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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Tuesday,

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Speaker 2: the eighteenth of April.

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Speaker 3: I'm Zara, I'm Sam.

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Speaker 2: Discrimination in schools is back in the news after the

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Speaker 2: Presbyterian Church of Australia called for the right to ban

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Speaker 2: LGBTQI plus and sexually active students from leadership positions, saying

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Speaker 2: that students who are actively gay or having unmarried straight

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Speaker 2: sex should not be school captains. This was part of

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Speaker 2: the Church's submission to a review of anti discrimination laws.

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Speaker 2: So what's being proposed and what's likely to happen moving forward, Well,

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Speaker 2: we're going to let you know in the deep But

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Speaker 2: first Sam the headlines.

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Speaker 3: A leading group campaigning for a no vote at this

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Speaker 3: year's referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament launched new

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Speaker 3: advertising material yesterday. The Recognize a Better Way campaign, which

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Speaker 3: is led by former politician Warren Mundine, has published new

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Speaker 3: commercials featuring what they describe as everyday First Nation's people

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Speaker 3: who disagree with the voice model proposed by the federal government.

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Speaker 3: The referendum will be staged later this year.

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Speaker 2: Scammers stole a record three point one billion dollars from

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Speaker 2: Ozzie's in twenty twenty two. That's according to a new

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Speaker 2: report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The highest

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Speaker 2: reported losses came through investment scams, remote access scams and

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Speaker 2: payment redirection schemes, while sms's text messages were the most

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Speaker 2: popular contact method for scammers. Australian's age sixty five and

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Speaker 2: over reported being scammed more than any other age group.

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Speaker 3: Long COVID symptoms have been found to be less prevalent

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Speaker 3: than long term symptoms of the flu. That's according to

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Speaker 3: a new study by the Queensland Government. It found twenty

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Speaker 3: one percent of people with the omicron strain of COVID

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Speaker 3: nineteen reported ongoing symptoms twelve weeks after their diagnosis, and

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Speaker 3: that's compared to twenty three percent of adults who have

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Speaker 3: the flu The study was conducted with about two thy

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Speaker 3: two hundred adults with COVID and almost one thousand with

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Speaker 3: the flu. At the time of the survey, ninety percent

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Speaker 3: of Queenslanders were vaccinated against COVID nineteen.

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Speaker 2: And the good news. I suspect we're going to be

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Speaker 2: hearing a lot about her this year. But Australian soccer

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Speaker 2: player Sam Kerr scored the winning goal for her English

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Speaker 2: team Chelsea in the semi final of the English FA

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Speaker 2: Football Association Cup against Aston Villa. Kerr was called the

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Speaker 2: best in the world by the opposing team's coach after

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Speaker 2: the game. Chelsea will now face Manchester United in the final,

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Speaker 2: which will be held at London's Wembley Stadium next month,

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Speaker 2: and then she'll be heading over to Australia soon after.

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Speaker 2: There's renewed controversy over a proposal to restrict religious schools

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Speaker 2: from discriminating against LGBTQI plus staff and students. The proposal

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Speaker 2: was prepared by the Australian Law Reform Commission, which we'll

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Speaker 2: call the ALRC during this pod at the request of

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Speaker 2: the federal government. Now several religious groups have expressed concern

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Speaker 2: about the proposal, while LGBTQI plus advocacy organizations have broadly

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Speaker 2: been in support of it.

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Speaker 3: Okay, and give me a sense of the broader context here.

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Speaker 3: Why is this a proposal that the government has asked for?

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Speaker 2: Okay? So to answer that, I feel like we need

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Speaker 2: to take a step back because we've been hearing about

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Speaker 2: this for a very long time in the news and

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Speaker 2: it can all get a bit confusing. So the first

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Speaker 2: thing to say is that Australia doesn't have a comprehensive

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Speaker 2: national human rights law. We're party to global human rights

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Speaker 2: treaties which protect a range of freedoms things like sexuality,

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Speaker 2: gender identity, and religion, but they're not always explicitly reflected

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Speaker 2: in Australian law. Now. Scott Morrison, when he was Prime Minister,

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Speaker 2: tried to introduce some new legal protections for people with

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Speaker 2: religious beliefs and that was called the Religious Discrimination Bill,

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Speaker 2: and we spoke about it a bunch of times also

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Speaker 2: on this pod. Morrison's bill proposed, among a host of

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Speaker 2: other things, allowing religious hospitals, aged care facilities and retirement

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Speaker 2: homes to preference members of the same religion. It also

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Speaker 2: proposed extending the ability of religious organizations to preference staff

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Speaker 2: of a specific religion. So if we take the example

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Speaker 2: of a Catholic religious school wanting to preference hiring Catholic teachers,

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Speaker 2: it's fair to say this proposed bill was fairly contentious,

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Speaker 2: especially for advocates from LGBTQI plus communities.

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Speaker 4: Scott Morrison promised us a bill that would prevent discrimination

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Speaker 4: against people because of their faith, and instead what we

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Speaker 4: have is a bill that allows discrimination in the name

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Speaker 4: of faith.

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Speaker 2: In response to the criticism that was leveled against him,

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Speaker 2: Scott Morrison did try to introduce further laws with protections

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Speaker 2: for some staff and students in the LGBTQI plus community,

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Speaker 2: but he didn't initially include trans children in his proposal.

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Speaker 2: This was Liberal and p Bridget Archer speaking in Parliament

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Speaker 2: at the time, well, some very pleased to say that

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Speaker 2: there would be an amendment to protect gay students.

