“Let’s not jump to things, let’s do what’s necessary here and that’s engage in the consultation process with all the different stakeholders in our community who will be affected by the amended arrangements that have gone through the house,” she told reporters on Thursday morning.
Senator Stoker said she does not want to see the bill “doing anything less than it does”.
Minister for Superannuation Jane Hume said the government did not have the same numbers in the House of Representatives as it does in the Senate where the bill will be debated again, but the government’s election promise to protect the rights of religious people will be kept.
“I’m absolutely certain that at the end of the day when the bill passes both houses of Parliament that we’ll land on the right decision,” she told ABC News Breakfast on Thursday morning.
Five Liberal backbenchers – Bridget Archer, Trent Zimmerman, Fiona Martin, Katie Allen and Dave Sharma – crossed the floor overnight to vote against the government and repeal section 38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act, despite Mr Morrison urging Coalition members to show a united front on the law.
Minister for Women’s Safety Anne Ruston said the Liberal and National parties allowed people to vote according to their beliefs and values.
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“That was quite an acceptable thing for our backbenchers to do last night,” she said on ABC’s RN Breakfast on Thursday morning.
The Australian Christian Lobby has decried the bill in its new form, saying the voting down of section 38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act – which allows religious schools to discriminate against students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or relationship status or pregnancy – completely undermined the law.
“The bills were intended to help faith-based schools, but they now do more harm than good,” the lobby’s director of politics Wendy Francis said. “With the amendments so damaging to religious freedom, the government should immediately withdraw the bills.”
National LGBTQI group Equality Australia welcomed the changes to the Sex Discrimination Act, but said the Senate should remove the provisions that would allow the bill override existing state laws.
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“Today, many young gay and trans people will wake up and feel like they belong, thanks to those MPs that stood on the courage of their convictions for equality,” chief executive Anna Brown said.
“But it’s extremely disappointing that some of the same MPs did not take up the opportunity to also prevent the erosion of the hard-fought rights of LGBTIQ+ people, women, people with disability.”
Labor frontbencher Stephen Jones, who gave an emotional speech earlier this week asking the Prime Minister to step into his son’s heels, said the changes pushed through by the crossbench, Labor and the dissenting backbenchers were “incredibly significant”.
“We couldn’t have one law changed without the other law being improved to protect transgender, gay young people,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
Labor will push for further Religious Discrimination Bill amendments as it heads to Senate
Source: Philippines Alive
