If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. After nearly three years and two widely unpopular drafts, the government wants to have another crack at passing religious discrimination laws once flagged by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as a top priority.
Attorney-General Michaelia Cash told The Australian religious discrimination laws would be back on the table before the end of the year, although we still don’t have a draft. That was interesting news to the opposition, who found out about Cash’s plans through media reports. Crikey understands Labor is yet to be approached by Cash on any new proposals for the bill.
The attorney-general has had time to meet with conservative religious groups, who are pushing hard for laws that would give them free rein to discriminate against people who don’t align with their faith (read: LGBTIQ employees). But any bill cooked up by the churches could go the way of the last two drafts — scrapped after alienating human rights groups, the crossbench, and swathes of the Coalition’s own traditional support base.
A brief history of religious discrimination
Devout Pentecostal Scott Morrison named religious freedom protections as one of his first priorities after becoming prime minister. The government’s first attempt to get laws passed, in the aftermath of the Israel Folau affair, produced a hot mess of a bill.
The faithful were given more protection than any other group in Australia, giving them almost unfettered ability to make discriminatory statements. Human rights and LGBTIQ groups were worried it could legitimise discriminatory, homophobic behaviour and undermine efforts towards workplace inclusivity. Even the Institute of Public Affairs hated it for blurring the distinction between church and state.
But the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) and religious groups hated it for other reasons — it didn’t give them enough ability to fire people without “Christian sexual ethic”. A second crack suffered a similar fate — both business groups and the unions agreed it would damage workplace harmony. The ACL once again said it didn’t go far enough. Then-attorney-general Christian Porter promised more consultations, before the pandemic happened.
It turned out trying to thread the needle in a way that satisfied the Christian hard right, business and human rights groups, and moderates within the Coalition’s broad church, wasn’t easy.
Why is the bill back?
With an election imminent, and the government uninterested in legislating much, pushing for a highly divisive bill culture war-adjacent bill seems a strange choice. But the government has been pushed hard by the religious right — as Crikey reported yesterday, the ACL has been lobbying MPs and is keen to make a play at the next election. Cash has met with another conservative Christian group, Freedom for Faith.
Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General Amanda Stoker, one of Parliament’s most outspoken Christian soldiers, said in March she’d had a number of meetings and teleconferences with interested parties about religious discrimination laws. Asked to provide details on notice, she didn’t identify any meetings held since taking on the portfolio last December.
On the bill itself, all we know so far is it’ll differ from Porter’s two failed proposals. Labor have heard nothing.
Meanwhile, Greens LGBTIQ spokesperson Janet Rice told Crikey the previous two drafts were a “Trojan Horse for hate”, and suggested Cash’s latest model wouldn’t be very different.
“This bill isn’t about religious freedom,” she said. “It’s about groups like the ACL, and the extreme far-right MPs of Morrison’s party, trying to push their fearmongering ‘culture war’ agenda to rile up their base and discriminate against LGBTIQ+ people, women and people with disabilities.”
Porter’s first two cracks at religious discrimination led to the law being stuck in the “too hard” basket. If Cash releases a draft that makes the ACL happy, it’ll likely go the same way.
Porter’s first two cracks at religious discrimination led to the law being stuck in the “too hard” basket. If Cash releases a draft that makes the ACL happy, it’ll likely go the same way.
It is likely that the AGD still has the same people drafting any new laws as drafted the ones that failed so dismally – and deservedly. And Cash is a really unlikeable minister who has shown no ability to consult so it’s difficult to see any different outcome.
I expect the church and the state to be widely separated. I also expected better outcomes from government based on the recommendations of the RC into institutional child abuse. I doubt that I am alone in my expectations.
The people who draft the laws are public servants, very good ones at that. The people who tell the, what they want the laws to say are complete idiots and ideologues, that is, politicians.
Who tell them! D’oh!
“I expect the church and the state to be widely separated.”
It is the only safe way for a properly functioning state to be.
apparently the second reading of the bill is going to be in tongues ..
You’d think that, in the 21st century, the anti-democratic freebies and concessions for organised christianity would have been rolled back. Instead, they’ve only increased, particularly through the federal government’s indexed $13b for church schools, and its pernicious “chaplains” for state schools. Their generously subsidised churches, schools, and businesses, retain wide powers to discriminate against infidels, women, and LGBTQ. This gratuitous Bill is simply a pay-back over SSM.
Who are the people behind “Freedom for Faith”, who are the politicians pushing their barrow and in what way do FFF see their freedom to believe and pursue whatever religious practice they like as being curtailed? The name suggests that they feel oppressed in some way, but I can’t imagine how. Can anyone enlighten me?
I know your question was rhetorical but I’ll have a shot.
People don’t obey them, people ignore and even criticise them and, OMG, make fun of them. They thus feel “cancelled” in their “right” to discriminate, sanction and more. So of course they need the power of the state to use against the society that “discriminates” against them. By which they mean, performs thought crimes. Sorry for all the inverted commas but a necessary hazard when discussing a group that is almost beyond satire.
