Weekend Wrap for 14 July 2024
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 14 July 2024, where you can catch up on the latest secular-related news from around the country.
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At the National Level
The Greens have doubled down on calls to remove the Lord's Prayer from federal Senate proceedings. Senator Mehreen Faruqi believed in a "secular parliament" with a "separation of church and state" and said the Lord's Prayer should no longer be read out to start each Senate day. "I would like to get rid of it because so many people of different faiths and from all over the world live in this country, and that is not representative," she said on July 7. All Australian parliaments feature the Lord's Prayer - generally read at the start of each sitting day - with the exception of the ACT Legislative Assembly. Since 1995 it has started sittings with an invitation to MPs to "pray or reflect" on their responsibilities as elected representatives. (8 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Canberra Times
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has named Jewish lawyer and business leader Jillian Segal as the nation's first anti-Semitism envoy, in response to the rise of Jewish people being targeted amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. Announcing her appointment as special envoy for three years, Mr Albanese said Ms Segal's appointment would promote social cohesion. Ms Segal will advise the prime minister and Multicultural Affairs Minister Andrew Giles on issues of anti-Semitism, and promote education and awareness of the issue. Mr Albanese also reconfirmed the government would also shortly appoint a special envoy on Islamophobia. (9 Jul 2024)
Read more at ABC News
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says the Coalition must deliver a “line-by-line” response to Labor’s draft religious discrimination reforms in order for the overhaul to progress. Addressing the National Press Club in Canberra, Mr Dreyfus declared his opposition counterpart Michaelia Cash had “refused to engage” and he didn’t count the public statements she’d made as a proper response. Mr Dreyfus said the Government was looking for enduring reform, “to give protections to staff and students in religious schools and protections to people of faith”. But Senator Cash, the Opposition’s legal affairs spokeswoman and a former attorney-general, said Mr Dreyfus already had a line-by-line response from faith groups that included drafting changes to the legislation. (10 Jul 2024)
Read more at CathNews
The Exclusive Brethren’s OneSchool Global network of private schools has received almost $30m in commonwealth payments for educational “disadvantage” over five years despite many being among the country’s wealthiest schools, a Guardian Australia investigation has found. Australian schools receive a disadvantage loading payment that is linked to the occupational and educational status of students’ parents. Multiple former members of the Brethren, now called the Plymouth Brethren Christian church, claim its congregation is mostly not permitted to attend university, and the women do not do paid work once they are married, except in unusual circumstances. This means that, despite the relative wealth of the Brethren schools and their community, they meet the relevant criteria for “disadvantage”. (10 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Guardian
Academics have expressed their anger at the appointment of Jillian Segal to special envoy to combat antisemitism, pointing to her lobbying for vice-chancellors to bring disciplinary action against pro-Palestine student protesters. Dr Ben Eltham, president of the NTEU Monash branch, said the appointment of a former lobbyist raised “some troubling questions for university staff and students”. “We know that Ms Segal personally lobbied vice-chancellors to take disciplinary action against peacefully protesting students. That was a bad faith intervention, which mischaracterised what students were actually protesting about … we don’t need an envoy: we need university leaders to listen to their students and staff calling for ceasefire and divestment from military research.” (10 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Guardian
Schools set up by the Exclusive Brethren sect have spent millions of dollars with businesses owned by church members on major building projects, including to a company majority-owned by the powerful Hales family, a Guardian Australia investigation has found. The Brethren’s OneSchool Global schools are registered charities in Australia and exempt from income tax. The OSG schools also have building funds endorsed for deductible gift recipient status. This means that anyone, including community members and businesses, can donate to the school charities and receive a tax deduction, with some of this money then flowing via lucrative contracts to private businesses owned by church members. (12 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Guardian
Australia is close to voluntary assisted dying being available across the country, but that doesn't mean where you live will stop being an obstacle. Each state — and the ACT once its laws take effect in November 2025 — requires people to have lived there for at least 12 months, on top of requirements about their condition. Initially meant to prevent "death tourism" the residency requirement is now causing problems for some, including "Marion", a Tasmanian who recently moved to WA, who met all the requirements but who was knocked back due to non-residency. (12 Jul 2024)
Read more at ABC News
Around the Country
