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Coalition needs a ‘lean clean’ Religious Discrimination Bill for it to be passed

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Anything other than a "lean clean" Religious Discrimination Bill is not going to attract enough crossbenchers for the Coalition to get the legislation up, according to Jesuit Priest and Professor of Law Fr Frank Brennan. It comes as a revised version of the Religious Discrimination Bill, aimed at putting an end to discrimination against people on the grounds of their religious beliefs, is set to return to parliament next week. The Coalition has made several amendments to the Religious Discrimination Bill, scrapping the "Folau clause" and removing the ability for health providers to refuse treatment on the basis of "conscientious objection". Fr Brennan discussed how there was an initial appeal made by conservative religious groups to the Ruddock Committee for a Religious Freedom Act during former Attorney-General Christian Porter's tenure. He said the appeal was subsequently rejected because Australia did not have a national bill of rights – but rather a set of anti-discrimination laws to honour its international obligations. It followed then that religious issues should be dealt in the same way as matters like sex, gender, age, disability – with a discrimination bill. Fr Brennan said Mr Porter at the time put forward a discrimination bill that added on extras to deal with cases such as those brought forward by Israel Folau and Tasmanian Archbishop Julian Porteous. A religious discrimination bill with these add-ons, he said, was of little interest to crossbenchers in the Senate such as Senators Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick. "Anything additional to what I would just call a simple 'lean clean' Religious Discrimination Bill, I don't think is going to attract the crossbenchers in sufficient numbers for the Coalition to get it up," Fr Brennan told Sky News Australia.

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Anything other than a “lean clean” Religious Discrimination Bill is not going to attract enough crossbenchers for the Coalition to get the legislation up, according to Jesuit Priest and Professor of Law Fr Frank Brennan….



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