Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Document 8 is the response of the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Steve Irons, to a Senate resolution made on 16 October. The Senate motion was asking the government to immediately introduce legislation which would abolish current exemptions that permit discrimination against LGBTI students and staff in religious schools and to immediately release the review into religious freedoms in compliance with the orders of the Senate on 19 and 20 September. That motion being brought to our attention again today draws attention to how long we have been asking for the immediate release of the review of religious freedoms. A full two months have now gone by since we attempted to get those documents through the order of production of documents process.

But I thought it was very appropriate to take note of this response which has landed today because of the hypocrisy it points to, given the government's appalling moves before question time today to throw off into the long grass this bill which seeks to remove discrimination against LGBTI students. On 13 November, a full three weeks ago, in his response to this Senate resolution, the Hon. Steve Irons, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, wrote:

It is important that anti-discrimination laws reflect community expectations.

Given concerns raised by recent misreporting, it is important that the protection of children is dealt with urgently to give much needed certainty. To this end, the Government proposes to introduce amendments to remove current exemptions for non-state schools to discriminate against students.

That was a full three weeks ago. Not only has the government not acted on that in the last three weeks but, today, when the Labor Party, supported by us and other crossbenchers, actually moved to legislate to make this real, the government completely stymied the whole process. This urgency is completely forgotten. It's going off to a committee which will report back sometime in the new year. It is appalling, and the hypocrisy is absolutely breathtaking.

The other hypocrisy which I think is breathtaking is also from the Labor Party. It was notable and quite timely to have the wording of this motion, which was a Labor motion that came from Senator Penny Wong. They were asking for the immediate introduction of legislation which would abolish exemptions that permit discrimination against LGBTI students and staff. As you know, the Greens—again, because government and Labor weren't acting on this—introduced our own legislation, within weeks of this motion's being put forward, that would remove exemptions that allow discrimination against both students and staff.

The Labor legislation that we were debating today, of course, only covered students, because it is not that convenient for them—they've got internal difficulties as to whether they support the removal of discrimination against teachers and, in fact, how urgent it is. We, as Greens, know that it is desperately urgent, because every day that goes by while schools are able to discriminate against students staff is a day when students are not feeling supported at school, students are being discriminated at schools, trans students aren't being supported and same-sex-attracted students aren't being supported and are fearful of coming out. Every day that goes by is also a day when teachers in religious schools aren't being supported, are being pressured into resigning or aren't able to be open about their same-sex relationships, because of this discrimination hanging over their heads.

I think it is very notable today, when we have had this complete uproar and debacle that has ended up with this urgent motion suddenly not being urgent at all, to be reminded of how, just six weeks ago, it was urgent for both the government and the Labor Party to be acting to remove discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and staff in schools. The Greens still think it's urgent, and we will be acting to keep that urgency. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.