The future of the government’s religious discrimination bill is in Labor’s hands, after Prime Minister Scott Morrison managed to drag it through the Coalition joint partyroom yesterday.
After a marathon meeting which spilled over two sessions, the final package is a political compromise that leaves transgender children dangerously exposed, and few in Canberra truly satisfied.
But Labor, who has approached the bill with extreme caution since its introduction late last year, is still working out its position. This morning its cabinet and caucus held an urgent meeting, even as loud calls from LGBTIQ advocates and within the Labor movement push for the party to more strongly oppose the bill.
What the government offered up
Yesterday the Coalition reached some degree of consensus — but barely. The partyroom agreed to introduce the bill with minor amendments, as well as a change to s38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act which would remove the ability of religious schools to expel gay students but crucially still allow them to engage in other forms of discrimination. Transgender kids could still be expelled, despite Morrison’s earlier promise to provide protection against discrimination based on gender identity.
Still, some of the most forceful opposition so far has come from moderates within the government. Yesterday Liberal MP Bridget Archer confirmed she would vote against the bill, and raised concerns about its effect on LGBTIQ students and the override of existing discrimination laws.
“I’m not prepared to stand by and see our state laws eroded to privilege one group or another,” Archer said. “It’s not OK to be cruel, offensive or humiliating just because you can say it with conviction or point to a religious text to back it up.”
Other moderates — including Dave Sharma, Katie Allen, Andrew Bragg and Fiona Martin — raised concerns about the bill in the partyroom. North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman said he would reserve his position, paving the way for him to potentially cross the floor.
The bill is again scheduled for debate today, but with the speaker list at 36 it is unlikely to come to a vote before the House. There are just three Senate sitting days between now and the election, meaning the government is running out of time to get it passed.
Labor MP’s powerful moment
Although the opposition’s final position is unclear, some MPs have already voiced concerns. In a deeply moving speech in the House of Representatives yesterday, Labor frontbencher Stephen Jones described the tragic death by suicide last week of his 15-year-old gay nephew, urging all sides of politics to consider the impact on queer children.
“What message do we want to this Parliament to send to these kids?” he asked. “Are they as loved and cherished and respected as every other kid? Surely we aren’t saying to them, it’s OK if you are gay … just as long as we can’t see it.”
Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite raised concerns about the bill’s “statements of belief” clause, which allows a genuinely held religious belief to override discrimination laws.
Fissures within Labor
Like so much of Labor’s caution this term, its approach to religious discrimination is coloured by its shock loss in 2019. At the polls, many conservative religious voters lost faith in the party. Several Labor-held electorates in western Sydney, which recorded the highest “no” votes at the same-sex marriage postal survey, swung against their sitting MPs.
But within the broader Labor movement, there is considerable opposition to the bill. This morning ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, the only openly gay government leader in the country, told Radio National he opposed the bill in its current form, and wanted to see “significant amendments”.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions raised concerns about the impact on students, as well as workers in education and aged care sectors.
“As the sun sets on this Parliament, [Morrison] is bringing forward a confusing and divisive bill that will increase discrimination and make workplaces less safe,” ACTU president Michele O’Neil said.
There’s strong opposition among the rank and file too, particularly in the party’s youth wings, according to NSW Young Labor VP Lachlan Good.
“I think the party is missing an opportunity to mobilise growing public outrage at this very cruel bill,” Good said.
“I think the party is understandably cautious in the lead-up to the election — but the reality is that people vote on the basis of what you stand for. It’s important to move beyond the inanity of the culture war and establish ourselves as moral leaders.”
This is Tampa all over again. Vote for something that is absolutely morally wrong because you are afraid of losing votes and you think your traditional voters are rusted on. Lose anyway because those people you sought to attract were never going to vote for you, and everyone else lost all respect for you. Chase pointless votes and lose your soul. Labor decided on this strategy decades ago. It seems that they still haven’t seen the error of their ways. They are being put to shame by Liberal moderates, as they have been over the past decades on the asylum seeker issue.
Rudd also succumbed to this in declaring climate change action a moral imperative, then dropping it when it got difficult. His reputation never recovered.
Agree entirely, VJ. I’d like to see Labor actually stand up for some of its traditional principles! they gain NOTHING by rolling over with the LNP so often – just seen as compliant lapdogs. Let’s see some spine to encourage some voter support . . . otherwise I might as well vote green or independent . .
They appear to be sticking with their “successful” strategy of “we’d rather give you fewer reasons to vote against us than give you any reasons to vote for us”. Going well so far…
How does it compare with Tampa? In 2001 Labor opposed the government’s handling of the Tampa crisis and used the Senate to vote down Howard’s Border Protection Bill. Labor then last the ensuing election.
So in 2001 Labor opposed the government doing something the public liked and lost an election despite being well ahead in the polls not long before.
In 2022 Labor looks like supporting something the public does not like shortly before an election where it is for now well ahead in the polls. (See The Conversation article today showing only 19% of Australians agree religious schools should be able to ban LGBT+ teachers) So if Labor manages to trash itself again it will still be quite different to Tampa.
It is profoundly depressing that Labor has become so convinced it must always cling on to the Coalition or face ruin that these days it follows along automatically even when the government is doing something both very wrong AND very unpopular.
I think what Labor are doing with their proposed amendments is quite a clever reverse wedge.
