Religious discrimination
Understand religious discrimination laws in Australia, including your rights and protections under federal and state legislation and the human rights framework.
Summary
- Australian, state and territory laws provide some protections against religious discrimination, but these protections are incomplete.
- In some situations, these existing legal protections do not provide for enforceable remedies where discrimination is established.
Download the fact sheet
Religious discrimination
This fact sheet provides information on issues raised in the report card as well as findings from a range of reports and submissions made by the Commission over the past 12 months.
Just as Australians are provided with statutory protection against discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, they should also be provided with equivalent protection against discrimination on the ground of religious belief or practice.
Successive Australian governments
have made several attempts to legislate religious discrimination protections in the past decade.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has expressed concerns about draft bills that did not achieve an appropriate balancing of rights and sought to provide protection to religious belief or activity at the expense of other rights.
Religious discrimination protections should not limit other human rights in a way that is unnecessary and disproportionate, or in a manner that is otherwise inconsistent with international human rights law.
Complementary changes are required in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) to ensure exemptions for religious bodies and educational institutions established for religious purposes to discriminate in certain areas are appropriately balanced.
Priority action
The Australian government should introduce laws prohibiting religious discrimination.
Racism and affected communities
Learn about racism in Australia, including the rise in Antisemitism and Islamophobia at the Racism and affected communities fact sheet.
