Joint Dissenting Statement
Michael Ferguson MP and Mark Shelton MP
Protecting students while preserving parental choice, freedom of belief, and pluralism
What the majority would not allow this Report to say:
Faith-based schools form a longstanding part of Tasmania’s education system and many families choose such schools because they wish their children to be educated in accordance with a particular religious tradition and ethos.
Families may choose such schools for other reasons but nonetheless accept the faith environment they are seeking to join.
Faith-based schools play an important role in teaching, modelling and practising the beliefs and values of their faith communities, including in matters relating to worship, family life, moral teaching and religious observance.
– Statements rejected for inclusion by the majority of committee members.
Main statement
We acknowledge the substantial work undertaken by the Committee, our secretariat and the many Tasmanians who contributed to this Inquiry.
We strongly agree with the central proposition that every student should be safe at school. That was the stated premise of the original motion establishing this inquiry. Bullying, harassment, humiliation and unlawful discrimination are unacceptable and should be rejected. Students who experience unfair discrimination or bullying because of disability, race, religion, sexuality, questions relating to gender or any other personal attribute are entitled to dignity, care and appropriate protection. Teachers and other school staff are entitled to the same.
We do not doubt the pain experienced by students who gave evidence to this Inquiry, nor do we diminish it. Their experiences deserve to be heard and taken seriously. But precisely because these issues matter, Parliament must distinguish evidence from established fact, balance competing rights, consult those affected and exercise caution before extending the power of the State. Compassion for people who have suffered does not relieve a parliamentary committee of those responsibilities.
Unfortunately, however, as the inquiry progressed, we became increasingly concerned by proposals to use the power of State laws, regulation and funding arrangements to exercise new controls over non-government schools, families and faith communities – risking freedoms of belief and family choice.
We support many of the Committee’s findings and recommendations and voted for them. We could not support those which, in our view, went too far by seeking to lock-in contested views about sex and gender into law, regulation or mandatory school policy at the expense of liberty, parental responsibility, pluralism and freedom of belief.
Our disagreement usually arose where the Committee majority moved beyond the proper task of protecting students and staff from bullying and failed to recognise other fundamental rights and responsibilities engaged by education, particularly:
- freedom of religion and belief;
- parents’ choice and responsibility;
- freedom of association;
- institutional autonomy in a liberal, pluralist, free society; and
- the lawful and positive place of faith-based schools and their communities.
The Committee comprised two Labor members, one Greens member, two independents (one a former Green) and two Liberal members. On many of the issues addressed in this dissent, a majority comprising members from the Labor, Greens and independents prevailed. We nevertheless approached the inquiry seeking consensus wherever possible, and there was robust and constructive debate throughout. The minutes reproduced in this Report provide a transparent and telling record of those deliberations and voting patterns.
Throughout the Committee’s deliberations, the two of us generally took a common position on the matters addressed in this dissenting statement. We sought amendments which, in our view, would have produced a more balanced, evidence-based and legally cautious Report. Many were not supported by the majority.
Our concern is that the Report too often treats one set of rights, together with contested cultural beliefs about sex and gender, as requiring greater legislative or regulatory protection without giving equal weight to other lawful rights, beliefs and freedoms that Tasmanians value. At several points, the Committee was even prepared to call for more legal control of faith-based schools but refused sensible amendments which called for consideration of religious freedom, parental choice and the lawful operation of those schools. Those members could perhaps explain why that was too much to ask.
The Report records substantial evidence from Catholic and independent Christian schools and organisations, including evidence of zero tolerance for bullying, anti-bullying policies and procedures, wellbeing programs and curricula encouraging kindness and respect. We welcomed the eventual inclusion of this balancing positive material. Without it, the breadth of the community’s valuable input would not have been fairly represented.
We were also concerned by occasions where one-sided or contested evidence was given substantial weight whereas important material that directly challenged those allegations was excluded from the Report. We address a stark example concerning Catholic Education Tasmania and Archbishop Anthony Ireland later in this dissent. The committee’s decision to do this is very difficult to comprehend.
