“I will be taking action to ensure amendments are introduced as soon as practicable to make it clear that no student of a non-state school should be expelled on the basis of their sexuality,” he said that month.
The promise was made on a Friday afternoon when the Prime Minister was fighting for the government’s survival in the Wentworth by-election while conservative Liberals insisted it was fair enough for a religious school to expel a gay student.
The Labor leader at the time,Bill Shorten,was on the warpath afterThe Sydney Morning Herald andThe Agerevealed a leaked copy of a confidential governmentreview that called for protections for people who suffered discrimination on the grounds of their faith.
With all sides at odds over religious freedom and gay rights,the government took a battering just two months after Morrison gained the leadership. The Liberals lost Wentworth,one of their political jewels.
Morrison and Shorten almost reached a deal in Parliament to protect LGBTQI students from being expelled – an important symbolic and practical change to help young people at a vulnerable point in their lives.
Both leaders said they wanted a solution,but politics and policy got in the way after the draft bill was put to Parliament.
The first part of the bill removed the ability of a school to discriminate against a student on the basis of sexual orientation. This amended the exemption for schools on this point in the Sex Discrimination Act.