Senior WA Liberal Mathias Cormann says atheists should be protected from discrimination in Australia, just like people of faith.

Speaking on the ABC’s Insiders program this morning, Mr Cormann said the Morrison Government was keen to push ahead with plans to introduce a Religious Discrimination Act.

It was an election commitment, deriving from Philip Ruddock’s religious freedom review, which was completed last year.

“In the same way as we have a Sex Discrimination Act and the Racial Discrimination Act and the like, we believe that people ought to be protected from discrimination based on religious belief through a Religious Discrimination Act,” Mr Cormann said.

“It’s to ensure that people are not subject to inappropriate, unacceptable levels of discrimination based on their religious belief, or based on not having any religious beliefs at all.”

Mr Cormann’s comment about the need to treat believers and non-believers equally risks becoming a thorny issue for the Government.

During the Federal Election campaign, Prime Minister Scott Morrison assured voters he was “passionate about freedom of religion”, including the freedom not to believe in a god.

“Whatever your faith may be, whether it’s Christian, whether it’s Islam, whether it’s Buddhist, or whichever it may be – and if it’s no religion at all – that is, I think, one of the most fundamental freedoms that any Australian has,” he said during the Brisbane Leaders’ Debate.

But there is disagreement within Coalition ranks about the extent to which religious “freedoms” ought to be extended to the workplace.

Religious schools fiercely defend their right to sack teachers whose lives or beliefs are contrary to theirs, including atheists and homosexuals – and the Government insists those schools’ religious rights will be protected under any legislation.

The Government also has to tackle with the question of employment contracts.

It’s to ensure that people are not subject to inappropriate, unacceptable levels of discrimination based on their religious belief, or based on not having any religious beliefs at all.

The controversy surrounding Rugby Australia’s decision to sack Israel Folau for posting comments on social media that gay people would go to hell has sparked debate about contractual obligations of employees toward their employers.

Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz has written to the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman asking them to investigate Rugby Australia’s decision to terminate Folau’s contract, saying it could have been a breach of the Fair Work Act.

And NSW MP Barnaby Joyce has used the Folau case to call his Coalition colleagues to include far-reaching provisions in any religious freedom legislation to exempt religious beliefs from employment contracts.

But Attorney-General Christian Porter appeared to squash Mr Joyce’s idea last week, when he told 6PR radio that the Government wasn’t in the business of inserting itself into private negotiations over employment contracts.

“People enter into employment contracts of their own volition all the time, and contracts of a number of types with a number of terms,” Mr Porter said.

“What I would say is that we're not necessarily in the business in government of trying to prevent individuals privately contracting the terms of their employment in a fair and balanced and reasonable way with their employer in a range circumstances.”