Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Discrimination Free Schools Bill 2018. Last year the Australian parliament finally moved to catch up with views that the people we were representing had held for well over a decade—that no two people should be denied, purely on the basis of their sexuality, the right to marry the person they love. Today this legislation challenges senators in this place to not repeat that mistake of delaying action and baulking at legislative change that reflects the expectations and hopes of the Australian community. This parliament again has the chance to walk with the Australian people on their march towards equality instead of racing to catch up a decade later as the parliament did with marriage equality. In doing so, we would take the next step in the legislative journey that I'm proud to say began in my home state in 1975 when South Australia became the first state to decriminalise homosexuality. It is sobering to think it was another two decades before Tasmania became the last state to remove this blight from our laws. Thankfully, criminalising the love of two consenting adults is unthinkable in any state or territory.

Over that same period we have seen governments, both state and federal, slowly and piece by piece strip away the laws which kept in place the more covert discrimination against gay and lesbian Australians. In 1984 the Hawke government introduced laws to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexuality. Many years later, in 2008, the Rudd Labor government amended over 80 pieces of legislation to remove discrimination against LGBTIQ couples. State and territory parliaments have continued to remove discrimination from their laws in order to ensure the equal treatment of LGBTIQ couples, to ensure equality in parenting laws and to remove criminal convictions resulting from unjust laws which criminalised homosexuality. It has not been a smooth path, and there have been setbacks along the way. As I noted last year during the marriage equality debate, in 2004—almost four decades after the US Supreme Court struck down laws which, on the basis of race, outlawed certain marriages—our Australian parliament was legislating to discriminate against loving couples on the basis of sexuality. It was a sad moment in the history of this parliament.

For me, Labor's support for the Howard government's amendment to the Marriage Act meant I was required to vote for discrimination against myself and the people whom I love. The reason I joined the Labor Party is that it is the party of equality and that it has such a proud history of removing discrimination and of extending equality. I knew then that, whilst the party may have disappointed many in 2004, eventually justice and equality would prevail, and so it did when in 2011 we achieved a change in the Labor Party's platform to support legislating for marriage equality. Just as it seems unthinkable that we would ever again criminalise homosexuality, it is now untenable that we would ever again prevent people, on the basis of their sexuality, from marrying each other.

So too are the Australian people now declaring it untenable that discrimination against students and teachers continues to be legal even if it can be justified on religious grounds. It is time to remove this remaining piece of legislative discrimination. Labor approaches this debate knowing that Australia is a tolerant nation and an accepting nation. Discrimination against LGBTIQ Australians has no place in our national laws. We approach this debate knowing that same tolerance and acceptance includes recognising the right of those of faith to live by their traditions and their beliefs.

Unfortunately, for purely political purposes, this government has decided to deny Australians the right to a mature debate on how best to balance freedom of religion with the right of all Australians to live free from discrimination. The government continues to refuse to share the report of the Religious Freedom Review expert panel with Australians and with its representatives. The report, promised by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during the parliamentary debate on the bill to legislate marriage equality, was actually delivered to this government in May. It appears to have sat on Mr Turnbull's desk for months. We're not sure on who else's desk it sat. It has now sat on Mr Morrison's desk for months. To sit on this report and deny Australians a mature and informed debate really does show contempt for the people we are supposed to be representing.

This government is seeking to hide this report solely because it is so divided that it fears the impact this report will have on the voters of Wentworth. And for what purpose? Many religious education institutions have made it clear that they do not and will not use the exemptions which are removed by this bill. They have made clear their abhorrence at the idea that they would ever seek to shame or punish a precious child in their care at a most vulnerable point in their lives. Yet when leaks to the media prompted reports that the government wished to extend the right of religious organisations to discriminate against students and teachers, the Prime Minister's numbers man, Mr Alex Hawke, couldn't wait to jump on Sky News and declare his joy at such recommendations. At the suggestion that his government would legislate to enable a 14-year-old child to be kicked out of school just at the point in their life when they would be crying out for support, when asked whether religious schools should be able to discriminate against LGBTIQ students and teachers, Mr Hawke said: 'Absolutely. I don't think it's controversial.' Well, I invite senators to pause and think about that for one moment. Fortunately for LGBTIQ Australians, and for all Australians who believe Australia to be a nation that values fairness and equality, the overwhelming majority of Australians disagree with Mr Hawke.

The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in this place insist the report was unfair and this was never their intention. To that I say two things. Tell that to Mr Alex Hawke, who delighted in the prospect of laws that would enable a child to be kicked out of school for being gay. If what Mr Morrison and Mr Cormann are saying is true, they really only have themselves to blame, because it is this government that buried the report for five months, it is this government that is not allowing the Australian people to know what it is in it and it is this government that is not allowing the community to have a mature and balanced debate on this important issue.

Labor does respect the Australian people. We will treat this legislation in the mature way it deserves. We will treat this legislation in the mature way the Australian community deserves. Regrettably, they have been denied such an approach by the government. We respect the right of parents to send children to the school of their choice and to have their children educated in accordance with their religious convictions. We respect that many parents choose religious schools because they want their children to be grounded in the identity and mission of a particular faith. We also respect that religious schools, and parents of students, are entitled to require employees to act in their roles in ways that uphold the ethos and values of that faith, and that this requirement may be taken into account when a person is first employed and in the course of their employment.

But we also respect that, in 2018, the overwhelming majority of Australians believe that exemptions from discrimination for gender identity, sexual orientation and relationship status are no longer acceptable. We therefore approach this legislation on the following basis: that discrimination on the basis of someone's attributes—whether that be gender, gender identity or sexuality—is categorically unacceptable, and what freedom of religion means is that teachers in religious schools should carry out their duties in the way that upholds the ethos and values of the faith.

As we did on marriage equality and as we have sought to achieve with this legislation, we call on the government to work with Labor and with all senators in this place to achieve a just and fair outcome, one that unites this parliament and unites the nation. A good start would be to release the Religious Freedom Review: report of the Expert Panel. This government commissioned the report and it should be willing to allow a mature, informed and balanced discussion. Labor firmly believes it is possible to protect religious freedom and to protect people from discrimination and to do this in a way that respects the rights of students, teachers, parents and the long tradition in this country of devoted and dedicated religious educators. As the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, said earlier this week:

These laws are no longer appropriate, if indeed they ever were appropriate. It's time our laws reflected the values we teach our children.