Redraft specifies that medical practitioners cannot object to treating people based on gender or other characteristics

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

The federal government will enshrine religious institutions’ ability to discriminate against staff on the basis of religion but has narrowed a controversial proposal to allow medical practitioners to object to treating patients.

On Tuesday the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and the attorney general, Christian Porter, unveiled changes designed to respond to a revolt from conservative religious organisations against the religious discrimination bill which caused the Coalition to miss its deadline of introducing the bill to parliament by year’s end.

Porter said the changes would not “change the operation, the objectives or the overarching structure of the bill” but would “improve a range of very important clauses”.

The bill was welcomed by religious groups, condemned by the Greens and LGBTI groups, and noted by Labor, which reiterated its position that the government should not “compromise existing anti-discrimination protections”.

The bill, designed to eliminate discrimination on the basis of religion, will include provisions allowing religious hospitals, aged care facilities and accommodation providers such as retirement homes to preference members of their own faith to preserve their “religious ethos”.

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It will also ensure that the exemption for religious institutions to allow discrimination in staffing extends to “public benevolent institutions”, such as the St Vincent de Paul Society.

The second draft includes extending the right to discriminate based on religion to religious camps and conference centres – including against their prospective customers – provided they publish a policy explaining their ethos and rules. The change responds to the Sydney Anglican church’s complaint that the original bill would have forced them to rent campsites to Satanists.

Religious institutions will also be protected from discrimination claims when they take “actions that they might need to take to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherence of their faith”.

Porter described these as the “most important changes” which responded to “real world day-to-day” examples from religious organisations about how they operate.

The bill will also contain a protection for “associates of religious individuals” to protect people from discrimination based on the religion of their friends or relatives, such as discrimination against a woman because she married a Muslim man.

The Coalition has proposed adding an objects clause to all federal discrimination laws that “all human rights have equal status under international law”, a change which LGBTI advocates have warned is designed to undermine the right to non-discrimination.

The new bill will impose a further restriction on qualifying bodies – such as those that admit doctors and lawyers to practise – stipulating they cannot impose rules such as social media codes of conduct restricting statements of belief unless they are an “essential requirement” of the profession.

But it will also address human rights groups’ concerns that conscientious objection provisions would erect barriers to healthcare by overriding professional or employer obligations to treat patients.

The provisions will specify that the bill does not give a right to medical practitioners to discriminate against individuals based on gender or other characteristics.

They will also narrow the range of medical practitioners who can object to procedures to nurses, midwives, doctors, psychologists and pharmacists, removing dentists, occupational therapists, optometrists, physiotherapists and podiatrists.

The bill will also narrow the so-called “Folau clause”, so that employers are prohibited from setting a rule that indirectly discriminates on religion only where the rule is “other than in the course of the employee’s employment”.

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Porter said the change was meant to prohibit rules regulating what employees said in their “spare time” but allow employers to continue to regulate activities connected to work, such as office Christmas parties.

Discrimination law academics and employer groups, including the Australian Industry Group and Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had warned the bill would prevent them setting policies designed to create safe and inclusive workplaces.

Porter said the bill will also clarify that where courts have to determine what is “reasonably in accordance with the doctrines and tenets” of a religion it will use the average person of the same religion as the test.

A requirement that a religious practice must comply with Australian laws will now no longer apply “down to the level of council bylaws”, he said.

The original bill faced an impossible path through parliament with even senior Labor right figure Chris Bowen describing it as “friendless” and crossbench senators Rex Patrick and Jacqui Lambie questioning the need for it.

On Tuesday Christian Schools Australia’s director of public policy, Mark Spencer, immediately welcomed the changes, suggesting the government had “listened to the concerns of faith communities” and is now “well on the way” to getting the bill right.

Equality Australia chief executive, Anna Brown, said the changes create “double standards in the law, allowing religious organisations the ability to discriminate against others” and allowing street-preachers to break laws that non-religious people must follow.

“The statements of belief clauses immunise people who intimidate others from being held to account through anti-discrimination laws, and by their relevant professional bodies,” she said.

Greens justice spokesman Nick McKim said the changes “massively widened the scope of the legislation … [increasing] the number of organisations that will be able to discriminate”.