Liberal moderates have expressed concern that Scott Morrison has flagged committing during the election campaign to a ban on transgender women playing women’s sport.
Campaigning in the marginal seat of Gilmore on Monday, the prime minister said he shared the views of the Tasmanian Liberal senator Claire Chandler, who has advanced private member’s legislation allowing sporting groups to exclude transgender people from single-sex sports. Morrison added he would have “more to say” on the issue.
The Liberal senator Andrew Bragg later said a change wasn’t necessary because the Sex Discrimination Act already contained carve-outs for strength and stamina.
“The law already addresses this issue and I’m not aware of any evidence that the law is deficient,” Bragg told Guardian Australia. “I think it is working well.”
Other government moderates, who declined to be named, expressed significant concern that Morrison was elevating the controversy during the federal election period, noting that Australia’s sporting codes were managing issues of participation effectively.
“I don’t know why we’d go near this stuff – we don’t need this during an election campaign,” one Liberal MP said. Another speculated that Morrison was attempting to make up ground with some religious groups after he was forced to abandon his religious discrimination package earlier this year.
Morrison praised Chandler’s “bravery” on the issue while on the hustings on Monday and also endorsed the views of the Liberal candidate for Warringah, Katherine Deves, who co-founded the Save Women’s Sport organisation, which campaigns to restrict trans women playing in female sporting competitions.
A number of moderate metropolitan Liberals are facing challenges from independents. On Monday, the independent incumbent in Warringah, Zali Steggall, blasted Morrison’s comments on social media.
“It speaks volumes of the PM’s values & moral compass that [Morrison] supports discriminating, intimidating & excluding some of the most vulnerable in our society,” Steggall said on Twitter. “How about focusing on equal pay, superannuation equity, housing security, respect & safety for women first?”
Chandler’s private member’s bill would amend the Sex Discrimination Act to “clarify” that the operation of single-sex sport on the basis of biological sex was not discriminatory. The government had an opportunity to bring that bill on for debate during budget week but did not go down that path.
Chandler on Monday sent out an email to supporters asking for donations to a $45,000 “action” fund that would enable “push back” against “radical activists pushing their gender fluid ideology and silencing women”.
Chandler declared in the email that Labor and the Greens were “fighting to kill this bill and the mainstream media is misrepresenting it”.
By donating to the fund, Chandler said, supporters could “stand up and protect the rights of women and girls by getting the word out so more Australians demand MPs and senators back my Save Women’s Sport Bill”.
“Your support today will help stop the threat of the Labor-Greens grabbing more power and dismantling women’s sex-based rights.”
Chandler’s Tasmanian colleague Bridget Archer has previously characterised the private member’s proposal as “a vanity bill” and “not government policy”.
Archer was one of five MPs to cross the floor during the parliamentary debate on Morrison’s religious discrimination package to ensure the protection of gender non-conforming students under the Sex Discrimination Act.
Equality Australia’s chief executive, Anna Brown, has blasted Morrison’s use of the issue for “cheap political points”, saying politicians should be standing up for LGBTQ+ people.
