Coalition?s religious discrimination bill will erode rights of people with disability, advocates say

Disability groups say the Morrison government's proposed religious discrimination bill will erode the rights of people with a disability and allow legally protected "hurt and humiliation".

In a submission to the parliamentary joint committee on human rights, more than two dozen disability support organisations have urged the Coalition to abandon the bill in its current form, saying there is widespread concern about its "harmful impacts".

"We support religious freedom as essential to a thriving democracy, but not at the expense of the rights and freedoms of others," the group's submission states.

"The religious discrimination bill will encourage prejudice, stigma, denigration, division, and discrimination against people with disability, and undermine all efforts to build and sustain an inclusive Australia."

The organisations - which include peak advocacy groups People With Disability Australia and the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations - raise particular concern about the bill's controversial statement of belief clause.

This part of the proposed legislation says "statements of belief" do not breach discrimination laws, giving legal protection to statements of religious belief or "a belief that the person genuinely considers to relate to the fact of not holding a religious belief".

Examples given in the submission include a person with a disability being told they are suffering a "punishment from God" for their, or their parents', sins. Or being told they may be "healed" by prayer or by "living virtuously".