Overnight, the government’s proposed religious discrimination bills have been withdrawn from the Parliament.
DCA has provided submissions and evidence in response to several iterations of these proposed laws over the past three years, including the most recent legislation introduced to the Parliament at the end of last year.
We were concerned that in the rush to deliver the laws, organisations like DCA and our members had little time to properly scrutinise the impact such legislation would have on Australian businesses.
In our submissions and evidence to the parliamentary committees, we outlined our concerns about how the legislation could interfere with Australian employers creating inclusive workplaces and the impact this could have on the wellbeing of individual employees.
DCA supports religious discrimination protections consistent with other anti-discrimination laws and will continue to proactively work with employers to create workplaces where someone’s faith (or no faith) is respected and afforded the same dignity as other identity attributes.