VICTORIA'S ANTI-RELIGIOUS FREEDOM BILL DEBATED NEXT WEEK

Rob Hull's Equal Opportunity Bill (2010) will be debated in Victoria's
parliament next week!

GOVERNMENT HYPOCRISY - POLITICAL PARTIES EXEMPT, BUT NOT CHURCHES

Hypocritically, politicians will be able to require that their employees
are members of their political party, but a ministers of religion will
not be able to automatically require that their employees are members of
their own faith. Under the new Victorian Equal Opportunity Act,
political parties will be exempt from the new Act, but churches won't.

CONTRACTS VOID

It appears that current employment contracts of church-based
organizations - which often specify that administrators, playgroup or
kindergarten coordinators, finance offices or site managers must be of
the organization's faith - may be illegal under the new law. The new
Equal Opportunity Bill leaves these contracts open to be challenged in
the courts.

"Inherent requirements" rule targets churches

Under current legislation, schools can assess who they employ to reflect
the school's culture on a case by case basis, taking into account a
personal moral values, religious beliefs and life style.

Under the new Equal Opportunity legislation, the courts will decide if
inherent religious requirements are necessary for the teaching of
secular subjects like English, Maths or Physics.

This will deny schools the right to exercise their discretion in
employing people who will reflect their religious culture across the
school.

Equally of concern, the act does not define "religion". So is a Baptist
school of the "Baptist religion", or will the courts judge it more
broadly as being of the "Christian religion"? It will be entirely up to
the courts to decide which definition of religion will be applied to
such a school.

Indeed, the new Equal Opportunity Act "inherent requirements" rules are
so ambiguous, they leave religious organizations open to a range of
legal prosecutions. The new legislation effectively gives the courts
grounds to prevent schools and other religious organisations from
dismissing or denying employment to people who are actively opposed to
the religious beliefs of the institution.

These same ambiguous "inherent requirements" rules will apply to
volunteers as well as paid employees!

COMMISSION GETS NEW POWERS TO INVESTIGATE YOUR ORGANISATION

The new legislation gives the Equal Opportunity Commission extensive new
powers for investigating suspected 'systematic discrimination,' even if
no complaint has been made.

Further, accused persons or church organisations will be required to
provide documents in evidence to the Commission and to attend Commission
hearings into their organization.