Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Equality Australia recently published a report, Dismissed, denied and demeaned. This report laid out just how rife discrimination against queer students and staff in religious schools can be. It's appalling that our current laws allow for staff to be fired for coming out and for students to be expelled for coming out. This report found that LGBTIQA+ students are more likely to attend an independent school that discriminates against them than one which supports them. Here are a few examples from this report of what's going on at the moment:

Daniel did not apply to renew his teaching contract at a Christian school in Queensland after he was told in 2015 by the principal to stop being openly gay.

Karen was fired from her role as a teacher in 2020 at a tertiary college in Sydney after she became engaged to her same-sex partner.

Steph was fired from her role as an English teacher at a Christian school in Sydney in 2021 after she came out as a lesbian. The school argued that she was required to attend a church that believed in the immorality of homosexuality and 'prayerfully live a celibate life' to work there.

And let's not forget what happened at Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane just two years ago. Parents were forced to sign a declaration that compared homosexuality to bestiality, incest and paedophilia to keep their children enrolled at the school. Teachers were forced to agree that they could not express their sexuality except through heterosexual married relationships.

In a country like Australia, our laws should protect all of us equally. A recent poll commissioned by Just.Equal found that more than half of Australians oppose laws allowing these schools to legally sack or refuse to hire teachers on the basis of sexuality and gender identity, with a further 65 per cent of people opposing exemptions allowing faith based social services such as hospitals and disability services the right to discriminate based on sexuality and gender identity.

Earlier this year, the Australian Law Reform Commission released their report into discrimination in religious schools, with a clear road map to fixing this country's outdated antidiscrimination laws. People of faith should be free to practise their religion without fear of harm or prejudice, and people from all protected groups should have the right to feel secure in their employment without fear of being fired just for who they are. Let's not forget in this debate that queer religious people also exist. How are they meant to engage with their communities of faith when laws like this continue to exist?

The Greens have been clear from day one that we want to work with the Labor government and the crossbench to deliver these important reforms as soon as possible. Passing these protections was a Labor election commitment, and suddenly pledging that the government will only do it with the coalition's support is incredibly frustrating when we are right here, willing to give you the numbers, and a clear majority of the public support the recommendations in the ALRC report.