Weekend Wrap for 8 September 2024

VIC: Nail Aykan is sick of politicians getting photo opportunities at a Turkish restaurant or speaking to one kebab shop owner and thinking they can rely on Muslim people for their votes. “It’s just your campaign propaganda. It’s window dressing. We want substance.” It’s why Aykan organised the Muslim Voices of Calwell group to engage with candidates in the electorate in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, and why he argued the merits of a hung parliament at the campaign launch of another group, Muslim Votes Matter, last Sunday. A separate group, the Muslim Vote, is also organising and could field independent candidates. (1 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Age

NSW: The Rationalist Society of Australia is seeking answers from New South Wales education minister Prue Car about a Christian group’s promotion of proselytising in a public school. In June, Scripture Union published a video on its social media in which two senior students talk about how they urge other students, including non-Christians, to take part in lunchtime religious activities. The state’s Department of Education has an explicit policy banning proselytising for ‘voluntary student activities of a religious nature’ in schools – such as lunchtime activities. (2 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Rationalist Society of Australia

NSW: Sport is at the pointy end of the growing divide between private and public education in Sydney. Scots College once had an altitude training facility for its sports teams. Shore has underwater cameras in its pool. Cranbrook has four tennis courts and two playing fields. Four private schools on the “golden mile” of the upper Pacific Highway have 17 basketball courts between them. Yet in Sydney’s inner west, 12 public primary schools have just pulled out of their only regular interschool sports competition because the buses they need to get to poorly drained council playing fields are too expensive and unreliable, and the teachers don’t have the time to attend. (3 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Age

TAS: Two former Tasmania students have given harrowing evidence of their experience of bullying and discrimination during their high school years. A parliamentary committee is holding public hearings into the subject and has received dozens of submissions from former students, schools and parents. Former Catholic student Sam Watson said the church’s stance on same-sex marriage had made coming out as gay in high school in 2015 more difficult. “While most staff and students were supportive, I experienced a number of comments and indirect actions that simply would not have occurred to non-LGBTIQA+ students. Shortly after I came out, the Archdiocese circulated the Don’t Mess with Marriage booklet to every student, making it clear to me that as a person my school system did not want my rights to be equal." (3 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Mercury

WA: Earlier this year Bunbury PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) mum, Hazel Wood, called on the Cook Government to reinstate the Inclusive Education WA strategy (previously part of the federal Safe Schools program) after former Premier Mark McGowan stopped funding in 2020. Wood wrote to Education Minister, Tony Buti, and Youth Minister, Hannah Beazley, to urge the reintroduction of the program. Recently Buti wrote back, saying the Cook Government would not do this. (4 Sep 2024)
Read more at Out in Perth

TAS: Attempts to reduce discrimination in Tasmanian schools run the risk of reducing religious freedom in the fashion of dictators and totalitarian regimes, the Australian Christian Lobby says. The comments came during a Parliamentary Committee hearing into bullying and discrimination in Tasmanian schools. Australian Christian Lobby director of policy and research Christopher Broheir said the ACL did not support bullying but had concerns about the tenor of some efforts to crack down on discrimination. (4 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Mercury

SA: Last week, Greens member Robert Simms introduced his Equal Opportunity (Religious Bodies) Amendment Bill into the Legislative Council, proposing to remove exemptions provided to religious bodies such as schools and service providers. In his speech in parliament, Mr Simms said it was “difficult to comprehend” that South Australia continued to allow some forms of discrimination against LGBTIQ people. The exemptions in the state’s Equal Opportunity Act allow religious schools to fire teachers and religious welfare service providers such as shelters to refuse service on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. (5 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Rationalist Society of Australia

QLD: A coalition of Queensland’s religious leaders says the Miles Government’s proposed overhaul of workplace sexual harassment laws could force faith-based institutions to teach against their beliefs on sexuality and gender. Planned law changes introduce a ban on creating a work environment that is “hostile on the basis of sex”, which church groups believe could leave them vulnerable to legal action for refusing to appoint women to leadership roles or having separate prayer areas for males and females. (5 Sep 2024)
Read more at CathNews (originally published in The Australian)

VIC: Private schools are pocketing thousands of dollars more per student in taxpayer funding than similar public campuses just down the road, according to a new education union report. Using Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) data, the union compared the income per student of Werribee Secondary College and MacKillop Catholic Regional College, located 1.6 kilometres apart in Melbourne’s south-west. Despite having fewer students with high needs, MacKillop received $1689 more per student in government funding in 2022. Factoring in all income sources, which includes fees, the Catholic school received almost 50 per cent more per student than its neighbour, according to the union. Two comparable independent schools in the same federal electorate – Al-Taqwa College and the Islamic College of Melbourne – also received significantly more government funding. (6 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Age

QLD: Members of church group 'The Saints', accused of causing the death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Rose Struhs, who died on 7 January 2022 at her family's home in Toowoomba after six days without her prescribed insulin shots, have denied they acted in a criminal conspiracy to deny her medication. The girl's father, Jason Struhs, said he still had faith and that God would bring Elizabeth back from the dead. Elizabeth's father and Brendan Luke Stevens, the 62-year-old leader of The Saints, are charged with Elizabeth's murder. (6 Sep 2024)
Read more at SBS News