2021-09-16
The Victorian Greens look forward to supporting reforms to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination by faith-based organisations.
Removing exemptions in the Equal Opportunity Act that allow for discrimination has been a long-standing priority for the Greens.
The Greens previously moved to get rid of the discriminatory religious exemptions in our Equal Opportunity Act, attempts which were voted down by the state Labor and Liberal parties as recently as 2018, and recently announced they would introduce their own bill if the government didn’t act.
The Greens also support the LGBTQ+ community’s push to expand the reforms to cover all services whether they are government funded or not, and hope LGBTQ+ communities are central to the development of this bill to get it right.
Quotes attributable to Victorian Greens LGBTIQA+ spokesperson, Sam Hibbins MP:
“The world will be a better place when these reforms pass.
“No-one should live in fear of losing their job or being kicked out of school for who they love or how they identify, but that’s exactly what these harmful exemptions are doing.
“We shouldn’t underestimate just how insidious and damaging the current laws are to LGBTQ+ people.
“Having repeatedly moved to remove the exemptions in the Equal Opportunity Act, the Greens look forward to supporting the bill when it comes to Parliament and strengthening it if required.”