Leaders of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish religions in Queensland have united to condemn the Miles government’s draft anti-discrimination laws restricting their schools from hiring and firing staff based on their faith, sexuality, marital status and gender identity. Recommended by the Queensland Human Rights Commission (QHRC) in 2022, 17 signatories of an open letter to Labor Premier Steven Miles warned if the proposed changes are adopted it will lead to the “most restrictive regime for regulating faith bodies in Australia”. “They will significantly undermine the freedom of faith organisations to employ persons in accordance with their ethos,’’ the letter said. “They will disallow faith communities and schools from selecting staff who would uphold one of the core purposes of a faith community or school – that of maintaining a culture and ethos consistent with the requirements of that faith.” Amendments to the Anti-Discrimination Act, released for less than a month of consultation earlier this year, threaten to make this an election issue. Mr. Miles is planning to introduce the legislation in one of the last four sittings of parliament before the October 26 election.
Under the proposals, religious schools would still be able to discriminate on the grounds of religion, but only when hiring staff whose “teaching, observance or practice of a religion is a genuine occupational requirement”. Preference for hiring a math’s or science teacher, for instance, because they share the school’s faith would not be protected. “However, discrimination based on other protected attributes such as sexual orientation or relationship status will not be permitted in any employment decisions,’’ the Department of Justice and Attorney-General stated in the consultation paper. “The QHRC concluded that it is necessary to limit religious freedom in this way to uphold the privacy and non-discrimination rights of staff in religious bodies.’’ The letter, whose signatories included Brisbane Catholic Archbishop Mark Coleridge, Council of Imams (Queensland) chair Yousef Peer and Jewish Board of Deputies chair Jason Steinberg, alleged the proposed changes would also breach international law.
“The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Australia has signed, declares that religious freedom is one of the most fundamental human rights, and should be preserved except where absolutely necessary; this is not upheld in the proposed anti-discrimination legislation,” the letter said. “The proposed changes contravene Article 18.4 of the ICCPR, which affirms the rights of parents to ensure the faith and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.” Reverend David Baker, from Queensland Churches Together, said that the changes don’t provide a “balancing of rights” enabling parents to send their children to a school “which is consistent with their beliefs”. “Schools should be able to set expectations around conduct, beliefs and practices for their staff,’’ Reverend Baker said. He said the proposed laws seemed to have a “very narrow” definition of a “genuine occupational requirement” that exempted some staff. Ali Kadri, chief executive officer of the Islamic College of Brisbane, said while more than half of staff at his school were non-Muslim, there was an expectation they adhere to “certain values”, which ordinarily they do.
“I think these changes are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist while trampling over individual and religious freedoms,” he said. Mr Kadri said that as an example of the changes, he believed he could not sack a teacher engaged in sex work. A spokesman for Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said the government was now considering submissions on the draft bill. “The Miles government recently sought community feedback on a draft anti-discrimination bill, with hundreds of submissions received,’’ he said. “This is a complex matter with differing opinions. We are currently considering the feedback provided to ensure the policy and legislation developed meets our community’s expectations as a whole, including the complex area of exceptions for religious bodies.” The Queensland government drafted the bill in the wake of a public furor in 2022 when Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane tried to force parents to sign an enrolment contract accepting their children must behave “on the basis of the individual’s biological sex” and describing homosexuality as “immoral and offensive to God”.
Source: Compiled by APN from media reports
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