Candidates try to find a balance when it comes to religious discrimination

The question was put to candidates by a voter at Thursday's Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association forum and was largely framed around the issue of religious freedoms, particularly in schools. .

While candidates were sympathetic to the voter's concerns about religious people facing discrimination, they also did not want to introduce policies that discriminated against others.

Incumbent Andrew Gee, who the question was initially directed to, said politicians had to be "careful".

"The thing that I think we need to be careful about is that there are groups or people who are unfairly discriminated against and we saw the difficulty in the last Parliament when that was debated, how difficult getting across that issue is," he said.

"It's fine to have a diversity of schools of different faiths, and of course they should be free to teach their faith in an uninterrupted way, but I think we also need to make sure that, in terms of what the Parliament does and legislating freedoms, that we aren't taking freedoms away from other people."

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Labor candidate Sarah Elliott expressed a similar view.

"Absolutely, religions have a right to practise their religion. Absolutely, they should practise it to those who want it, but what I cannot conscientiously abide by is discrimination against the LGBTQI members of our society," she said.

A very personal experience helped to shape One Nation candidate Stacey Whittaker's perspective.

"Being a sister to a gay brother who took his own life, I am fully aware of people that may slip through the cracks on different things. We need to be inclusive and we need to make sure that the minorities are not forgotten," she said.

"... People are not always going to be in agreeance, but we need to make sure that all people are looked after and that no one slips through the cracks."

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