Bill loses protections for gay teachers, students
in bid to win over opponents
Alexandra Smith
The NSW cabinet will on Monday consider a scaled-back equality bill after Sydney MP Alex Greenwich agreed to remove key sticking points widely opposed by church groups.
More than a year after introducing his bill, Greenwich will take out proposed changes to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act, which would have banned private schools from discriminating against gay or transgender students and teachers, including through expulsion or terminating their employment.
Greenwich agreed to leave out the discrimination provisions from his bill because the NSW Law Reform Commission is reviewing the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act, which will deal with the issue.
Rights to gender-affirming healthcare will also be removed, and street-based sex work offences will continue in a bid to ensure support for the bill to pass parliament this year.
However, allowing transgender people to change their birth certificates without undergoing reaffirming surgery and parentage orders for families who have had children through overseas commercial surrogacy will remain central to the bill.
The new version of Greenwich’s bill is still likely to cause bitter division, particularly in the Liberal Party, which will be forced to form a position on it ahead of three byelections next Saturday.
It could also face staunch opponents in the upper house, including from One Nation-turned-independent Mark Latham, whose objection to Greenwich’s bill, which was an election promise, sparked violent scenes outside a south-west Sydney church ahead of last year’s state election.
Latham was speaking on religious freedom and parental rights at St Michael’s Church in Belfield just days before the March 2023 poll when Rainbow Rights protesters clashed with far-right activists.
Two people were charged, and Greenwich called Latham a “disgusting human being”, prompting the firebrand MP to respond on X, formerly Twitter. “Disgusting?” Latham’s tweet began. He then referred to sexual activity in gratuitous terms the Herald has chosen not to publish.
Greenwich successfully took defamation action against Latham over the tweet.
Premier Chris Minns weighed into the issue on Wednesday, indicating he believed the state could no longer force surgery requirements on transgender people who want to change their name.
“I don’t know why we’d be ... demanding of people that they have irreversible life-changing surgery in order to change a government document in relation to their gender, particularly when you consider that they can go to the passport office and change it immediately,” Minns said.
Greenwich said in the spirit of compromise, he was urging the government and opposition “to open their hearts and minds” and support his “heavily reduced and amended bill and not delay these reforms any further”.
“The bill was announced over two years ago and introduced last year. During my advocacy for these reforms, I have been subjected to an immense barrage of homophobic and sexualised attacks, including threats to my safety; some are well publicised, and some are not,” Greenwich said.
“This is the experience of LGBTQ people across NSW, and for the past three months, I’ve been meeting with my colleagues to ask them to take these reforms seriously.”
Greenwich said his bill had many supporters, including Domestic Violence NSW, the Teachers Federation, the Nurses and Midwives Association, and the Anglican bishop of Newcastle.
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