Tasmania doesn’t need a culture war over how we protect vulnerable students while respecting freedom of belief. A mature liberal democracy is capable of doing both.
Faith-based education should not be misrepresented as though religious beliefs (Christian or otherwise) and student wellbeing are at odds with each other. The proportion of Tasmanian students attending non-government schools has risen from around 26.5 per cent in 2005 to 34.6 per cent in 2025. Parents have been actively making choices about the kind of education and school community they want for their children. Those choices deserve respect, not derision.
If we truly believe in tolerance and pluralism, there must be room for faith communities to offer education within their faith tradition without undue State interference and dictate. The State can protect students from bullying without seeking to dominate what lawful faith communities may believe, teach or practise.
1. Protecting students without imposing contested beliefs
The evidence received by the Committee demonstrates that bullying, harassment and discrimination can have serious consequences for students. We agree with that and support practical measures that make schools safer and ensure students who experience bullying or unfair treatment are properly supported.
That is strongly reflected in our voting record. We supported many of the Committee’s findings and recommendations directed at student safety and wellbeing. This included the recommendation that all schools actively implement their anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies. We also supported measures seeking greater consistency in policies for supporting students experiencing questions relating to gender. Our disagreement was never with the objective of keeping students safe, but at times with proposals that went much further and unnecessarily intruded into other rights, responsibilities and freedoms.
Importantly, the evidence before the Committee did not support a simplistic picture of faith-based schools as places where student wellbeing is disregarded. Evidence from Catholic, Christian and independent schools and organisations described zero tolerance for bullying, anti-bullying policies and procedures, wellbeing programs, and educational programs promoting kindness and respect. We welcomed the eventual inclusion of this evidence in the Report and recognition of the large number of individual submissions that presented a very different picture from the allegations made by a much smaller number of witnesses.
Every school (whether government, Catholic, Christian, independent or otherwise) should provide a safe environment in which bullying, intimidation and humiliation are stamped out.
Protecting students from bullying is not the same thing as requiring every school community to adopt identical beliefs and practices about contested questions of sex, gender, marriage, family or religious teaching. Nor should disagreement with another person’s beliefs automatically be described as bullying or discrimination. Schools should be able to care for every student with dignity and compassion while retaining their own lawful character, beliefs and values.
This distinction became increasingly important during the Committee’s deliberations. In our view, some proposals moved far beyond ensuring that students were treated safely and respectfully and instead towards prescribing what schools, families and faith communities should be required to affirm or accept through powerful law, regulation or mandatory policy.
Tasmanian families should be able to expect safe and respectful schools without governments or lobby groups demanding ideological uniformity. Protecting students and respecting genuine differences in belief are not incompatible objectives. That distinction underpins much of our disagreement with the majority in the sections that follow.
2. Rights need to be balanced, not weaponised
Protecting people from discrimination is an important principle. It is not the only right or responsibility engaged in education. Freedom of religion and belief, freedom of association, the responsibilities of parents and the lawful character of faith-based schools also matter. Good public policy should try to respect these rights together rather than simply elevating one and disregarding the others.
This need for balance was recognised in evidence before the Committee. Christian Schools Australia, Christian Education National and Adventist Education referred to the Commonwealth Religious Freedom Review and its recommendation that anti-discrimination legislation should reflect the equal status in international law of all human rights, including freedom of religion. They argued that Tasmania’s existing legislation risks placing non-discrimination rights above other human rights. We believe this was an important warning which deserved greater weight, but the majority declined to reflect that fair balance in its recommendations.
Parental responsibility provides a practical example. The Committee recommended that all schools implement policies and procedures supporting the use of transgender or gender-diverse students’ preferred names. We proposed the modest addition of the words “with parental approval”. That amendment was rejected four votes to two. Most, if not all, parents will find this appalling. Leaving parents out of the recommendation sends the troubling message that their judgement can simply be bypassed.
