Independent MP Allegra Spender has introduced a bill into Federal Parliament that would significantly weaken existing religious freedom protections for faith-based schools.

The Sex Discrimination and Fair Work Amendment (Equality in Treatment in Religious Schools) Bill 2026 seeks to prevent discrimination against students and staff on grounds including sexuality, gender identity and marital status. However, it also proposes sweeping changes to the protections that allow religious schools to operate in accordance with their faith.

What would the bill do?

The bill would remove existing protections under the Sex Discrimination Act and Fair Work Act that allow religious schools to make employment decisions consistent with their religious beliefs.

Under the proposed changes:

• Religious schools would have a much narrower right to employ staff who share their faith. Religious preference in hiring would be protected only where the person’s duties involve participation in religious teaching or practice.
• Schools would lose important protections for maintaining their religious ethos. Even where a staff member was employed because of their faith, the bill would remove existing religious exceptions that can protect employment decisions when a staff member’s conduct conflicts with the school’s beliefs.
• Religious codes of conduct would face new restrictions. The bill would limit the operation of employment agreements requiring staff to uphold religious standards in their personal beliefs or private lives.
• Protections would also be removed in relation to students, volunteers and contract workers, limiting the ability of religious schools to make decisions based on their religious convictions.

These changes raise serious concerns about the ability of Christian schools and other faith-based educational institutions to maintain their distinctive religious character.

What has Labor promised?

Before the 2025 federal election, the Albanese Government made significant commitments to faith leaders about protecting religious freedom.

Labor explicitly promised:

“Legal protections for people of faith will not go backwards under Labor.”

Labor also committed to protecting teachers against discrimination while maintaining the right of religious schools to preference people who share their faith when selecting staff. It said its proposed reforms would extend protections without removing or overriding existing protections.

Importantly, Labor also committed to pursuing any such reforms on a bipartisan basis with the Coalition. Labor stated that the reforms “should be progressed on a bipartisan basis” to ensure they were enduring, unifying and fit for purpose.

Labor specifically rejected calls from the Greens and some crossbenchers to proceed without Coalition support, stating that lasting reform required support from across Parliament.

These commitments are difficult to reconcile with the changes proposed in Spender’s bill.

Read Labor’s full commitments on religious freedom.

Where does the Government stand?

We have received reassurances from the offices of the Prime Minister, Attorney-General and Minister for Education, as well as other senior Labor MPs, that these commitments still stand.

Spender’s bill is a private member’s bill, not Government legislation. Its introduction does not mean that the Government has changed its position.

Freedom for Faith is continuing to engage directly with the Government to ensure that it honours these commitments and continues to protect the freedom of faith-based schools to operate in accordance with their beliefs.

Candidate forums hare a real impact

These commitments demonstrate the effectiveness of churches engaging directly with their political representatives.

During the 2025 federal election, churches across Australia hosted Meet Your Candidates forums, giving Christians the opportunity to raise religious freedom concerns directly with candidates from across the political spectrum.

The commitments secured during that election are an important result of that engagement. They provide a clear basis for holding political leaders accountable for the promises they have made.

This is why Freedom for Faith is continuing to organise candidate forums.

We are currently working with churches across Victoria ahead of the November 2026 state election, and preparing for the NSW election in 2027.

These forums give local Christians the opportunity to speak directly with candidates, raise the issues that matter to their communities, and seek clear public commitments.

Find out more about the forums, and how your church can be involved, at meetyourcandidates.org.au.

The Federal Government has now introduced the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, following consultation on the September exposure draft.

There have been some important improvements. Several of the broadest provisions we were concerned about have been narrowed or removed. However, significant religious-freedom concerns remain – particularly around how private technology companies may treat lawful religious teaching, and how the new obligations could apply to churches and other religious organisations operating websites and online services.

• The Minister can no longer simply add new categories of “harmful” speech. The exposure draft gave the Minister broad powers to declare additional material harmful. Those powers have been removed. The categories are now set out in the Bill itself. This is a significant improvement because any major expansion of the regulated content categories would now require Parliament to change the law.
• The criminal-offence provision has been substantially narrowed. The exposure draft potentially captured material encouraging any criminal offence. The Bill now limits this to a serious Commonwealth offence, punishable by at least three years’ imprisonment, and only where the material is reasonably likely to cause serious harm. This significantly reduces the risk that relatively low-level speech offences under State laws will automatically flow into the Digital Duty of Care.
• There is now an express list of protected or “excluded” material – but religion is missing. The Bill protects professional news, academic and historical research, certain artistic and educational material, public-health material and material that is in the public interest. However, there is no specific protection for religious teaching or discussion. Educational material is protected only where it is “not contrary to the public interest”. That leaves an important question: why should journalism, academia, art and education receive express protection, while lawful religious teaching does not?
• The provision on harassment has actually become broader. The exposure draft required material to be intended to cause serious harm by menacing or harassing someone. The Bill now applies where material is reasonably likely to cause serious harm by menacing or harassing an individual. The intention requirement has been removed. This makes it even more important that lawful religious teaching is not confused with harassment simply because it is controversial or strongly disagreed with.
• The controversial “gender equality” provision remains. Material that “encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality” is still automatically treated as harmful to children. The Bill does not define “hostile attitudes” or “gender equality”. This remains a concern for religious communities whose teachings about sex, marriage, family or religious leadership may differ from contemporary views of gender equality.
• The Bill still creates strong incentives for private companies to over-censor. Providers must take “appropriate action” and “effective measures” to create a safe online environment, backed by penalties of up to 60,000 penalty units. In deciding what action is proportionate, providers must consider the likelihood and degree of harm – but the Bill still does not expressly require them to consider freedom of religion or freedom of expression.

One concern has also been reduced significantly: the Bill now confines mandatory age assurance and access controls to pornography and material depicting specific fetish practices or fantasies. The earlier concern that age verification might become a general gateway for all supposedly harmful content therefore needs to be reconsidered.

The position of churches and other religious organisations as online service providers also remains unresolved. The Bill still applies broadly to online services and allows low-risk services to be exempted only by Ministerial instrument. It has narrowed personal responsibility somewhat by referring to the person exercising the greatest degree of day-to-day control, but ordinary church, school and charity websites may still need clarity about whether and how the regime applies to them.

Overall, the introduced Bill is better than the exposure draft. The Government has removed some of the broadest discretionary powers and narrowed some of the most concerning provisions. But the central religious-freedom question remains:

Will lawful religious teaching be protected when private platforms are given strong legal incentives to suppress anything they consider risky?

Freedom for Faith will continue to argue for an explicit protection for lawful religious expression, alongside clear and proportionate treatment of low-risk church, school and charity websites.