Ending discrimination won't cause the sky to fall

Ahead of the release of Thursday's Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) report into discrimination by religious schools against LGBTQ students and teachers, the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart Julian Porteous claimed that "the proposed ALRC changes constitute a most serious threat to the existence of our schools".

Christian Schools Australia have joined the chorus, expressing extreme alarm about losing their right to discriminate.

We need to call this scaremongering out. The sky is not falling.

What is being proposed is not new.

The majority of Australian states and territories removed exceptions that allowed religious schools to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity years ago.

The changes being proposed would ensure consistent, national protection.

Here's how the ALRC described it:

"The implementation of the government's policy in accordance with the ALRC's recommendations would mean that under Federal law religious schools are in much the same position as all other schools, except that religious schools would not be prohibited by the Fair Work Act from being able to give preference in employment to a person of the same religion where that is reasonably necessary and proportionate to the school's objective of building a community of faith.

"No school would be permitted to discriminate against students or staff based on those attributes protected by the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA)."

In Archbishop Porteous' home state, Tasmania, LGBTQ students and teachers in religious schools have been protected against discrimination for more than two decades.

Has this resulted in the end of Catholic schools in his Diocese? Of course not.

Neither have religious schools been forced to close in other states and territories where protections exist.

Not in the ACT which has protected LGBTQ students and teachers for the past five years.

Nor in Victoria which passed similar changes in 2021.

Not the Northern Territory which did the same the following year, although they had protected LGBTQ students for two decades prior to that.

Nor in Queensland, which has also protected LGBTQ students since early this century and is currently consulting on additional changes to fully protect LGBTQ teachers.

In each of these places, the response by powerful religious institutions to proposed reforms was to claim schools would lose their 'special character' and be forced to consider closing.

But when change finally occurs the sky doesn't fall, and the school halls don't empty.

What happens is that students can go to school and learn and grow, knowing the law protects them from mistreatment because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

While teachers can give priority to educating kids, without expending energy having to hide who they are.

As the ALRC itself found:

"The evidence available ... suggests that any detriment to religious educational institutions under [its] recommended reforms would be minor, and would be less significant than detriments experienced by students and staff in religious educational institutions under existing legislative exceptions."

Children and teachers must not be kept waiting any longer for this basic reform.

Then-prime minister Scott Morrison promised to protect LGBTQ students in religious schools against discrimination way back in October 2018, claiming laws would be introduced before the end of that year.

That never happened.

Instead, students who were in Year 7 then finished high school last year, without protection against discrimination for a single day of their education.

In 2022, Labor made a clear election commitment to fix this issue.

In November 2022 the ALRC was asked to inquire and has finally delivered its report, showing us the way this can be achieved.

Enough is enough.

Every student, in every classroom around the country, must have the right to learn without the fear of being discriminated against because of who they are.

Every teacher must be hired on the basis of their ability to educate our children, not irrelevant attributes like their sexual orientation and gender identity.

The changes recommended by the ALRC to the Sex Discrimination Act and Fair Work Act should be passed by Commonwealth Parliament as a matter of urgency.

Not only will the sky not fall: for many Australians it will mean they finally get to live their lives under blue skies, not threatening clouds of grey.