The peak body of Australia’s largest Jewish community, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, has said that the organisation is not looking for a change to the state’s newly-enacted anti-discrimination laws.
The JCCV’s statement came after Victorian Liberal leader Matt Guy promised to change the law so that religious schools could hire staff on the basis of their faith and allow them to discriminate against LGBTQI staff.
The JCCV told Australian Jewish News that they have not sought a change in the provisions of the Equal Opportunity Act (EOA), enacted by the Daniel Andrews-led Labor government that prohibits religious schools from sacking or refusing to hire LGBTQI staff.
“The JCCV is comfortable with the present legislative settings. In particular, we understand that the larger Victorian Jewish day schools have not expressed a desire to exercise this power or a need for it,” President Daniel Aghion told AJN.
The heads of prominent Jewish schools – Mount Scopus Memorial College principal Rabbi James Kennard and Bialik College principal Jeremy Stowe-Lindner told AJN that they opposed any form of discrimination in their institutions.
The Victorian Parliament in December 2021 passed the Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Act and removed the exemptions granted to religious schools from anti-discrimination laws.
Read the article by Shibu Thomas in the Star Observer.