Politics

The Government Just Shut Down Labor’s Bill Protecting LGBTIQ Students And People Are Furious

Penny Wong is furious, calling for an "election now".

by Mitch Feltscheer  3 December 2018
Penny Wong, LGBTIQ

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It’s the last sitting week of the Australian parliament for the year. Much like the rest of 2018 in politics, it’s already a flaming garbage mess. The latest casualty in Canberra is the ongoing debate over protecting rights for LGBTIQ students.

How we got to this point is an appropriately messy and long-winded saga, so here’s the TL;DR version:

As part of former PM Turnbull’s deal with his conservative colleagues on marriage equality last year, the now-ousted Malc announced a review into religious freedoms to be conducted by known gargoyle Phillip Ruddock.

Related
This Whole Religious Freedom Thing Really Backfired For The Government, Hey?

The completed review sat with the government for months until it leaked to the press back in October, with the most salacious recommendation being to tighten up and confirm existing laws that currently allow LGBTIQ students and teachers to be discriminated against by religious schools.

The leak ultimately did the opposite of the what the review intended though, with the public outcry that such laws even exist at all galvanising the more progressive parties to enact legislation that removes said discrimination. New-ish PM Scott Morrison caved in to the Greens and Labor, agreeing to pass a bill removing the right for religious schools to expel gay students, which brings us up to today.

The bill from Labor was all set to be discussed in the Senate this week, fulfilling Morrison’s promise to legislate “as soon as possible”, but Labor and the government couldn’t agree on what the bill’s terms should be.

So today, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, successfully forced a vote taking it off the agenda. What this ostensibly means is the bill has zero chance of reaching the lower house before the end of the year and possibly even before the federal election to be held early-mid next year.

The whole shemozzle has left Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Penny Wong extremely pissed off, telling the senate Cormann’s silencing move is “perverting the course of the Senate” and only working to “put off a vote”.

With their decreased numbers in the House of Reps after the Wentworth by-election and Julia Banks’ wild resignation, the Coalition Government is now being accused of doing anything to avoid bills hitting the floor and testing out Morrison’s control of the Parliament. Wong outright made such a claim after the last-minute vote, saying the only decent thing to do right now is call an election.

Cormann has denied Wong’s allegation saying in the Senate that the only reason the government took the bill off the agenda was to more closely examine it, saying, “The Government does support what this legislation is seeking to achieve, but we support it with reasonable amendments to ensure that, for example, religious schools can provide appropriate rules for the proper conduct of their schools.”

Labor and Greens pollies have jumped at the chance to expose yet another broken promise from a government shrouded in constant chaos.

Whilst it completely sucks that queer kids around the country will continue to live under laws that allow them to be discriminated again, it really should come as no surprise that the Morrison government is more interested in keeping their parliamentary embarrassments to a minimum, rather than dismantling legally enshrined bigotry against literal children.

Bring on the fucking election already.