FACT-CHECK: Will WA’s new discrimination law stop religious schools sacking gay teachers and expelling gay students?

The Cook Labor government tabled the Equal Opportunity Bill 2026 on 21 October, a full rewrite of Western Australia’s 42-year-old Equal Opportunity Act. Three claims have framed the argument over what it does to religious schools. Attorney-General Tony Buti says the schools’ exemption to discriminate is “purely on religion, not sexuality”. The Australian Christian Lobby says the reforms threaten religious freedom and Christian schools’ ability to keep their ethos. The Greens say the religious carve-out that survives is still too wide. Here is what the Bill says, and how the claims hold up.

What the Bill actually does

The Bill replaces the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 and makes sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics protected attributes. It keeps a religious exemption for religious schools, but a much narrower one than the current good-faith test, and the government’s own fact sheet for religious educational institutions sets out where the lines now fall.

For staff, a religious school may discriminate only where all three of these hold: “conformity with the doctrines of the institution’s religion is an inherent requirement of the employment”; “the employee cannot meet the inherent requirement because of their own religious conviction”; and “the discrimination is reasonable and proportionate”. For existing students, discrimination must be “on the basis of student’s religious conviction”, must conform “to the doctrines of the religion”, must be “reasonably necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents”, and must be “reasonable and proportionate”. In hiring and enrolment, a school may still consider a person’s religion where their religious convictions “relate to a different religion to that of the school”, and where the school is “conducted solely or mainly for persons of the school’s religion”. The Bill, the fact sheet says, “will allow religious schools to maintain their religious character”.

Two things stand out. The grounds for the exemption are religious conviction and doctrine, not a person’s sexuality or gender. And the staff test turns on the employee’s “own religious conviction”, not on any other attribute.

Claim 1: The exemption is “purely on religion, not sexuality” (Attorney-General Tony Buti)

Verdict: accurate.

Buti put it plainly to OUTinPerth: religious schools could discriminate in hiring and enrolment on the basis of religion, not on other attributes, and asked whether that covered sexuality, he said: “Not sexuality. I want to make that quite clear.” The Bill limits the exemption after hiring to cases where religious conformity is an inherent requirement of the role.

The Bill bears him out. Every religious-school exemption in it is tied to religious conviction or doctrine; sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics are listed as protected attributes the exemption does not reach. A school could not lawfully sack a teacher or expel a student for being gay, lesbian or transgender as such, because being gay or transgender is not a religious conviction and sits outside the grounds the exemption allows.

One honest qualification. The Bill carries a separate “lawful sexual activity” exemption that applies to all schools, not only religious ones, where “employment involves the care or education of children”. That is a narrow residual provision about conduct, not identity, and it is not the religious carve-out at issue here, but it is the one place a sexual-activity distinction can still reach school staff. On the central claim, though, Buti is right: the religious exemption is keyed to religion, not to sexuality.

Claim 2: The reforms threaten religious freedom and Christian schools’ ethos (Australian Christian Lobby)

Verdict: overstated, with a real kernel.

The ACL’s campaign argues the Bill would “reduce religious freedom and create a hierarchy of rights, where anti-discrimination protections override religious autonomy”, and that it “will make it harder for schools and charities to ensure staff actively support their religious ethos”.

As a claim that the Bill strips religious schools of their freedom, it is overstated. The Bill expressly preserves their “religious character”, lets them hire and enrol on the basis of religion, and keeps a religious exemption for staff and students. It narrows those exemptions rather than removing them. What it takes away is the use of religion as a vehicle to act against people for being LGBTQI+, which is a change to the reach of the exemption, not the abolition of it.

The kernel of truth is in the hiring change. Under the current Act a school can make faith-alignment staffing decisions in good faith; under the Bill it can do so only where religious conformity is an “inherent requirement” of the job, the person falls short because of their own religious conviction, and the decision is reasonable and proportionate. That is a genuinely tighter test, and a school that wants every staff member to share and model its faith will find the new threshold harder to meet. Whether that is a loss of “religious freedom” or the removal of an over-broad privilege is the real argument.

Claim 3: The religious carve-out that remains is still too wide (the Greens)

Verdict: the factual core is accurate; “too wide” is a policy judgment.

Greens MLC Brad Pettitt told OUTinPerth the party wants the carve-outs “eliminated, ideally, or at least minimised”. On the facts, a substantial religious exemption does remain: schools keep the power to prefer staff and students on religious grounds, and the student test lets a school act where doing so “conforms to the doctrines of the religion” and is “reasonably necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents”. That doctrinal language is exactly the kind of provision that invites argument at the edges, which is why the Greens want it gone.

Whether the remaining exemption is “too wide” is a question of values, not fact, and not one a fact-check can settle. What can be said is that the Greens are right that an exemption survives, and right that its doctrinal tests leave contested ground. Labor has the numbers in the Legislative Assembly but will likely need the Greens in the Legislative Council, so that contested ground is where the Bill’s final scope will be decided.

The bottom line

The headline fear — that the Bill lets religious schools go on sacking gay teachers and expelling gay students, or alternatively that it destroys religious freedom — is wrong at both extremes. The Bill stops religious schools using religion to act against people for being LGBTQI+, while keeping a narrower, conviction-based exemption that preserves their religious character and their faith-based hiring and enrolment. The genuine disputes are narrower: how much the tighter “inherent requirement” test constrains faith-alignment staffing, and whether the doctrinal tests left in for students are a reasonable protection or a loophole. Those are the arguments the Legislative Council will have.