A recommendation applying to all schools and all students while refusing a reference at all to parents is a very serious step. Parents carry the highest responsibility for the love, care and upbringing of their children. A recommendation concerning a child’s identity at school should not simply write parents out of the equation.
The same problem arose when the Committee considered recommending a review of the Anti-Discrimination Act focused on preventing discrimination and bullying in schools. We asked that such a review should also appropriately recognise and balance freedom of religion and belief, freedom of association, parental choice and the lawful operation of faith-based schools. Remarkably, even that express requirement for balance was rejected five votes to two.
We haven’t argued that freedom of religion, parental responsibility or freedom of association should automatically prevail over every other right. That would simply repeat the committee majority’s misjudgement in reverse. Our point is that these important principles should not disappear from the equation as we witnessed.
A liberal pluralist society requires government to accommodate legitimate differences wherever possible. Protecting students from unlawful discrimination does not require other rights to be ranked as less worthy of respect.
3. Faith-based schools must be allowed to be genuinely faith-based
Faith-based schools aren’t simply ordinary schools with a chapel, a religious education class or a religious name attached. Their beliefs and values are at the heart of why they were established and, for many families, a big part of the reason they choose them in increasing numbers.
We sought to have this basic principle recognised in the Report through the following finding:
Faith-based schools form a longstanding part of Tasmania’s education system and many families choose such schools because they wish their children to be educated in accordance with a particular religious tradition and ethos.
Families may choose such schools for other reasons but nonetheless accept the faith environment they are seeking to join.
Faith-based schools play an important role in teaching, modelling and practising the beliefs and values of their faith communities, including in matters relating to worship, family life, moral teaching and religious observance.
One member moved to delete everything after the first sentence. A majority agreed.
The remaining finding was extraordinarily modest: simply that faith-based schools are longstanding in Tasmania and that many families choose them because of their religious tradition and ethos. Even that was rejected four votes to three.
That refusal is difficult to understand, particularly given the evidence the Committee itself received. The Report records a wealth of evidence supporting faith-based schools, including submissions from Catholic and Christian schools and many individuals describing positive experiences.
Parental choice is also evident in enrolment patterns. The proportion of Tasmanian students attending non-government schools has grown from around 26.5 per cent in 2005 to 34.6 per cent in 2025. Tasmanian parents are, in a very real sense, voting with their feet.
Families choose faith-based schools for different reasons, but those schools make no secret of their religious character.
A Catholic school should be allowed to be Catholic.
A Christian school should be allowed to be Christian.
That necessarily includes teaching, modelling and practising beliefs that will not always be shared by everyone outside that community.
Liberal pluralism means making room for those differences, not using government regulation to gradually remove them. Governments and Parliamentarians should be extremely cautious about trying to diminish the very character that many Tasmanian families have deliberately chosen because they want what they believe is best for their children.
4. Contested evidence should be treated fairly
A parliamentary inquiry has a responsibility to hear difficult evidence. It also has a responsibility to treat contested evidence fairly – particularly where serious allegations are made against identifiable people or institutions.
We became concerned that the Report did not always meet that standard. Evidence critical of Catholic Education Tasmania was reproduced at considerable length and repetition and contributed to findings concerning discrimination and the possible application of the Anti-Discrimination Act. Where that evidence was directly challenged, however, the Committee was unwilling to place that challenge alongside the allegations so that readers could judge the matter for themselves.
The clearest example followed evidence given by Equality Tasmania witnesses on 28 January 2026. Archbishop Anthony Ireland subsequently wrote to the Committee expressing serious concern about that evidence. He said the Archdiocese had participated in the inquiry in good faith but was concerned by what he described as a “disturbingly more narrow and targeted focus”. More significantly, he advised that some testimony presented by Equality Tasmania witnesses was not consistent with their sworn declaration to present “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.
