The Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party (CLP) government is set to break a significant election promise to religious communities and others who send their children to faith-based schools.
You might recall that at the end of 2022, the territory’s then-Labor government introduced sweeping changes to the anti-discrimination laws, including repealing protections for religious schools.
The 2022 changes to the law removed the ability for religious schools to preference staff members who shared the same faith of the school. It also removed any ability for religious schools to “discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The proposals were so egregious that Bishop Charles Gauci publicly contemplated closing the schools.
“Look if I cannot have a faith school to be a genuine faith school, where it’s respectful of everybody, where we give people an idea of other people’s beliefs as well … If I cannot have that, then of course what’s the point of having them? We would have to close them, I think, seriously consider closing them and then all the kids would have to go to the State schools,” he said at the time.
The CLP, which was in opposition at the time, voted against the bill and promised to overturn it if elected in 2024, with then-Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro saying it eroded freedom of religion.
Religious schools had cause to be quietly confident, then, when the CLP was elected and Finocchiaro became Chief Minister.
Their confidence was shattered this past week, however, with the CLP government releasing its plans to amend the legislation.
Far from overturning the 2022 laws, the proposed changes would only restore the right of a religious school to prefer staff of the same religion in limited circumstances, only governing conduct while the staff member was at school, and only if the school comes up with a written policy that outlines the elements of religious doctrine with which staff are expected to comply.
On its face, this could work well, particularly for Catholic schools, because they could just identify the Catechism as our “policy document” and indicate an expectation that staff would comply with it.
But the Northern Territory’s Anti-Discrimination Commission has made it clear that it won’t be that simple, and that religious doctrine cannot be used to backdoor in broader protections than the commission is willing to grant.
A fact sheet accompanying the release of the bill specifies that “schools cannot discriminate on any other ground… ie, preferentially hiring someone who is married rather than living with a partner (whether this complies with the religious doctrine of the institution.)”
It also says that a school cannot make requirements about conduct at school that relate to any other protected attribute, “ie. a requirement that LGBTIQ+ teachers do not disclose their sexual orientation or speak about their relationship while at the workplace.”
To be clear, by only using examples related to marriage and sexuality to illustrate its point, it was the Anti-Discrimination Commission and not the schools that focused this discussion (once again) on the LGBTIQ+ community.
Essentially, the Anti-Discrimination Commission is saying that a school can prefer a teacher of the same faith, but you just can’t stop them from actively undermining the teachings of the faith around marriage and sexuality once they step through the doors because this would be a form of discrimination.
This is the same doublespeak that was proposed by the Australian Law Reform Commission. Mercifully, though, the ALRC’s thought experiment was resoundingly rejected.
The need for religious schools to retain their rights in anti-discrimination law is not about a search-and-destroy mission against staff according to their relationship status. It is about giving a school the ability to deal with activist teachers who deliberately seek employment in religious schools in order to make a point.
It happens rarely, but it does happen, and the Anti-Discrimination Commission’s fact sheet makes it clear that protection of activists is an intended consequence of these changes.
This is about religious schools being treated differently.
Anti-discrimination law generally gives political parties the right to exclude an employee who does not share the political views of the party, and we know that parties can expel MPs who cross the floor on contentious legislation.
If political parties can understand why they need this type of right, it is only wilful blindness that can explain their failure to see an equivalent need for religious schools.
Voters in the 2024 election were led to believe the CLP saw that need and were willing to do something about it. Unfortunately, they were sold a dud.
