The Australian Sangha Association and Federation of Australian Buddhist
Councils find the latest draft of the Religious Freedom Bills to be more
discriminatory than the first.

Our submission asks you to imagine the following scenario:

It is Australia Day 2020. All through the afternoon, stories have flashed across
media regarding the inclusiveness and tolerance of Australian society and what it
means to be Australian. Stories of people from far away lands and differing
cultures who have come to our shores to make a new life for them and their
families.

Mothers spoke with joy at the opportunities afforded to their children through our
education system to become doctors or teachers. We wonder if their joy would
remain if in the future they found out their son or daughter was not offered a
position at a prestigious hospital or school because they were not of the right
religion for the selectors while another candidate was. Would this new Australian
consider this right of religious hospitals, schools or aged care centres to preference
candidates based upon religion as suggested in this second round of the Religious
Freedom Bill, fair? Would our new immigrants still be proud to call our wonderful
nation home?

In an ever increasing multi-cultural and multi-faith population that includes greater
numbers of non-religious people each year, the spiritual and religious landscape of
Australia is shifting slowly to one where religion and spirituality are becoming
more personal and private, in the home and places of worship. While in the public
arena the traditional role of religious positions is shrinking.

Does this mean that religion and spirituality will no longer have a place in
Australia’s future? We don’t think so. But its place in Australia is a changing. For
most Australians the days of hell fire and brimstone sermons from the pulpit are
gone. Today the role of a religious or spiritual leader, whether ordained or lay, is to
help build and cultivate this wonderfully tolerant, accepting and inclusive society
that we celebrate today.

To do so, people of religion and spirituality need to hold themselves to the highest
principles and be exemplars of their faiths.

As Buddhists this means perfecting ourselves in wisdom and compassion and one
such method to achieve this is training in living in the four Brahmaviharas or
Divine Abodes:

• Metta (Loving kindness) – to treat all beings in creation with love, kindness and benevolence.
• Karuna (Compassion) – to work for the alleviation of suffering for all beings, especially refraining from being the cause of another’s suffering through one’s own thoughts, words and deeds.
• Mudita (Sympathetic Joy) – to share in the success and happiness of others.
• Uppekha (Equanimity) – to treat all beings with impartiality, understanding that everything and everyone exists within the same level of sacredness as any other.

When living within this expression of spirituality affording preference to one
person or group of people over another is impossible. To do so would be hypocritical towards the principles of our faith.

In similar fashion when looking at the teachings of Jesus Christ, such as:

• “Before pointing out the splinter in another’s eye, take care of the log in your
  own.
• Judge not least ye be judged
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
• Above all love everyone as I have loved you.”

When looked at from such a perspective, there is no basis in which to affirm a
desire to “preference” charity, employment, sale, rental or service to those of your
faith over others in society.

Any religious public benevolent institution which seeks to preference their charity
or service to those of similar faith should be legally made to public declare their
intention to do so in order that the public can conscientiously preference who they
donate funds to, or wish to support through volunteer work and the like.
On much the same point, any religious hospital, school or other organisation that
seeks to preference its services or employment opportunities via religion while
receiving financial support from state or federal government via taxation benefits,
funding or grants, should have such financial support limited. This is of particular
concern if a religious body has Public Benevolent DGR status.

While at home or a place of worship, a person might express a conscientious
objection to a procedure based upon religious beliefs, however when in open
society or in employment it would be better for an individual to find other work
than to be the cause of another’s suffering through actively discriminating against
them.

Within the second draft of the Religious Freedom Bill we note that associates of
religious individuals would be protected from discrimination and we would like to
support this position as long as we understand correctly that this would give
protection for interfaith and same-sex marriages and the like.

The Australian Sangha Association and the Federation of Australian Buddhist
Councils commend the re-definition of the objects clause which now expressly
makes clear that all human rights have equal status under International law. We are
also grateful that the term “vilify” has now been defined in the legislation.
We affirm the rights of individuals and organisations to be protected from
discrimination on the basis of religion and spirituality.

However, we do not support or affirm the right of religious individuals or organisation to preference and or discriminate on the basis of religion and spirituality. We are very concerned if this comes to pass – because potentially under this new draft, as one media commentator has suggested:

• A professor can be denied a job because he is Jewish.
• A doctor can be refused employment at a hospital because he is Muslim.
• A school student can be expelled because they are an atheist.
• A homeless person could miss out on a bed in a shelter because they are Hindu.
• A charity worker can be rejected for promotion because they are Buddhist.
• An Aged care employee can lose shifts because they are agnostic.
• A fully qualified Buddhist Pastor Care worker can (and is currently) be denied paid employment in a public or private hospital on the basis of their religious affiliation.

Again we affirm that it is the role and duty of men and woman, lay or ordained
people of faith, religion and spirituality in Australia, to help build a future where
people of multiple differing faiths, cultures and lifestyles live together harmoniously in complete acceptance, wisdom, love and compassion for each other.

Whenever schism or fracturing in society forms based on religious lines, organisations and individuals are to act swiftly to heal it and correct any unsupportive or erroneous views that were found to cause it.

We affirm that it is hypocritical in idea and impossible in action to live by the highest principles of faith – unconditional love for all beings – and to then preference/ discriminate between others in society. As such any Act to protect discrimination on the basis of religion and spirituality is unnecessary and ultimately counter-productive.

To legislate such protections would potentially only serve to protect those who
succumb to fear or egoistic human weakness and folly. We remain concerned that
it may be very difficult for the courts to apply the objective test – as described in
the legislation. This is likely to lead to onerous costs for all parties involved and
may diminish reasonable challenges to discrimination.

The tolerance that we sought to embody in our Communities on Australia Day
2020 is under threat through this new draft and we would implore the government
once again not to favour one religion in Australia nor to re-discriminate against
minorities and those of no-religion.

Ultimately faith is personal, individual and precious. For persons of faith it goes to
the core of their identity. But it is also fragile and because it is held so dearly it can
be the source of conflict and misunderstanding. Any legislation which seeks to
enshrine rights for persons of faith needs to tread cautiously lest, through error or
omission, it accidentally increases the possibility of religious fault lines within
society. The informal freedoms of many years have served us well: we should not
rush with haste to overturn them in any dramatic fashion.