The following is from an Australian Senator bringing her constituents up to date  concerning the Religious Freedom Bill.  This will not turn out good for those who have religious beliefs based on the Christian Scriptures. As Paul wrote in Romans 1:18, 24, 26, 27 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Here is what the Senator wrote; ‘Australians of family and faith want to be able to live their lives in accordance with their faith and their convictions.  The growing body of cases in Australia of people facing harassment, intimidation and persecution because of their religious beliefs and actions highlights the need for positive religious freedom laws.  Some are even losing their livelihoods.
Indeed, since the 2017 same-sex marriage campaign and postal survey, people who hold and practice traditional values of marriage and family have been intimidated and harassed.

When freedom of speech, thought, conscience and belief is framed only as an “exemption” to other rights, they are “read down” against positive rights, rendering them subordinate to those other rights.  A regime of positive rights in the form of religious freedom legislation would give greater effect to the right to manifest one’s freedom of thought, conscience and belief as outlined in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Consequently, in June 2019, I launched a petition in the Australian Senate calling for the enactment of a Religious Freedoms Act to protect the right to freedom of speech, thought, conscience and religion.
To date more than 30,000 original hardcopy signatures have been tabled in the Senate and I thank you to those of you who have signed my petition.  My petition is ongoing and more signatures will be tabled this year.
I have continued to regularly speak in the Senate and in other forums on the need for protection of religious freedom as well as working with faith leaders and their communities toward this end.

On 29 August 2019, the Federal Government released its first exposure draft of the Religious Discrimination Bills.  Following almost 6,000 submissions and strong pressure from religious leaders, experts and stakeholders from across the faith spectrum, on 10 December 2019, the Federal Government released its second exposure draft of the Religious Discrimination Bills.

The second exposure draft Bills are available at: http://ag.gov.au/Consultations/Pages/religious-freedom-bills-second-exposure-drafts.aspx

Whilst the Second Draft did address some changes, there are still major issues of concern including:

1. The current draft bills DO NOT include or define religious bodies as being involved in “commercial activities”.  Therefore, no full legal protection is provided to aged care facilities, retirement villages, residential colleges, school boarding houses, camps, conference facilities or marriage counselling organisations being operated by religious organisations.  Protections should extend to all bodies which are conducted in accordance with, or in furtherance of, the doctrines, tenets and beliefs of a religion.  That a religious body pursuing a religious purpose could cease to be a religious body because of “commercial activities” is deeply problematic.  The solution is to ensure the commercial activities test MUST be removed.

2. The current draft bills DO NOT provide legal protections from discrimination to religious corporate bodies and unincorporated associations.  The definition of “persons” should not just include corporate bodies, but there needs to be a mechanism by which a religious belief can be attributed to a corporate body in light of judicial rulings that a corporate body cannot have a belief.  The solution is to ensure religious corporate bodies and religious unincorporated associations MUST be protected.

3. The current draft bills DO NOT provide full legal protections to religious bodies to preference the employment of staff that support the religious ethos of the organisation as well as to religious bodies to preference people of faith in the use of their facilities.   This should include any consequential amendments to the Fair Work Act and the Sex Discrimination Act.  The proposal that faith-based aged care, retirement villages and hospitals only be permitted to discriminate in respect of employment, but not services, will seriously compromise their ability to act consistently with their religious ethos.  The solution is to ensure religious bodies MUST be afforded full legal protections to preference the employment of staff that support their religious ethos as well as preference people of faith in the use of their facilities

4. The current draft bills DO NOT extend to State vilification laws.    “Vilify” needs to be defined to remove the implication that “causing harm” amounts to vilification.  The interaction between the protection of statements of belief and the protections to employees against indirect religious discrimination needs greater clarity.  The “reasonableness test” (clause 8) leaves open the prospect that an employer may dismiss an employee, or a professional may have their accreditation removed, even though their statement of belief is protected under clause 42.  The solution is for the protection for statements of belief MUST NOT be removed or watered down but extended to include State vilification laws.