Scenario #1 – If their amendments are voted down in the House, they will still raise them in the Senate, if the Gov rejects them Labor can then vote against – if the whole business doesn’t run down the clock. Labor will present themselves as the reasonable ones trying to achieve a compromise for everyone while the Libs can be painted as christian takfiris. The whole affair can also be tied up in infinitesimal details which will quickly send everyone but the most enthusiastic partisans to sleep.
Result – a Lib propaganda weapon largely neutralised.
Bonus – Labor can bang on about how when there are so many really pressing issues needing attention the Libs are hung up on looking into school kids’ underpants.
Scenario #2 – Some Libs cross the floor, and the Labor amendments get up.
Result – Lib propaganda weapon neutralised
Bonus – A very public split in the worst government since the last worst government while Labor look magisterial.
It’s not perfect. I get that. Will a Labor government be a constant source of disappointment and surrender on critical issues? Certainly. Do I really want to see the Morrison abomination returned?
Thanks for that, Griselda. It helped mitigate my disappointment and disgust in Labor. Yes, they’re far, far from perfect and my disappointment and disgust will be ongoing under a Labor government, but it would still be a damned sight better than what we have now. Give them a decent term instead of the usual day pass and they might even be able to govern. They’d need at least three terms, though, and they won’t get it.
I really, really hope that Labor finds its spine. But fear…
… also losing its moral compass?
So much for the moving speech from Labor frontbencher Stephen Jones over the tragic death of his gay nephew due to suicide, resonating within their own party.
When interviewed by the ABC’s Jane Norman on a panel with Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching and National’s Senator Susan McDonald, after the National Press Club, Senator Kitching referred to Jones’ nephew as his “son”!
My understanding is that this legislation, as it now stands, protects the rights of religious organisations from discrimination whilst giving them the right to discriminate?
The best the Labor Party can do is stall further with amendments, instead of abandoning it.
I understand one of Stephen Jones sons is also gender uncertain – as was his nephew.
Spine? Maybe not. More like, Labor is just working steadily through the obscene calculus of “adult faith votes” versus “persecuting vulnerable kids”.
When you consider that migrant faith votes are concentrated in swing suburban electorates, I wouldn’t necessarily assume that this hated and hateful bill is a disaster for Morrison.
Interesting isn’t it, the publicly expressed obsession of ‘conservative’ politics, religion with sexual oppression. It’s almost pathological; and yet, behind those lace curtains….
Oh Pleeease Tony – don’t put these images in my head before Lunchtime :-(.
Yes, they seem obsessed with other people’s sex lives. And obsessed with other people’s genitals.
Oh, please. It was Labor’s principled support for making same-sex marriage a legal form of marriage that created a swing against it in some Western Sydney, where that was opposed by religious groups and individuals. This is not what lost the 2019 election for the ALP. It is plain cowardly for a political party to rummage through all the reasons why it lost support in this or that group and neutralise it to play it safe or to pretend that you let the issue go because people don’t want you to talk about it. That is a pathetic reason to let all issues go. Who would vote for a spineless opposition that is incapable of addressing issues that the government will not address properly, because it fears loss of votes? For the Liberal member from Tasmania, Bridget Archer, it is obvious that humiliating, offensive and vilifying comments are not made less harmful to those singled out, simply by pointing to some religious text that supports the humiliation, offence or vilification. Nor do such claims do any less harm, if they are uttered by someone, who simply claims that they did not intend to humiliate, offend or vilify, when they do in fact do so, regardless of their intentions. Certainly, though discrimination against people on the grounds of their faith is, believers in Islam apart, mostly a thing of the past, all that is needed is that discrimination against people on the basis of their religion be unlawful, except when people of faith are restrained from harming others because their religion tells them to harm them. People who deserve to be protected from discrimination should not find that Australian law denies them that protection from believers in some faith, which tells the believer that they should discriminate against them. The ALP recognised that there was no good reason on the basis of human rights to deny recognition of same sex marriage. It should not pass unamended this “religious freedom” bill that allows believers in some faith or other to deny people that recognition.
Correction: “The ALP EVENTUALLY recognised that there was no good reason on the basis of human rights to deny recognition of same sex marriage.” after Rudd and Gillard prevaricated while they were in power.
Indeed. Back in 2010 even Penny Wong was a good loyal Labor soldier and stood firm with the rest of the Gillard government against same sex marriage. She told Channel 10 back then, “On the issue of marriage I think the reality is there is a cultural, religious, historical view around that which we have to respect.”
And other good Labor soldiers halted their personal presence at LGBTQ community events for years and sent office flacks to wave placards with their boss’s face.
What I said is not inconsistent with recognising that the ALP prevaricated for years on the issue. It is only to say most ALP parliamentarians saw no good reason to deny legal recognition to same-sex marriage when the referendum was held and that all of them voted for recognition after the referendum result. The ALP is perfectly capable of political cowardice but, occasionally, they stand up for what is just.
They occasionally do the right thing but only after exhausting all other alternatives.
Labor must not vote for this! On the contrary, the existing s38 exemptions for religious schools in the federal SDA are a bloody outrage and should be expunged. Or here’s another solution. You want to discriminate/have exemptions from the anti-discrimination laws passed in our supposed secular democracy then you can for-bloody-go public funding. Pump out all the bigotry and prejudice you want, but not on the public tab. Keerist this makes makes me cross.