Perhaps but if you, like me, don’t have a passport and no need for a visa then that’s why I’ve had to produce my birth certificate for the last two times I’ve taken on a permanent position, one of those was in the government sector. My birth certificate says I’m Australian born thus my citizenship and work right is confirmed. Your reference to drivers license is odd because that provides no info about your citizenship status, but I might have had to produce mine alongside my birth certificate as photo-id, but it’s still the birth certificate which was primary in that case.

Anyone in the recruitment game will tell you providing a birth certificate is NOT usual practice – providing your passport, or visa is. It’s all about:
1. proving who you are (photo); and
2. demonstrating you have a right to work in Australia

While it may be important to trans people for other reasons, birth certificates (unlike passports, visas or drivers licence) are not integral to obtaining employment

Disappointing stuff from Shorten though, lest anyone think I’m being partisan. Dumb answer, factually awful, and just stupid politics. I get that Bill didn’t want to answer the question, but that’s exactly why he should have explained certification is for the states and this whole debate is only going on because the Liberal government has mishandled the religious freedom bizzo so badly, and continues to show no leadership. This is not the time for policy on the run, it’s the time for a debate which is laid out rationally and can be dealt with consistently, but the Liberals’ creation of the religious freedom inquiry and its subsequent refusal to release the report is just making this whole situation distressing for all sides.

By all means bag out Shorten for trying to bullshit an answer, if he wants to make himself a target for this crap rather than just leave ScoMo suffering alone in the headlights he’s welcome to it.