This article was originally published by the OUTInPerth. You can find the original article here.
Western Australia’s Attorney General John Quigley has revealed that updates to Western Australia’s equal opportunity legislation is on the backburner because the Cook government waiting for the Albanese federal government.
Rights advocates say it’s time for WA’s Labor government to stop “dithering” and get on with bringing in much needed reforms.
Earlier today Premier Roger Cook and Attorney General John Quigley announced that the government would introduce legislation to remove the WA Gender Recognition Board, but at the same time revealed that reforms to the state’s equal opportunity laws would not occur until after the 2025 state election.
OUTinPerth was not invited to the media conference, but snippets of what the Attorney General said at the gathering are filtering through mainstream media outlets.
The Sydney Morning Herald has shared that Quigley explained that the delay introducing the long-awaited legislation is because the Albanese Labor government is reviewing similar legislation at a federal level.
“The federal government has announced the Australian Law Reform Commission findings, and the Prime Minister has come out and said on some contentious areas he is hopeful of getting bipartisan support,” Quigley said.
“I don’t want to come in from left field and upset the applecart.” Quigley explained.
Spokesperson for Just-Equal Australia, Brian Greig, said he was very concerned Mr Quigley continued to defer to Canberra on the issue of faith schools despite that being irrelevant.
Greig, a former senator in the federal parliament, said the states and commonwealth had equal powers to legislate in this area with three states and two territories having already passed laws to protect LGBT teachers and students years ago.
“It is completely disingenuous for the Attorney General to say he’s waiting on Albanese and Dutton to come up with some sort of federal legislation, that’s a red herring. WA can produce its own laws at any time, and they must be better than the commonwealth has flagged,” he said.
Greig said the ‘ridiculous’ delay in addressing this reform was harming teachers and students.
“It’s been six years since the review into the Equal Opportunity Act was commissioned, Premier Cook must stop dithering and implement the recommendations.”
