The ACT government is confident the laws would not change any exemptions for religious schools and would instead make certain that lawful discrimination must only take place on legitimate religious grounds.

The draft bill, released for public consultation on Wednesday, defines a religious educational institution as one that is associated with "a religious body that does not have a commercial purpose as its sole or main purpose".

Religious educational institutions would still be allowed to employ people based on their religion, whereas religious bodies would have to show that having a certain faith genuinely affected a person's role.

Australian Association of Christian Schools government relations advisor Dylan Turner said member schools were not affiliated with churches and it was unclear if their parent-led boards would constitute a religious body under the new definition.

It could leave the non-denominational religious schools exposed if there was a claim made against them for hiring a Christian over someone of another or no faith, he said.

"There's no case law on this. Until it goes before a court, we don't know what it really means," Mr Turner said.

"We know from other pieces of law that a religious body ... the narrow definition of that is a church, the broad definition is everything vaguely religious."

Christian Schools Australia public policy director Mark Spencer said the draft exposure bill added an extra layer of complexity if schools had to prove that they were associated with a religious body.

"We engaged in this process in good faith. All we've got is a grab bag of tiny amendments that don't seem to have any purpose behind them," Mr Spencer said.

"It hasn't modernised or simplified or made the bill best practice. We would like to see the government explaining the 'why' of these amendments."

Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne on Wednesday said the bill had been released as part of a consultation process, and she was happy to receive feedback from schools which believe they could be affected.

"I am surprised to hear that's been any of the early feedback because this is about refining the exceptions, this is about making it simpler and easier to understand," Ms Cheyne said.

The draft bill clarifies the definition of a religious educational institution to make it clear it is associated with a religious body, which the bill defines as a "body established for religious purposes".

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Ms Cheyne said there would be no material changes to exemptions for religious schools.

"If a school or an organisation believes they've been captured, this is exactly why we're undertaking this consultation now before we introduce the bill later," she said.

The draft discrimination bill would also expand discrimination protections and include a positive duty to prevent discrimination for the first time. Public authorities would be covered by the new duty under the proposed legislation and other organisations would follow in three years' time.

The laws would also require employers to justify discriminating against candidates where a person has a genuine occupational qualification.

The public consultation period on the draft bill closes on July 1.

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