5. The current draft bills DO NOT provide protections for employees to make statements of faith at their workplace or private time without fear of retribution from their employer (no freedom of speech or religion).  It will not protect you from being the next Israel Folau!  Concerns remain with the $50M threshold, the principle of “unjustifiable financial hardship”, and the fact that the current drafting may in fact incentivise secondary boycotts and third-party activism.  They should also apply to persons irrespective of the turnover of their employer and whether they are engaged by government.  Also, reasonable statements of belief should be protected from adverse discriminatory action by qualifying bodies and others (not just employers).  In order to provide adequate protection, the protections to employees and professionals should extend to reasonable statements of belief made inside and outside the workplace or in the course of their profession.  The solution is to ensure genuine statements of belief MUST be protected across the board inside and outside work.

6. The current draft bills DO NOT override State laws, which gives too much power to State Governments that may be hostile to religion to pass laws prohibiting certain activities.  The definition of “religious activity” should exclude “criminal” rather than “unlawful” activity.  “Criminal activity” means activity that constitutes a criminal offence under the laws of the Commonwealth or any State or Territory.  Whilst the Second Draft excludes council by-laws from lawful religious activity, it otherwise allows State or Territory laws to override the Bill.  For example, the Victorian and Queensland Governments have recently proposed to ban conversion therapy (which is so broadly defined that it includes traditional religious teaching on sexuality and prayer and pastoral care based on that teaching).  Such core traditional religious practices may be made unlawful by State laws and the Bill would provide no protection to religious bodies or individuals from discrimination.  Further, courts have taken restrictive views of what comprises ‘religious activity’, confining that notion to prayer, worship or the observance of religious rituals or customs.  This interpretation has the potential to exclude religious statements on matters such as marriage, gender or the family from the Bill’s protections, or to exclude religiously motivated acts, or to exclude refusals to perform ‘secular’ acts that are contrary to religious teaching.  In light of this jurisprudence, such activities should be clearly included within the protected notion of ‘religious activity’.  The solution is to ensure draft bills MUST exclude only activities that are considered criminal offences.

7. The current draft bill contains a “reasonableness test” that TOO BROADLY permits “reasonable” policies and conditions that discriminate against religious people and organisations.  This leaves too much discretion to tribunals and courts to decide what is “reasonable”.  The “reasonableness test” for indirect discrimination and the “comparator test” for direct discrimination is too broad and leaves too much discretion to tribunals and courts to decide what is “reasonable” and is therefore inconsistent with the strict grounds for limiting religious manifestation in Article 18(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  Both tests will weaken the protections to religious believers.  The solution is to ensure draft bills MUST be strictly interpreted to international standards Australia has ratified as under Article 18(3) of the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights.

8. The current draft bills DO NOT provide legal and financial protections to Charitable organisations.  The Human Rights Legislation Amendment (Freedom of Religion) Bill 2019 proposes an amendment to the Charities Act 2013 (Cth) that will clarify that a charity may advocate for a traditional view of marriage and not fail the requirement that it conform to public policy.  This needs to be extended to ensure that a charity will not breach the public interest test and will not lose its tax-exempt status due to its traditional view of marriage.  The solution is for Charitable organisations espousing traditional views of family and faith MUST retain their charitable status without any qualifications, exemptions or exceptions.

9. The current draft bills DO NOT provide protections to individuals who may hold genuine beliefs (minority) that are not the view of a religious denomination (majority).  For example, an alternative point of view from a person in that particular denomination could be used to declare that individual’s belief as wrong.  The protections in the Bill to religious bodies and persons should not turn on whether ‘a person of the same religion … could reasonably consider [the conduct] to be in accordance’ with the beliefs.  The focus should remain on the sincerity of the belief, consistent with the approach taken amongst leading Anglophone Courts across the world, including the High Court in the Scientology Case.  The requirement that religious bodies and persons must act in ‘good faith’ may also allow the imposition of secular notions of reasonableness.  The solution is to ensure an individual’s genuinely held beliefs MUST be protected (a major hallmark of a mature and plural society).

10. The current draft bills DO NOT provide maximum protection to health practitioners who seek to exercise conscientious objections and they DO NOT provide protections to faith-based health institutions.  Conscientious protection offered to a limited number of health practitioners is insufficient.  The solution is to ensure health practitioners and faith-based health institutions MUST be protected to exercise conscientious objections’ https://mailchi.mp/1f1752e00177/religious-discrimination-2nd-draft-exposure-bill-more-work-needed?e=63ff15b667