Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

The Bill is disgraceful, and Labor is rightly spooked by the Queensland by-election results.

The Prime Minister announced yesterday that he would not introduce his contentious Religious Discrimination Bill without bipartisan support.

Yep, after stubbornly refusing to engage with Peter Dutton on the Voice, Anthony Albanese is suddenly a convert to bipartisanship.

A spokesman for the PM told journalists:

“If there is not agreement, then now is not the time to have a divisive debate.”

Excuse me while I dial 000 to seek medical treatment for a severe laughing fit.

Self-Interested

I can assure you, this is not a Come to Jesus moment for the man who once declared, “I love fighting Tories,” and who spent the first year of his prime ministership seeking to divide the country by race.

Rather, Albanese has worked out that his government’s bill is so bad that if legislated, it would cost them votes in Western Sydney electorates.

The Bill, which was an election campaign promise, is supposed to protect religious freedom, but actually curtails what religious organisations can do.

Faith groups have warned that it would effectively mean an end to Christian schooling by banning schools from discriminating against non-Christians when employing staff and from removing teachers who come as gay or trans.

Shifting Blame

Albanese, for all of his faults (and there are many), is smart enough to know the Bill will never be supported by the Coalition.

The Bill is Labor’s ideology at work.

Faith groups will rebel, and not just Christians, but the Left’s favoured religious groups — Muslims.

So rather than just say it’s a bad idea, Albanese will now demand bipartisan support and then blame the Liberals when he doesn’t get it.

So again, Albanese didn’t seek a bipartisan approach when it came to a new IR Bill, or the Voice referendum, or when ditching promised and legislated tax changes. But he suddenly needs bipartisanship for a Religious Discrimination Bill! 

Never let it be said that Anthony Albanese has not brought greater transparency to politics — you can see straight through him!

Between Albo the acrobat and Coco the clown Miles, Labor has a pretty good circus act going on at the moment.

___

Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.

Subscribe to his Substack here for daily witty commentary.