The Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney General have published their draft Anti-Discrimination Bill 2024 which will replace the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991.
Queensland Director for the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), Rob Norman, said, “Again, Queensland is leading the nation in all the wrong ways. This Bill reads like an addendum to Orwell’s novel ‘1984’. If tabled and passed, religious schools will be required to surrender some of their deepest held theological views and values and be subjected to the invasive oversite of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General. State controlled religion has, until now, been the domain of the old Soviet Union, or China.
“The Attorney General has heard the views of major Christian and Muslim heads of schools and effectively informed them that their religion is unacceptable by limiting their freedom to hire staff based on their lived ethos and faith.”
Mr. Norman said, “This is an existential moment for Christian education in Queensland, the incentive for religious institutions to continue will be significantly diminished if the State becomes the arbiter of sound theology.”
The ACL calls on the Queensland Labor Government to leave religious institutions to determine the substance of sound theology and protect the rights of religious schools to continue providing the best education in the State.
