Coming out of the Christmas and New Year break, the assault on religious freedom and people of faith is powering ahead.

Last August, New South Wales Parliamentarian Alex Greenwich introduced the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023 and it is expected to be debated in the NSW Parliament in February.

This massive bill reaches into 20 different NSW laws, inserts over 50 new provisions, and amends 80 different sections of legislation ranging from the 1977 Anti-Discrimination Act to the Worker’s Compensation Act 1987 and the Government Sector Employment Act of 2013.

It lays out clearly the agenda of those who wish to attack people of faith and strong values who simply wish to hold to their convictions.

It presents a danger to children by promoting a radical transgender ideology and threatens religious and values-based institutions like schools by directly removing their religious freedom protections.

Make no mistake; this bill represents one of the biggest threats to people of faith we’ve ever seen in this country.

Take for example its provisions for children. It allows children under 18 to consent to irreversible “gender affirming” surgery and allows children under 16 to receive puberty blockers without their parents’ permission.

It even amends the Birth, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995 to stop courts notifying parents of a “change of sex” in some circumstances while also introducing novel and fashionable terms like “genderqueer” and “non-binary” as official legal categories.

It even goes as far as to compromise women’s safety by decriminalising and promoting prostitution and introducing “sex worker” as a protected attribute in anti-discrimination law.

And all of that is just the tip of the iceberg.

With such an all-encompassing complex bill, too many legislators and decision makers will put it in the too-hard basket and give up on understanding just how dangerous this bill is.

But at HRLA we’ll be defending our core values and working hard to see this bill defeated.