Nick Butterly: WA Labor faces policy battles on the social front

There has been no lack of opinions on offer in recent days as to why Labor crashed and burned so spectacularly at the Federal election, despite having been the sure-bet frontrunners for almost three years.

New Labor leader Anthony Albanese has fingered the ALP’s policy on franking credits as being in part to blame for the collapse. Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter reckons the Opposition lost middle Australia with its plan to change rules on negative gearing, which Porter artfully distilled into a warning that Labor was planning a flat 20 per cent “housing tax” on families.

But one of the more curious narratives gathering steam is around the “sleeper” issue of religious freedoms. The claim runs that Christian groups led a successful subterranean campaign against Labor around fears a more left-leaning government might crack down on teachings in schools, or freedom of speech.

In The West Australian this week Mr Porter said before the election there had been “enormous concerns” voiced from schools and churches, and he promised that enshrining religious freedom into law was at the top of the Morrison Government’s list of things to do.

In the aftermath of the election, Christian school groups have boasted how they campaigned on the need to uphold freedoms around religious teachings in the classroom. One academic analysis reckoned that swings against Labor in Western Sydney and in parts of Queensland might have been in part the result of campaigns run by religious organisations and community groups.

Here in WA, Liberals claim that the Australian Christian Lobby played a not insubstantial role in keeping Labor out of office. In the seat of Canning — at one point a target for Labor — the ACL claims to have made more than 1000 phone calls to voters and sent out some 60,000 pieces of mail to homes.

Dramatic claims about the role religion might have played in the election are debatable — possibly even dubious — but they will be weighing on the mind of members of the McGowan Government as they edge closer to dealing with two pieces of legislation dealing with sensitive social issues.

Last week Child Protection Minister Simone McGurk told The West the Government would introduce a Bill in the second half of this year requiring religious officials to report child abuse. The changes are most sensitive inside the Catholic Church where canon law demands that priests must abide by the secrecy of the confessional. McGurk’s announcement drew an unusually long and forceful response from the Catholic Archbishop of Perth, Timothy Costelloe, who warned starkly the McGowan Government ran the risk of “interfering with the free practice of the Catholic faith”.

The Archbishop argued it was “unlikely” a child abuser would ever step into the confessional to admit to their crimes. His argument appeared to gently sidestep the notorious case of Queensland Catholic priest Michael McArdle, who in 2003 pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting children over many years. McArdle claimed he had confessed his crimes to more than 30 priests. The child abuse royal commission report — handed down in 2017 — also detailed other cases where priests had either confessed abuse to fellow priests, or where children had told of their own abuse in confession and been told to keep quiet.

The reporting laws look likely to pass Parliament with support of the Liberals, but the Government will have to deal with some friction on the way through — not least from members of the old Catholic Right inside the Labor party room.

But the biggest challenge for the Government comes with the planned introduction of euthanasia legislation, with a Bill likely to hit the Lower House about August.

The euthanasia Bill will not only bring out church and conservative community groups in opposition to the Government, but also professional bodies such as the Australian Medical Association — sometimes dubbed the most powerful lobby group in the country.

The AMA, which is firmly opposed to euthanasia, is already warming to a long battle with the State Government. At a drinks function on Tuesday night outgoing AMA State president Omar Khorshid ripped into the Government and Health Minister Roger Cook, hinting at the heavy lobbying to come.

The AMA is privately complaining the process surrounding the right-to-die legislation has been rushed, with the Government seeking to push the change through as soon as it can to avoid any ugliness in an election year. Doctors complain the WA legislation looks set to go further than recent laws in Victoria, with rules here possibly to allow those with “chronic conditions” — as distinct to those in Victoria with defined terminal illnesses — access to drugs to kill themselves.

Labor MPs driving euthanasia laws believe they have the numbers — but only just — to carry the day. But the McGowan Government is unlikely to have any stomach for a protracted series of fights over prickly social issues.