Q: Does the government plan to re-introduce religion discrimination legislation that was shelved because of a lack of support, and what will the government do to protect transgender Australians?

Albanese:

We on the first issue, one of the things I said, and I maintain my position, you need broad support for legislation, we weren’t able to receive that. This is the last time in Australia, the last time that you would want to have a divisive debate about religion. So I’m up for legislation that has broad support. But we do not need further issues created. I’ve been about turning the temperature down, not up. On those issues. Which is what social cohesion requires. And on the last – I just respect people.

OK, here is one of those little political furphy’s politicians from major parties use all the time when it comes to progressive legislation. Albanese doesn’t need the Coalition to pass any legislation. There is always another pathway and in the last senate, it was through the Greens and the crossbench. There is nothing binding the Coalition to a particular policy from parliament to parliament – just because they voted for something once, doesn’t mean that they won’t reverse their position. Same with every parliament and political party. So the whole ‘we need bipartisanship on this’ is absolutely ridiculous. When major political parties don’t take the more progressive route through a senate it is because they don’t want progressive policy. And if the other major party won’t negotiate on it, they pretend there is no other option. It’s not true.