we seem unable to recognise now.

The Australia that passed those carve-outs, that allowed that discrimination in 1984, is not the Australia that we live in today. In the more than 50 years since, Australia has elected an unmarried female prime minister, it has legislated to legalise same-sex marriage and has become more open and more inclusive of the many diverse groups within our community, including the LGBTQIA+ community. Plainly, section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act no longer represents Australian values and beliefs about equality. It is an anachronism.

Today, religious schools, colleges and universities hold a really significant place in Australian public life. In 2022, about 1.4 million primary and secondary students attended faith based schools in Australia. Approximately 30 per cent of Australia's schools are faith based, and I'm proud to say that I attended one and my children have attended one. In some remote areas, faith based schools are the only educational institutions available to parents. Those institutions employ large numbers of people. In 2022, it was reported that non-government schools employed approximately 173,000 full-time equivalent teaching and non-teaching staff. Those numbers reflect the fact that faith based schools are a substantial part of our education system. They affect millions of Australians—students, staff, parents—every day.

It's for those reasons that the Labor government and the Prime Minister himself have been on record for years recommending their support for the removal of section 38. In 2022, Labor moved an amendment to that end. As opposition leader, the now prime minister took this policy to the 2022 election. He pledged then a commitment to reform antidiscrimination laws so that religious schools could no longer discriminate against their students and their staff.

Once the Prime Minister was elected, his government commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission to conduct an inquiry into Australia's antidiscrimination protections for LGBTQIA+ students and staff in faith based schools. In 2024, the Australian Law Reform Commission released its final report into religious education institutions and antidiscrimination laws. That report, again, recommended that section 38 be repealed and that, instead, institutions should only be allowed to preference staff in line with their beliefs, so long as it was proportionate and reasonably necessary to maintaining a community of faith and so long as the expression of those preferences did not breach existing discrimination laws. Despite reportedly having a draft bill on hand to enact those changes, the Prime Minister has declined to make these simple changes unless there is bipartisan support—a situation which appears vanishingly unlikely.

I hope that with International Women's Day—a day to be celebrated—passing us for yet another year, we are reminded that equality and the progress of women and of other vulnerable groups in our community can never be guaranteed or taken for granted. There is no clearer example of this than the current federal legislation, which still permits active discrimination against women and against LGBTQIA+ people. That's federal legislation that was recommended for reform back in the 1990s. It is long past time that section 38 be repealed. I call on this government, with its supermajority, its dominance in the House and its stated commitment to this policy to action this repeal in this term of parliament.

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