Public Interest Advocacy Centre chief executive Jonathon Hunyor said the law currently states you can’t be treated less favourably than another person on the basis of your sex.

“If I, as a manager, was constantly interrupting women and putting them down, that would be something that would adversely affect them at work and would be something that someone could complain about and seek to stop. [But this legislation] says you can’t do this if it is a statement of belief, and that is a significant change,” Hunyor told BuzzFeed News. He added that in his view the proposed law encourages “statements that are maybe offensive or insulting or demeaning”.

So how does the bill decide whether the off comment your colleague just made is in line with their religion?

The statement must be made in good faith and is a belief that a person of the same religion could reasonably consider to be in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of that religion. This has been dubbed the “phone a friend” clause as the person only needs a single other person to vouch that the belief is part of their shared religion.

“It isn’t even that you look for it in the Bible or look for it in the Quran, but you [only] have to find one other person,” Hunyor said. “Look at the radicalisation of religious views in the [United] States and you can see where this can go.”

Hunyor said most people don’t complain about discrimination when it happens so “the normative value of the law” — what people think is or isn’t permitted — is really important. “Most people don’t understand existing law generally so what we think it says is really important and it sets a standard for behaviour,” he said. “If we say religious views are judged by a different standard, that sends a terrible message.”

According to attorney-general Christian Porter, the hypothetical scenario will not happen. He said “it might surprise some of the bill’s more heated critics” to learn the bill does not permit behaviour that one would ordinarily expect to be the subject of a complaint in an Australian workplace.

“It does not change employers’ power to make reasonable rules that apply at work,” Porter told BuzzFeed News. “It does not permit bullying or harassment.

“It does not permit women or minorities to be targeted in the workplace, or indeed limit employers’ ability to run appropriate, sensitive, compassionate workplaces as we’d all expect.”

The bill gives effect to a “very simple rule”, he said: “You don’t discriminate by explaining what you believe, if you do so in an ordinary, civil and respectful way.”

This should be not surprising in a multicultural, multi-faith country, he added. Porter also said that the bill would prevent the legal system being used to “stifle religious expression”.



“We don’t want the UK experience, where a person can be barred from their profession and dragged through three and a half years of litigation on the basis of anonymous complaints.”