BOSSES who refuse to hire or promote workers with criminal records will risk discrimination suits under legislative changes recommended by a Senate inquiry.
The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee also wants to strip religious groups of the right to discriminate against students, patients or customers on the grounds of sexuality, political opinion or religious beliefs.
And it recommends a ban on discrimination against victims of domestic violence, so they cannot be unfairly disciplined for turning up late or calling in sick.
The committee was flooded with an astounding 3464 public submissions into the Federal Government's draft legislation, which rolls five existing anti-discrimination laws into a single bill.
The draft bill has left "criminal record" off the list of 17 "protected attributes" for which discrimination would be illegal.
But the committee, chaired by dumped Labor senator Trish Crossin, concluded that "discrimination in employment on the basis of a criminal record that is clearly irrelevant should not be tolerated".
Its report says employers should not be allowed to discriminate against workers with a criminal conviction that is "not directly relevant to the situation in which the discrimination arises".
The committee also urged the Government to scrap a contentious clause in the bill which widens the definition of discrimination to conduct that "offends or insults".
It said most submissions to the inquiry feared the wording would "have a negative impact on freedom of expression in Australia".
The Senate committee recommended scrapping an exemption that lets religious groups discriminate against people when delivering services such as education, health, crisis accommodation and aged care.
The proposal could force Islamic schools to enrol Christian students, or Catholic hospitals to treat sex-change patients.
"In the committee's view, discrimination on religious grounds is justifiable if it is reasonable and proportionate in all the circumstances," the report says."This does not mean, however, that discriminatory conduct by religious organisations should always be lawful.
"The law should not provide broad statutory exceptions allowing disproportionate or unreasonable discrimination on religious grounds."
The report says religious groups should still be allowed to hire staff "in accordance with their founding ethos and values".
But "it can see no reason why individuals should automatically lose their right to non-discrimination in the provision of services because a particular service is being provided by a religious organisation".
"It is vitally important that the rights of minority groups are upheld when they are receiving help from service providers, particularly in cases where the service provision is Commonwealth-funded," the report says
Coalition senators issued a dissenting report, criticising the draft bill as "violating fundamental human rights", and "impossibly wide and dangerously vague".
"The bill would damage Australia's social fabric by encouraging a `culture of complaint", the Opposition senators said.
The Greens senators said the draft bill gave religious groups "arbitrary, overly broad and unnecessary" exemptions.
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