The Archbishop explained that the Archdiocese was constrained by the terms of a non-disclosure agreement from correcting the record. He nevertheless expressly advised the Committee that the testimony “should not be relied upon for the purposes that it was proposed”.
We sought to have the Archbishop’s response included in the Report alongside the evidence it challenged. Our proposal was defeated four votes to two.
We do not ask readers to conclude that the Archbishop’s account was correct and the other witnesses were wrong. We cannot know the terms of the NDA, the full circumstances concerning the parties involved, or how the underlying matter was ultimately resolved. That is precisely the point.
Where a Committee cannot establish the full facts, it should exercise caution before treating one side of a contested account as established. At the very least, where serious allegations are reproduced in a parliamentary report and the institution concerned directly challenges their accuracy, fairness requires that readers be told with equal visibility that such a challenge was made.
5. The Committee went too far in declaring unlawful discrimination
One of our strongest disagreements concerns Finding 49, which states as fact that:
“Catholic Education Tasmania has discriminated against staff on the basis of sexual orientation and marital status.”
The Finding then acknowledges that whether the relevant employment practices contravene Tasmanian law in circumstances where Commonwealth law also applies has not been determined by a court. Finding 50 separately acknowledges that Tasmanian and Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws operate concurrently and that their application to employment in faith-based schools has not yet been determined by a court.
There is also an important distinction in CET’s evidence which the categorical wording of Finding 49 overlooks. Dr Gerard Gaskin explained that senior leaders are contractually required to be active Catholics, faithful to Catholic teaching and to model that teaching in their personal lives. The contract subsequently provided to the Committee requires senior leaders to uphold Catholic belief, identity and practice and reasonably model the precepts of the Catholic Church.
CET told us that the relevant requirement concerns adherence to Catholic teaching expected of senior leaders, rather than sexual orientation. Whether that distinction ultimately succeeds as a matter of discrimination law is a legal question for a court, not a committee of politicians.
The Report itself ultimately acknowledges the unresolved legal position.
We therefore proposed the smallest possible amendment to Finding 49: inserting “may have”, so that it would state that CET may have discriminated. Even that caution was rejected five votes to two. The majority then adopted the categorical Finding.
This is an extraordinary conclusion for a parliamentary committee to make. We are not a court. We heard competing factual and legal interpretations, had no capacity to finally determine the legal rights of the parties, and the Report itself acknowledges that the relevant legal issue has not been determined judicially.
That concern is compounded by the Committee’s earlier decision not to include the Archbishop’s response challenging important parts of the evidence on which such conclusions were based.
The Committee could properly report the evidence, identify the competing interpretations and recommend that legal uncertainty be resolved. Indeed, it unanimously recommended that the Government consider action to resolve the ambiguity between Tasmanian and Commonwealth law.
It should not, in the same breath, pronounce an identifiable organisation guilty of discrimination.
6. Any review of the Anti-Discrimination Act must consider religious freedom (and other freedoms) as well as protection from discrimination
We support the principle that Tasmania’s anti-discrimination laws should be effective, contemporary and provide appropriate protection against genuine discrimination and bullying. However, we are concerned that the Report approaches possible reform of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 predominantly from one direction.
The evidence before the Committee demonstrated that there are genuinely competing views about how the Act should operate, particularly in relation to faith-based schools. The Report itself acknowledges that there is broad support for changes to the Act, but that views “differ markedly as to what the changes should seek to achieve”.
Some witnesses expressly advocated for a review designed to restrict the capacity of faith-based schools to make decisions according to their religious character. Equality Tasmania proposed reviewing existing religious exemptions to determine whether they were being used to justify discrimination on other protected grounds. Other evidence called for the Act to be preserved or strengthened specifically so that religious schools remained unable to discriminate on grounds including gender and sexual identity.
It is reasonable for witnesses to advance their views. They are not, however, the only legitimate interests which a review should consider.