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Speaker 3: I'm horrified to see that it doesn't extend to children

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Speaker 3: who identify as transgender.

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Speaker 2: In the end, that legislation that we've been speaking about

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Speaker 2: by Scott Morrison was shelved before the election last year,

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Speaker 2: which the Coalition then went on to.

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Speaker 3: Lose Okay, and today we have a labor government. So

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Speaker 3: when they came into power, how did they tackle this issue?

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Speaker 2: Well, Labor at the time had I guess a similar

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Speaker 2: position to Brigid Archer and those other liberals, supportive broadly

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Speaker 2: of the idea, but wanting to ensure protection for trans kids,

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Speaker 2: among other things. So they promised to pick up the

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Speaker 2: issue of religious freedoms when they won government, and they've

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Speaker 2: been decided to do that in two parts. They're going

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Speaker 2: to work on the religious protection parts separately. But in November,

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Speaker 2: Attorney General Mark Drefers asked the ALARC to develop a

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Speaker 2: proposal for a law to protect LGBTIQ plus staff and

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Speaker 2: students from discrimination by religious schools. So you can see

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Speaker 2: there that they saw two issues and are now working

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Speaker 2: on that latter one. First, the ALARC published its proposal

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Speaker 2: in January and sought public submissions from individuals and organizations.

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Speaker 2: Those were published last week, which is why we're speaking

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Speaker 2: about it today.

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Speaker 3: And before we dive into those submissions, because I'm keen

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Speaker 3: to understand the content in them, give me a sense

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Speaker 3: of what the ALARC proposed overall.

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Speaker 2: For students, the ALARC proposed religious schools should not be

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Speaker 2: able to expel or deny enrollment to LGBTQI plus students

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Speaker 2: or children of LGBTQI parents. Schools would also need to

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Speaker 2: accommodate uniform adjustments and couldn't stop a student from privileges

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Speaker 2: like being the school captain. And keep that one in mind,

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Speaker 2: because we're going to get back to that a bit later.

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Speaker 2: So that's what it proposed for students. For staff, the

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Speaker 2: alarc's proposed law would mean that religious students couldn't refuse

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Speaker 2: to hire a staff member because of things like their sexuality,

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Speaker 2: gender identity, or marital status. Schools could still preference, though,

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Speaker 2: hiring staff who share the religious beliefs of the school,

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Speaker 2: but only if their role genuinely required those beliefs. So,

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Speaker 2: for example, somebody that is teaching religion. Schools could require

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Speaker 2: any staff members to teach the school's view on sexual morality,

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Speaker 2: but must also allow them to provide objective information about

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Speaker 2: alternative viewpoints if they wish.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So now let's talk through the submissions that were

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Speaker 3: delivered in response to that proposal. Was there any support overall?

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Speaker 2: There was definitely support, especially from LGBTQI plus activist organizations

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Speaker 2: like Equality Australia and Wear at Purple. There were also

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Speaker 2: calls for stronger restrictions on religious teas teachings discriminating against

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Speaker 2: the LGBTQI plus communities. So people thought that this proposal

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Speaker 2: didn't actually go far enough. In that case, the Australian

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Speaker 2: Education Union the AU submitted that they believed that there

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Speaker 2: shouldn't be any exemptions like the one I spoke before

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Speaker 2: about being able to hire someone from a certain religion.

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Speaker 2: They said that those practices quote codify bigotry and they've

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Speaker 2: called for urgent and total removal of any of those exceptions.

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Speaker 3: And how have the religious schools responded to the.

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Speaker 2: Proposal well, Several religious schools suggested that the ALARC had

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Speaker 2: fundamentally misunderstood the purpose of religious schools. This sentiment was

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Speaker 2: reflected in submissions from some Catholic, Anglican, and other Christian,

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Speaker 2: Jewish and Islamic peak bodies. Several submissions noted many religious

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Speaker 2: schools except students and staff of all or no religion,

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Speaker 2: and recognize a duty of care for lgbtqi plus students.

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Speaker 2: They maintained, though, that schools should be able to preference

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Speaker 2: religious staff and be free to teach and enact their

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Speaker 2: religious values. And of course, there was this one submission

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Speaker 2: from the Presbyterian Church of Australia and that's been making

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Speaker 2: some headlines recently that schools should be able to deny

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Speaker 2: school captaincy to LGBTQI plus students or students in sexually active,

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Speaker 2: unmarried heterosexual relationships.

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Speaker 3: A very complicated topic. What happens now.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important to know that these are

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Speaker 2: just submissions. The ALARC is by no means required to

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Speaker 2: incorporate them in the proposal, and you know, on the

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Speaker 2: other side of that, the government doesn't actually have to

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Speaker 2: take on everything the ALARC says either. So the ALARC

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Speaker 2: will consider these submissions that we've spoken about and they

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Speaker 2: will then finalize their proposal to the government. It will

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Speaker 2: then be up to the government to interpret whatever final

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Speaker 2: proposal they make and decide what to do moving forward.

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Speaker 3: We'll definitely keep you posted on this topic. Thanks for

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Speaker 3: listening to this episode of the zale Os and Zara.

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Speaker 3: This is actually goodbye for a little while.

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Speaker 2: It is. It's good bye for just less than a

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Speaker 2: week going to Mexico to see my brother get married.

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Speaker 2: So we'll see you on the flip side.