The Catholic sector has welcomed enhanced powers to hire and fire teachers based on “ethos” as Scott Morrison moved to reassure that gay students would not be worse off under the government’s religious discrimination overhaul.
Morrison on Thursday introduced the Coalition’s religious discrimination bill almost three years after it was first promised. The prime minister said the “soul and the spirit” of an individual needed to be protected like other personal attributes and the bill would be a foil to “cancel culture” by preventing marginalisation of people of faith.
Staring down an internal revolt over stalled changes to protect gay students, also promised in 2018, Morrison told the parliament that “nothing in this bill allows for any form of discrimination against a student on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity”.
The Equality Australia chief executive, Anna Brown, noted LGBTQ+ students can already be expelled under carve-outs in the sex discrimination act and the bill failed to remedy that. She warned the bill would “wind back hard-fought protections for women, people with disability, LGBTIQ+ people, and even people of faith” by licensing religious speech targeting those groups.
The package will allow schools to discriminate on the grounds of religion in their hiring, provided they publish a public policy explaining their ethos.
A new clause would allow the federal government to override a state law on educational institutions’ employment practices by...
A Wixom, Michigan, business accused of making false statements to obtain a loan has agreed to pay a settlement of just over $1.5 million after it was sued by the federal government, according to th...