Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Hansard source

This evening I present the report by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee into the legislative exemptions that allow faith based educational institutions to discriminate against teachers, students and staff, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee. I seek leave to move a motion relating to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

As chair of the committee, I say that it needs to be clear before this place that it is not necessary for faith based educational institutions to use legislative exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act in relation to LBGTI students or, indeed, any other attributes, such as pregnancy or marital status, within the Sex Discrimination Act. The evidence before the committee made it very clear that schools have not been actively using this exemption, and almost all schools said they did not need these exemptions to exist. In addition, the small numbers of institutions that said they'd like these exemptions to remain on the statute books also, nevertheless, reiterated to the committee that they did not want to, and they would not, discriminate against any student.

The committee received over 160 submissions from stakeholders on both sides of this debate in relation to LBGTI rights but also in relation to sex and pregnancy discrimination. I have to commend the secretariat for the wonderful job they've done in organising this inquiry, from the taking of submissions to holding public hearings in just 13 days. Some might like to criticise the short time frame for this debate, but this has been a very simple and straightforward inquiry. It was brought on in response to what has already been very significant public debate on the issue of existing exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act, which was originally sparked by the leaked recommendations from the Ruddock report into religious freedoms.

The evidence to the committee showed very strongly how much the community was largely, frankly, unaware that the exemptions even existed. I have to say—and I won't name names, in terms of the evidence before the committee—that even those who were there to try to defend the exemptions and their existence had no idea how they worked or, frankly, no idea of the attributes that the exemptions covered. This debate is not new to many Australians, but it's clear that most were unaware that these exemptions have allowed faith based schools to discriminate against students and, indeed, teachers for a great many years.

As the report I have tabled states, organisations on both sides of this debate are calling for the full release of the Ruddock report so they can see the recommendations of that report in their full context. What is extraordinary is that the government was handed this report back in May this year, has not made the report public and is now escalating community concern about the issues raised in it, because it refuses to lay them out on the table for public consideration or comment.

On 10 October, the Prime Minister himself said that the report had not even been considered by the cabinet. It was very clear that this was an attempt to gag debate on this issue, just as the government was starting to run out of oxygen in the Wentworth by-election. We see that the report from the expert panel received more than 15,000 submissions. Surely, this report needs to see the light of day. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister's statement in the context of responding to this report, affirming that the government would move to protect lesbian and gay students from being expelled on the basis of their sexuality in faith based schools, was very, very welcome. Submissions to the inquiry show that, overwhelmingly, schools do not want to discriminate against LGBTI children in schools, nor do they want to discriminate against pregnant students. Frankly, they could not, before the committee, assert any reason for doing so. Even the schools that said they had ethos and religious paradigms that might contradict, said they would want to manage it in the context of their teachers and said that there was no justification for discriminating against students.

Most positively, there were a great many witnesses. From the Carey Baptist Grammar School, a faith based school in Victoria with 2½ thousand students enrolled, there was strong support for not only the repeal of these exemptions but also very holistic and supportive environments, particularly for their LGBTI students. They are a co-educational college and have enrolled students as boys, students as girls and students who do not necessarily identify as male or female or transgender. The school has welcomed same-sex couples to attend their ball and say they don't discriminate in their employment practices or in their enrolment of students. The principal made clear his faith based school's proposition on current exemptions when he said:

Carey will never change in its opposition to the current legislation which allows religious schools to discriminate against staff or students on the basis of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

This is very much a position I welcome. As one witness said:

... once you enrol a student, you're making a commitment to that student ... forever ...

Frankly, this is a sentiment that was shared by almost all schools, in terms of their commitment to their students and the argument that they would not want to see their own school or any other school discriminate. This statement about student enrolment really highlights how important a student's relationship with their school is. I spoke to very religious schools in the course of the inquiry who said that they wanted to support their LGBTI students and that those students should be able to thrive in an environment free from discrimination. Overwhelmingly, the committee has seen that the majority of Australians would agree with that statement, because we, as a community, believe in equality.

In the short time that remains, I want to reiterate that the government must release the Ruddock report. It should immediately amend the Sex Discrimination Act to remove the exemption that currently enables faith based schools to expel and discriminate against students on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, pregnancy or any other personal attribute covered in the Sex Discrimination Act. I want to highlight that this report also strongly endorsed the fact that we need to take a look at teachers in the context of discrimination.

Many staff and students in faith-based schools fearing persecution have suppressed their sexual preference or gender identity and/or their marital status and have been and are being harmed as a result

They are words from Mr Anthony Odgers of the Independent Education Union. It is not necessary to justify the use of legislative exemptions that are harmful to LGBTI people, to pregnant women and to people who might be divorced, but it is the threat that these exemptions could be used against them that causes the harm. Students and teachers being forced to suppress their identity does indeed create long-term anxiety and prevents them from living as their authentic self. Mr Odgers said it was the experience of the union that only a small and diminishing minority of employers in non-government schools seek to or do utilise the exemptions from discrimination legislation.

In making these recommendations, the committee recommends that removing discrimination against teachers and other school staff will go beyond the Sex Discrimination Act, which might be why we can't act on these parts immediately. However, this government should get on with what it said it would do and repeal the exemptions in relation to student— (Time expired)