The Morrison government’s hopes of passing its contentious religious discrimination legislation before the election have been boosted with Labor MPs and Senators offering conditional support.
Labor has joined the Coalition in calling for the bills to be passed suggesting only minor and technical amendments when the bill comes back to the lower house on Tuesday.
The conditional support was outlined in two inquiry reports into the legislation that were released on Friday.
But the bill still faces an uncertain path through parliament, with at least three Liberal MPs stonewalling, and Liberal senator Andrew Bragg using the report from the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee to call for broader changes.
Labor has not ruled out amendments that could see it teaming up with Bragg, moderate Liberal MPs, the Greens and crossbench to add protections for LGBTQ+ teachers and students, or remove the bill’s other contentious clauses.
The two reports were released as Scott Morrison confirmed on Friday it was his intention to add a prohibition on discriminating against students based on sexuality and gender in this legislation.
In both the Senate inquiry and the joint human rights committee, Labor MPs and senators recognised the need to protect people from discrimination on the grounds of religion.
Labor urged the government to reconsider two clauses overriding state laws, one allowing discriminatory statements grounded in religious belief or non-belief, and the other strengthening religious institutions’ ability to hire and fire staff based on faith.
Submissions from state and territory anti-discrimination bodies, even in the Liberal states of Tasmania and New South Wales, warned the religious discrimination bill would override laws that prevent speech that offends, insults or humiliates people on the basis of protected attributes.
States that had more limited powers for religious schools to hire and fire teachers based on their beliefs, such as reforms recently passed in Victoria, would also be overridden.
In the human rights committee, Labor MPs and senators urged the government “to work across the parliament – if not across the federation – to address the serious concerns that have been raised” about the clauses but recognised there was a “legitimate concern” that both were intended to address.
“The Australian Labor party has a long history of fighting to prevent discrimination against people of faith,” they said.
“The legislation that prime minister Morrison introduced should unite our nation, not divide.”
The Senate committee recommended that the government consider constitutional concerns raised by Prof Anne Twomey about the statements of belief and employment clauses, but noted Prof Nicholas Aroney had supplied drafting to correct the issue without removing the clauses.
The committee said if the constitutional issue was addressed, the Senate should pass the bills.
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre’s policy manager, Alastair Lawrie, warned the new drafting would mean that statements that “offend, insult, or humiliate” people based on race – currently banned by section 18C of the racial discrimination act – would be legal, if grounded in religious belief.
The Greens, through senator Janet Rice, dissented in both committees and called on Labor to help block the bill.
“It’s time for Labor to stop the double-speak about this dangerous legislation,” the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said. “If they side with Scott Morrison they’re selling out the LGBTQ+ community.”
Morrison’s recommitment to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students was designed to win over four Liberal moderates – Angie Bell, Katie Allen, Dave Sharma and Fiona Martin – who made the SDA amendment a condition of their support.
But a remaining trio of holdouts – Liberal MPs Bridget Archer, Warren Entsch and Trent Zimmerman – have indicated the amendment would not be sufficient for their support.
Their numbers in the lower house, and the crossbench in the Senate, could be crucial for further amendments to the bill, if Labor took on the task of fixing the bill from the opposition benches.
But some in Labor argued it should use the moment to be rid of an issue that hurt it engaging with religious communities at the 2019 election.
“There’s an opportunity to draw a line in the sand and have this behind us once and for all,” one Labor parliamentarian told Guardian Australia.
“We need to stop talking about things the public don’t want us to talk about.”
The bills were listed for debate in the lower house all day on Tuesday, and in the Senate, subject to introduction, on Wednesday.
Anna Brown, the chief executive of national LGBTIQ+ organisation Equality Australia, said the reports left the bills with no clear pathway to pass parliament.
Brown said the committees were “left with the pieces of a broken and friendless bill” after the government spent three years trying to solve problems of its own making as the bill was redrafted.
“It’s no wonder they failed to find a way to fix it,” she said. “It is time to throw out this failed, experimental bill.”
