Weekend Wrap for 7 March 2021
While campaigners for voluntary assisted dying celebrate success in Tasmania, the territories continue to face roadblocks. Catch up on the latest news and views of concern for secular Australians in the Weekend Wrap.
Don’t forget that the Weekend Wrap, which aims to help secular-minded Australians keep abreast of the latest news on current issues, is also published on our Facebook page!
At the National Level
Lawyers for abuse survivors are dismayed it took the threat of financial penalties for the Jehovah’s Witnesses to say they will join the redress scheme, with the delay being “just another example of the hard tactics that they employ when defending claims by survivors” (The New Daily).
Hillsong’s Brian Houston says he accepts responsibility and apologises unreservedly for the past failings at the church’s East Coast USA branch, which has been tarred with scandal in recent months (Eternity News).
Around the Country
TAS: Mike Gaffney’s voluntary assisted dying bill, the End-of-Life Choices (Voluntary Assisted Dying) Bill, passed the state’s lower house of parliament, with a 16-6 vote following a marathon week of debate (ABC).
TAS: Opponents to the voluntary assisted dying bill labelled the outcome as a “very disappointing” result and argued that not enough time had been given to consider the legislation (The Australian).
ACT/NT: The Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory governments have joined forces in the fight for the right to decide on voluntary assisted dying, writing to a letter to Attorney-General Christian Porter and other federal government ministers calling for the 'Kevin Andrews' bill to be repealed (HIT).
ACT: Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee has urged the Prime Minister to give the nation's capital territory the right to make laws on voluntary assisted dying, but says Labor must do more to encourage its senators to support the cause (Canberra Times).
QLD: The Australian Christian Lobby believes Queenslanders are concerned that the Labor government will “rush” assisted dying laws through the parliament with little scrutiny (ACL).
SA: A former Catholic nun suffering through the latter stages of a terminal illness has revealed her support for voluntary assisted dying to be legalised in the state, saying God would not want terminally ill people to suffer and die “horrible deaths” (Border Watch).
WA: LGBTQ advocacy group just.equal has warned of a “deliberate misinformation campaign” being spread in the Christian community suggesting that preachers could be rounded up, extradited from Western Australia to Victoria and potentially locked away under Victoria’s new laws banning gay conversion practices (Out in Perth).
WA: In a new survey ahead of the state election, LGBTQI people have ranked tackling conversion practices and removing special religious exemptions for faith-based schools as among their leading policy priorities (Out in Perth).
Commentary and Analysis
While all Australian jurisdictions now permit abortion on request up to varying points in a pregnancy, many hurdles remain for women in accessing abortion services, write academics Erica Millar and Barbara Baird (The Conversation).
Sexual assault allegations are being politically weaponised as the latest tool in the “Marxist toolkit of power”, writes the Australian Christian Lobby’s Martyn Iles (ACL).
That's it for another week!
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