Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

Subject to amendments that Labor will move to the government's amendments—that's a single amendment we've got to move to the next group, technically, just for the assistance of the clerks—which relates to statement of belief, Labor supports all of the modest but worthwhile amendments that the government has circulated. Most of them are relatively minor and noncontentious, and address most of the recommendations that were made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. They include amending the indirect discrimination provisions of the Religious Discrimination Bill so that, in determining if a condition, requirement or practice imposed on a person resulted in indirect discrimination, the person who imposes or proposes to impose the conditional requirement or practice has the burden of proving it was reasonable. That deals with what was in fact a drafting omission in the bill.

Some of the amendments, consistent with other Commonwealth antidiscrimination statutes, remove the power of the Attorney-General to vary or overrule a decision by the Human Rights Commission to grant a temporary exemption from the Religious Discrimination Act. Other amendments, consistent with other Commonwealth antidiscrimination statutes, require the Human Rights Commission to publish explanatory material in relation to any temporary exemption granted under the Religious Discrimination Act. A further amendment provides that in respect of employment related conduct engaged in by a religious body in accordance with a publicly available policy and removes the power of the minister to determine requirements of the body's policy.

There's tweaking to the drafting to clauses 11 and 12 of the bill to address a constitutional issue that a number of legal experts had raised almost as soon as the bill was introduced to the parliament. Certainly those constitutional concerns were repeated through the two committee hearings that were held over the summer by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and by the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee. Those tweaks relate to the way in which clauses 11 and 12 purported to override state laws.

As will be evident to anyone who's read the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, some of these amendments go further than what the committee had recommended. For example, the committee didn't recommend removing the power of the Attorney-General to vary or overrule a decision by the Human Rights Commission to grant a temporary exemption from the religious discrimination act. Labor suggested this amendment to the government, and I thank the Attorney-General for agreeing to move it. Also at Labor's urging, the Attorney-General has agreed to amend clause 68 of the bill, which will assist in clarifying that, other than for clauses 11 and 12 of the bill, no other provision of the Religious Discrimination Bill will override any state or territory antidiscrimination law—which should put to rest some very strong concerns that were expressed about the reach of this Religious Discrimination Bill. Finally, the government has agreed to a suggestion by the Australian Industry Group of a "reasonable management action" carried out to comply with the legal duties of employers under Australian law.

I foreshadow that, when the next group of amendments is moved by the minister, I will move an amendment to those amendments; they're not in this first group.

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