WA State Director Peter Abetz arranged a delegation of faith leaders to meet the Attorney General to express deep concerns about the Government’s plans to radically change the Equal Opportunity Act, which would have profound impacts on faith-based schools and organisations.
On 16 August, the Attorney General tabled the Review of the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 (WA) and announced that the McGowan Labor Government had ‘broadly accepted’ all 163 recommendations.
While most of the recommendations are benign, a number are designed to force faith-based schools and organisations to at least partly comply with LGBTQ+ ideology.
State Director, Peter Abetz engaged with Muslim and Jewish community leaders to alert them to the issues and suggested that a combined approach from concerned faith community leaders to the Attorney General could prove more effective than going individually.
This resulted in a lengthy meeting with the Attorney General, the Hon John Quigley and two of his advisors on 31 October.
Of major concern to Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities is the recommendation that would limit the right of schools to exclusively employ staff who are supportive of the ethos of the school. The Attorney General sought to placate this concern by pointing to the section of the report which states that persons ‘hostile to the religious doctrine or ethos of the school’ would not have to be employed. We pointed out that our schools only want to employ staff who are positively supportive of the ethos and moral values of the school. The ACL Director and the Muslim leaders made it clear that our faith communities would not tolerate an openly gay or trans person teaching in their schools, as that would be providing the students with a role model that is in violation of the teachings of our faith.
The delegation conveyed to the Attorney General that implementing the recommendation that would require faith-based schools to allow students to use the toilets and change rooms in keeping with their self-declared gender identity, would be totally unacceptable to our communities.
The Attorney General advised that drafting of the legislation had not yet begun. This now gives our supporters and Christian schools the opportunity to convey their concerns to their local MPs and urge them to take our concerns to the Attorney General.
We are providing a one hour zoom training opportunity on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th November at 8pm (WA time) along with templates for writing letters to your lower house member and your six Legislative Councillors.
The two training session will be the same – so you can choose the time that suits you best. Please RSVP for the training session that suits you:
