Uniting Communities throws our support behind the changes to the Equal Opportunities bill as proposed by the Attorney General. While there are some changes we would like to see, we recognise the proposed changes provide clarity around the extend that organisations can discriminate.

Quote from the final section of our submission:

Strengths

These proposed changes clarifies the place of discrimination within ‘religious purposes’ for ‘adherents’, but does not allow discrimination against those in need of social services.

We strongly commend the Attorney General for this clarification.

Concerns

We are not sure why some services are listed and others seem absent.  It appears that there are gaps where some social services (drug and alcohol, financial counselling, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specific) may not have to comply with this legislation.

Either a clear broad scope of all of social services needs to be established or some detail provided regarding why some services are excluded from this requirement.

We recommend that all social services be within the scope of the legislation.

Notwithstanding these concerns Uniting Communities commends and supports the proposed changes contained in the Religious exceptions – changes for organisations bill.