If you’re queer and at a religious school in Western Australia, as a student or a teacher, your school can currently show you the door for it. The state government wants to change that.

On October 20, Attorney-General Tony Buti and Premier Roger Cook announced a rewrite of WA’s Equal Opportunity Act. Under the proposed laws, religious schools would no longer be allowed to sack teachers or expel students because of their sexuality, or turn away students because of a disability, ABC News reports. The bill was due to be introduced in State Parliament on Wednesday, October 21.

Buti called it the biggest overhaul of the state’s anti-discrimination laws in more than 40 years.

What changes

The core idea: religious schools keep a religious exemption, and only a religious one.

  • Sexuality is off the table. “The exemption is purely on religion, not on sexual orientation,” Buti said, per the ABC. At the announcement he added: “Not sexuality. I want to make that quite clear,” Out In Perth reports.
  • Religion still counts at the door. Schools could still discriminate purely on religion when hiring staff or enrolling students. Once someone is hired, the exemption would only apply where religion is an inherent requirement of the job.
  • Disability protections everywhere. Protection against disability discrimination would apply in all circumstances, including in schools.
  • New protected groups. The bill would also cover people who are homeless, experiencing domestic violence, pregnant or breastfeeding, or involved in union activity.
  • Vilification protections, which are new for WA, according to Out In Perth.

“Hate is not OK in WA,” Cook said. “Nobody should face discrimination or abuse based on their race, religion, sexuality or disability.”

How we got here

None of this came out of nowhere. In August 2022, WA’s Law Reform Commission tabled a review of the 1984 Act with 163 recommendations. Among them: limiting religious schools’ ability to discriminate against staff and students, and protecting trans and gender diverse people, including those who haven’t had any medical procedures, as law firm GC Legal summarised at the time.

WA already acted on part of the trans side in 2024. Those reforms removed the requirement for medical or surgical reassignment to change a person’s legal sex or gender and abolished the Gender Reassignment Board, the ABC notes.

The push isn’t only happening in Perth. Federally, independent MP Allegra Spender has called for reform of the religious exemptions in the national Sex Discrimination Act, the ABC adds.

Who’s for it, who’s not

The Greens welcome the bill but want it to go further. WA Greens leader Brad Pettitt told Out In Perth: “we really do want to see those carve-outs eliminated, ideally, or at least minimised.” Labor has the numbers in the Legislative Assembly, but the Greens will likely be needed to pass it through the Legislative Council. “We’re really keen to sit down with government and make sure we can take this legislation forward,” Pettitt said.

The Opposition is cautious. Shadow Attorney-General Nick Goiran said it would scrutinise the bill and consult affected groups, the ABC reports.

Christian school advocates are already campaigning. Earlier this month, Australian Christians MP Maryka Groenewald launched “My Christian School Story” to defend schools’ freedom to prefer staff who share their faith, The Daily Declaration reported. The worry: if faith-based hiring is limited to roles where faith is an “inherent requirement,” she argues, schools could end up “Christian in name only.”

Parents spoke up too. Felicity Creagh, a mother of two autistic children, told the ABC she was “relieved and encouraged.”

Why it matters

For a queer teenager, school is the place where you spend most of your waking hours. Knowing you can’t be expelled for who you are, or for who you take to the formal, changes what’s possible. For teachers, it’s the difference between keeping a partner’s photo off your desk and just living your life.

The bill still has to get through both houses, and the Greens are pushing for a narrower religious carve-out while faith groups push the other way. Expect amendments. But the direction is clear: in WA, being gay is set to stop being a lawful reason to lose your place at school.

Sources: ABC News; Out In Perth; CathNews; GC Legal; The Daily Declaration.

Photo: Urlaubstracker / Unsplash.