I do think even the Republic of Gilead wouldn’t satisfy these people. The silver lining is that their actions actually continue the move to secularism, since the ridiculousness of their beliefs and the outrageous claims they make give young people a contemporary demonstration of just what entitled crap made up the old order.
Also loved the reference to the “Christian sexual ethic”, which the speaker linked to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference no less. What is the content of that ethic I wonder? Presumably tolerance for, and protection of, paedophiles would be part of it?
Australia’s “Christian sexual ethic” was clearly enough defined in the royal commission. What is now needed (which would not pleases any of the religious campaigners) is to arrest and charge every individual known or alleged to have concealed such offences.
A statement of fact as shown from Source: Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
Almost 2,500 survivors were abused in an institution managed by the Catholic Church, which had the greatest %.
Catholic
61.8%
Anglican
14.7%
Salvation Army
7.3%
Protestant
4.2%
Presbyterian and Reformed
2.9%
Uniting Church
2.4%
Other Christian
1.9%
Jehovah’s Witnesses
1.7%
Baptist
1%
Pentecostal
0.9%
Judaism
0.6%
Other religious organisation
3.8%
Survivors as a percentage of those who reported being abused in a religious institution
The vast majority, over 90%, were from some sort of Christian cult
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-15/royal-commission-child-sexual-abuse-by-the-numbers/9263800
ABS 2016 Census showed a majority @ 30.1% with no religion, the closest being Catholic, 22.6%, Anglican, 13.3% with other Christian including Orthodox of various types, 16.3%.
Those reporting no religion increased noticeably from 19 per cent in 2006 to 30.1 per cent in 2016. The largest change was between 2011 (22 per cent) and 2016, when an additional 2.2 million people reported having no religion.
As for attendance in 2019..less than one in seven of the Australians who ticked “Christianity” on their census form regularly attend a church…
https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blogarchive/church-attendance-in-australia-infographic/
Then …grâce à wikipedia…
According to the National Church Life Survey, between 1950 and 2007 monthly church attendance declined from 44% to 17%. However, the decline in church attendance has slowed. In 2016, monthly attendance at church was 16%.
A 2009 Christian Research Association survey of 1,718 Australians found that 16% attended a religious service at least once a month, down from 23% in 1993. More than 40% of those brought up as Anglicans or Lutherans, 36% of those brought up in the Uniting Church and 28% of those brought up as Roman Catholics now described themselves as having no religion. 33% of 15- to 29-year-olds identified with a Christian denomination in 2009, down from 60% in 1993.
In 1996, 17.9% of Roman Catholics attended Mass on a typical Sunday, falling to 12.2% in 2011. In 2006, the median age of all Catholics aged 15 years and over was 44 years. In 1996, 27% of Roman Catholics aged 50 to 54 years regularly attended Mass, falling to 15% in 2006.while 30% aged 55–59 years regularly attended in 1996, but only 19% in 2006. From 1996 to 2006 Mass attendance for Roman Catholics aged between 15 and 34 declined by just over 38%, going from 136,000 to 83,760 attendees.
A study in 2011 by the Christian Research Association discovered that the attendance of Uniting churches has declined by 30% over the past 10 years. The association’s president, Philip Hughes, has predicted that the decline in church attendance will continue “at least for the next 20 years”. The study also found that the average age of people attending Catholic and Anglican churches is around 60 years.
An earlier survey, 2013 by McCrindle Research, just 8% of Christians attend at least once per month. The survey also discovered that 47% of respondents do not go to church because it is “irrelevant to my life”, 26% “don’t accept how it’s taught”, while 19% “don’t believe in the bible”
Thanks for that, re “Those reporting no religion increased noticeably from 19 per cent in 2006 to 30.1 per cent in 2016. The largest change was between 2011 (22 per cent) and 2016, when an additional 2.2 million people reported having no religion.”
Notable that Howard introduced his law that “marriage is between a man and a woman” in 2004. Gillard weighed in with a guarded nod to homophobia when PM and then you had the hostility and dissembling of Abbott and prevarication of Turnbull. An unwanted plebiscite was debated and defeated across 2015-16 and then came the spectacular backfire of the survey in 2017, that resolutely showed the rejection by the people of homophobia. An unexpected and quite glorious show of social solidarity.
All this time with the religious right pushing it’s Old Testament and medieval caricatures, while twisting and turning away from their history of child abuse. Can’t help but think all this did a good job in getting people to walk away from organised monotheistic religion as irrelevant or worse.
Yet despite being a minority of cranks, they still have enough organisational ability to influence politicians in ways that destroy their credibility even further. It’s poor compensation for the pain and destruction they cause but it’s some consolation.
Religious organisations want the right to discriminate against others yet are loath for others to criticise them. They receive millions of taxpayers $$$ so should be held accountable for their decisions/actions. I’m sick of the hard right forcing their doctrines on us without being held to account.