Former PM wants funding denied to schools that don’t allow parents to withdraw children from ‘values-based’ classes • Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Malcolm Turnbull has brushed off a call from John Howard to remove federal funding from any school that does not allow parents to withdraw children from classes dealing with values-based topics like sexuality and gender.

In a submission to the Ruddock religious freedom review, which is due to report on Friday, Howard said that parents should have the right to withdraw their children from classes which “they might regard as incompatible with their values”.

He said the federal government should “make it a condition of funding for both government and non-government schools that parental rights of this kind be respected”.

On Tuesday Turnbull told 3AW Radio in Melbourne that Howard’s proposal was not being considered because the prime minister was “not aware” of any schools where parents did not already have the ability to take their kids out of sex education.

“I think the universal practice around the country is to give parents that right, as they should have that right,” he said.

Howard’s submission to the review also echoed calls from the Catholic church and Christian Schools Australia to give religious schools and welfare organisations a positive right to hire and fire staff, rather than a “potentially temporary reprieve from dragnet anti-discrimination legislation”.

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LGBTI groups have called on the government to repeal the discrimination law exemptions which allow hiring and firing of teachers and expulsion of students based on sexuality.

A YouGov Galaxy poll conducted for LGBTI lobby group Just Equal found that as many as four in five Australians opposed the ability of schools to expel students for their sexuality and disapproved of the Catholic church’s threat during the marriage law postal survey to sack gay teachers, nurses and other staff if they engaged in civil same-sex weddings in breach of church doctrine.

Howard noted that political parties were allowed to discriminate based on the political beliefs of potential employees and argued that the same “common sense view” should also apply to religious organisations.

Howard said that these changes should be made in a way that overrode state and territory anti-discrimination laws.

The former Liberal prime minister said his submission amounted to a “bare-bones approach” because more comprehensive law reform to protect religious freedom would not have “much prospect” of passing both the lower house and Senate.

Submissions from religious organisations including the Anglican Church of Sydney and the Freedom for Faith lobby group have called for the “freedom of parents to ensure that their child’s religious and moral education is in accordance with their convictions” and an “anti-detriment” provision to prevent religious bodies losing funding or accreditation.

Those provisions replicate amendments proposed in the conservative Paterson same-sex marriage bill, which were defeated before marriage equality was legislated.

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The Ruddock review has received more than 16,000 submissions and is due to report on Friday, although the government has made no commitment about when it intends to release and respond to the report.

Despite warnings that religious freedom is under threat, the evidence received by the review has been mixed.

A group of Anglican deans, including the dean of Brisbane, Peter Catt, said that there was “insufficient evidence to make the case that religious freedom is under serious threat” from the legislation of marriage equality.

Boris Dittrich, Human Rights Watch’s LGBTI advocacy director, told Guardian Australia that the government should improve data collection to help it balance the rights of religious freedom and non-discrimination.

“Are we talking about big problems or is it more a theoretical discussion? A debate based on facts might help debunking myths and stereotypes,” he said.

“So my suggestion would be to frequently collect cases of discrimination based on religious freedom and based on sexual orientation/gender identity and debate these results.”