WA Attorney-General signals "broad support" for changes to Equal Opportunity Act

WA Attorney-General, Hon John Quigley MLA, has given "broad support" to 163 Recommendations of the Law Reform Commission final report into the State's Equal Opportunity Act. You can read the final report HERE.

While tabling the Report in parliament, the Attorney-General also indicated that the changes would “[strengthen] equal opportunity protections for LGBTIQA+ staff and students in religious schools”. This does not appear to leave much room for schools to operate in accordance with traditional Christian beliefs on marriage, sexuality and gender.

Concerningly, the Report recommends:

• Not adopting adequate religious freedom protections in line with the recommendations of the Ruddock Report (Recommendation 2);
• Separating ‘gender identity’ from biological sex (Recommendation 28);
• Introduction of the ‘inherent requirements’ and ‘reasonable and proportionate’ tests to the religious educational institutions employment exception (Recommendation 79);
• Introduction of a ‘reasonable and proportionate’ test for religious educational institutions enrolment exception (Recommendation 81);
• Introduction of a Positive Duty to Eliminate Discrimination etc. (Recommendations 121-125);
• Empowering the Equal Opportunity Commissioner to investigate breaches without a complaint (Recommendation 126);
• Allowing ‘representative bodies’ to bring complaints on behalf of individual complainants (Recommendation 127).

AACS will advocate strongly in defence of our members' interests in WA. 

We encourage you to send a message to your political representatives via our Campaigns page HERE.

Download the media release HERE.