Faith-based schools exist for a particular purpose. Catholic Education Tasmania told the Committee that maintaining the Catholic character of its schools requires some senior leaders to uphold and model Catholic belief and practice. Dr Gaskin described this not simply as an employment preference but as integral to providing the Catholic education which parents have chosen for their children. He told the Committee that abandoning those expectations would fundamentally change the nature of the institution.
The Committee also received extensive evidence supportive of faith-based education. The final draft records submissions from 37 Catholic schools, together with submissions from Christian schools, associated organisations and individuals, which highlighted anti-bullying policies, wellbeing programs and commitments to kindness and respect.
In our view, a review of the Anti-Discrimination Act should therefore not begin with a predetermined assumption that stronger protection against discrimination necessarily requires weaker protection for religious freedom.
A proper review should consider the rights and interests on all sides and how they can coexist despite good-faith differences of belief. These include protection from unlawful discrimination, freedom of religion and association, the legitimate operation of faith-based institutions and the right of parents to choose an education for their children which accords with their religious convictions and values.
For that reason, we would have preferred the recommendation to make clear that any review consider both anti-discrimination protections and the legitimate freedoms of religious educational institutions.
Tasmania should be capable of protecting people from unjust discrimination while also respecting the freedom of faith communities to remain genuinely faith-based. These principles should not be treated as mutually exclusive.
7. Those potentially impacted by proposed changes should be consulted
Some of the most consequential recommendations in this Report concern changes to the laws, regulations and regulatory arrangements governing non-government schools. In our view, changes of that significance should not proceed without genuine consultation with the school communities that will actually be affected.
This concern is particularly acute in Chapter 6. Equality Tasmania proposed amendments to the Education Act 2016 and the standards governing registration of faith-based schools. Its proposals included mandatory inclusion policies and programs, new powers and procedures for the Non-Government Schools Registration Board, funding tied to new regulatory requirements, and even “new models of consultation and management” affecting who has a say over the policies and curricula of faith-based schools.
These are not minor administrative changes. They potentially reach into the governance, policies, curricula and religious character of independent school communities.
Yet the evidence base was strikingly uneven. The Australian Association of Christian Schools had provided evidence about the existing obligations of non-government schools under the Education Act and Registration Standards, including requirements concerning student welfare, child protection, privacy, bullying and harassment. But that is quite different from asking faith-based school organisations whether they supported the substantial new changes being proposed by Equality Tasmania.
During the final stages of the inquiry, we specifically raised whether the Committee had made any effort to go back to Catholic and Christian school organisations to tell them what was being said about them, about these proposed new rules and to seek their response. It became clear during our deliberations that this had not occurred.
The Committee’s own terms of reference required it to “ensure appropriate public consultation is conducted on all matters”. In our view, hearing a proposal from an advocacy organisation is not the same thing as consulting those who would be directly regulated by it.
We considered proposing an additional recommendation requiring the Government to consult relevant education sectors as part of any reviews or reforms arising from this Report. We ultimately did not move it because the majority’s approach during deliberations made clear that it regarded one-sided evidence received as sufficient to settle the matter. We disagree.
This is especially important when proposals concern faith-based institutions. The people who operate those schools, teach in them, send their children to them, pay the fees and sustain their communities should not discover after the event that their rights and responsibilities have been redesigned following proposals advanced by lobby groups with fundamentally different views about how those schools should operate.
Consultation should come before regulation, not after it.
Summary
We need to confront real bullying and discrimination – not allow this inquiry to be yet another avenue of attack against people who hold different beliefs in a free society.
None of this requires Tasmania to choose between compassion and freedom. We can protect students who have suffered bullying and discrimination while respecting parents, religious freedom, procedural fairness and legitimate differences of belief.
That is not a culture war. It is what a liberal, pluralist democracy should expect of its Parliament.
19 August 2026
The full report of the committee is available here.
