Last updated 2:45pm
Australia’s Coalition Government would introduce a dedicated Religious Discrimination Act should it win the next election, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has revealed.
Morrison made the announcement as the Federal Government released the findings of the Ruddock Review into religious freedom, which made 20 recommendations, 15 of which the government has said it will accept directly while the other five will be the subject of a referral to the Australian Law Reform Commission.
The Prime Minister said that as well as creating the new act, among other measures the government would take in response to the report was to appoint a Freedom of Religion Commissioner within the Australian Human Rights Commission.
They will also look to amend existing legislation relating to freedom of religion, including amendments to marriage law, charities law and objects clauses in existing anti-discrimination legislation.
In response to a famously leaked recommendation in the Ruddock review that any exceptions to anti-discrimination laws allowing religious schools to discriminate with respect to students on the basis of race, disability, pregnancy or intersex status be abolished, Morrison said the government remained open to a conscience vote in Parliament on a bill it had put forward to change the Sex Discrimination Act which he said would protect students from discrimination on the basis of their sexual identity and ensure religions can teach according to their faith.
But the Prime Minister said that, given the Opposition has not backed such a move, the government would also be referring the matters to the Australian Law Reform Commission which would be expected to report in the second half of next year.
Attorney General Christian Porter said the Ruddock report had concluded that there was now an opportunity to “better protect religious freedoms in Australia and a means of doing that”.
He added that the drafting of the Religious Discrimination Bill was already “well advanced” and would be available to the public early next year. “I don’t think that that would necessarily be a very contentious bill…it follows a very standard architecture.”
Making the announcement on Thursday morning, the Prime Minister said there was no more fundamental liberty than the “fundamental right” for people to decide “what they believe or not believe”.
“What you believe should always be a matter for you and it has always been very tightly identified with who you are as a person,” he said, adding that people should be free to go about that “free of harassment or intimidation or discrimination in any way, shape or form, just as you should be able to do depending on your sex or your gender or your sexual identity or ethnicity…”.
Morrison said the protection of people’s religious liberty was particularly relevant in Australia because of its “incredibly diverse multicultural society”. He said that 70 per cent of Australians identified as having a particular religious belief.
“If you support multicultural Australia, then you’ll be a supporter of religious freedoms.”
Morrison said the proposed measures were not about protecting any religious institution or particular religions but about “protecting Australians and Australians’ right to believe in what they want to believe”.
The Federal Government has also announced plans for the establishment of a Commonwealth Integrity Commission.
