The take-over of Calvary Hospital shows that religious freedom is at risk in Australia

Angela Shanahan

July 03, 2023 5 Reactions

All standard ICCPR stuff. However, the next paragraph deals with the framework of anti- discrimination law. This is the most important bit. It states that Labor would: “Continue to uphold, defend and enhance that framework to ensure that it is fit for purpose, accessible and promotes equality.”

Those words, “fit for purpose”, carry a great deal of weight. “What purpose?” you might ask. And how to interpret “equality”?

The answer becomes clear in the next paragraph. “Labor will simplify federal anti-discrimination laws by consolidating them into a single piece of legislation including a review of existing exemptions to ensure that they do not prevent access to essential social services.”

So, in other words some “fundamental rights” can be interpreted as being more fundamental than others. This is where the weasel words about “religious freedom” clash with the anti-discrimination platform, which is simply a way of getting rid of any exemptions for faith-based institutions such as hospitals and schools.

So it continues, in paragraph 48: “Labor believes it should continue to be unlawful to discriminate against any person on the basis of age, disability, race, religion, sex, gender identity, sex characteristics or sexual orientation”; and paragraph 49: “Labor recognises that discrimination is often multi-layered, with people experiencing discrimination on the basis of intersecting attributes.”

As it stands, this draft document reads that Labor will get rid of the exemptions, which has always been the aim of Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. In fact, the matrix of anti-discrimination laws is really designed to bring people of faith into conflict with these laws and the state.

So, while the ICCPR is considered the gold standard for the protection of religious freedom, undoubtedly there will be debate over allegations that religious schools manifesting their traditional moral values on sex and marriage constitutes discrimination against “the fundamental rights” of others holding contrary views about sexual morality.

In hospitals the church’s opposition to abortion and euthanasia has already been cited as a possible reason for the Calvary takeover. It was interesting to note the language used by the Health Department and its spokespeople during the initial brouhaha. The word secular, frequently used to describe the takeover regime, ignored the fact the hospital has always been part of the secular and pluralist health system. The message was pretty clear. “We don’t want anybody or any institution with a religious ethical underpinning operating within our aridly secular fiefdom.”

Consequently, the hospice has been taken over despite Anthony Albanese paying lip service to the importance of religious institutions in delivery of social services.

The main area of concern, particularly for many Catholics, is the character of Catholic schools.

It is about time the Labor Party came clean on whether Catholic schools can maintain their ethos. Low-fee Protestant schools are also worried about coming under the hammer of a new anti-discrimination law. If Labor gets rid of the exemptions, it would do nothing more than mouth the most fundamental of all human rights, the right to conscience and religion, recognised by the foundation document of universal international political and civil rights, while undermining those rights.

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Angela Shanahan is a Canberra-based freelance journalist and mother of nine children. She has written regularly for The Australian for over 20 years, The Spectator (British and Australian editions) for over 10 years, and formerly for the Sunday Telegraph, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times. For 15 years she was a teacher in the NSW state high school system and at the University of NSW. Her areas of interest are family policy, social affairs and religion. She was an original convener of the Thomas More Forum on faith and public life in Canberra. In 2020 she published her first book, “Paul Ramsay: A Man for Others”.

This article has been republished with the author’s permission from The Australian. 

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