VIC: Just days after parishioners, survivors of institutional child sexual abuse, and their supporters gathered in a show of solidarity to tie colourful ribbons to a Ballarat cathedral fence, the majority have been cut and removed. The gathering took place on Saturday at St Patrick's Cathedral in the regional Victorian city, west of Melbourne. Three days later, the majority of the ribbons had been cut and removed from the fence in two separate targeted attacks. The action has devastated Ballarat community members and church leaders, including Diocese of Ballarat Vicar General Marcello Colasante. (9 Jul 2024)
Read more at ABC News
QLD: The ratepayer-funded ‘spiritual advisor’ at the Gold Coast City Council has revealed other Australian mayors and local governments are also pursuing the Christian fundamentalist Seven Mountains Mandate. In a live-streamed interview on Facebook in April, Pastor Sue Baynes, the council advisor to Mayor Tom Tate, said mayors at other councils were replicating the “model” she had implemented on the Gold Coast. However, Baynes did not reveal the names of the other councils. (10 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Rationalist Society of Australia
WA: The Christian Brothers have been accused of hiding from public scrutiny and giving "bogus" reasons for a last-minute decision to not appear before a parliamentary committee inquiry into child sex abuse. The religious order baulked at proposed questions about one of their now-deceased brothers allegedly abusing schoolboys in Western Australia, claiming it could compromise current civil child sex abuse proceedings. The Christian Brothers Oceania provincial leader Brother Gerard Brady was slated to face questions in Perth on Thursday morning, but late yesterday afternoon confirmed he would not attend. It's a move that has attracted criticism from sexual abuse survivors. (11 Jul 2024)
Read more at ABC News
QLD: The leader of a religious group accused of killing an eight-year-old girl by withholding her medication has claimed the trial was “religious persecution” and they acted reasonably under their faith. Brendan Luke Stevens, 62, was the leader of a Christian group that called itself ‘The Saints’ and is on trial for murder along with the girl’s father, Jason Richard Struhs, 52, in the Brisbane Supreme Court. He said the basis of the murder charges, that he and Jason Struhs had acted with reckless indifference to life, had not previously been used in Queensland and was a man-made law. “Who should you follow, God or man? We have chosen God. We do not particularly care amongst ourselves what the judgment is,” Stevens said. (12 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Age
Commentary and Analysis
Frank Bongiorno: Faith-based politics is nothing new in Australia – so what’s Albanese really worried about?
"Senator Fatima Payman’s defection over Labor Party policy on statehood for the Palestinians has generated wider discussion about the written and unwritten rules of Australian politics. One of those involves the vexed question of the role of religious faith. Scott Morrison’s prime ministership inevitably raised it. Morrison did not hide his evangelical Christianity. His strange memoir revived the issue because it showed Morrison’s faith was not incidental to his politics. By his own account at least, faith was its organising principle. ... The context for Albanese’s commentary was Payman’s defection, and reports that she had been in contact with an organisation called The Muslim Vote, which intends organising candidates in Labor-held seats with large numbers of voters of this faith... Even a cursory glance at the historical record indicates a long list of Australian minor parties that were explicitly Christian." (8 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Conversation
Sarah Martin: Why Guardian Australia is investigating Exclusive Brethren schools
"Now known as the OneSchool Global network, the Brethren schools have 120 campuses across 20 countries teaching almost 10,000 children. In Australia, the schools operate in six states with 31 separate campuses serving their followers. The Australian schools have benefited from generous taxpayer support – more than $130m in taxpayer funds has flowed to them in the past five years, in line with the commonwealth funding arrangements for non-government schools. But little is known about the culture within these institutions. A Guardian Australia investigation has sought to find out what is happening behind the gates of the OneSchool Global schools, to question whether the Australian taxpayer should be directly supporting an ethos that appears at odds with many of the values of modern Australia." (8 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Guardian
Cloe Read: As Elizabeth lay dying, her family turned to God. Now, 14 people face trial
"Just as her parents’ beliefs sat outside mainstream religion, the criminal trial will bend the conventions of the Queensland court system. ... [The victim's sister] Jayde describes how the Struhs family originally attended a mainstream church, but they and another family separated from the parishioners, claiming the church was “corrupt”. Members of that other family are among those charged over Elizabeth’s death. ... But the case bears similarities to other faith-based matters in which believers have not pursued medical treatment, and in some instances have relied on divine healing, QUT associate professor Alex Deagon says. There were also cases of Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing blood transfusions. ... Deagon says in the Struhs case, the courts might face the issue of having no established religious doctrines a judge or prosecutor could refer to, because it is a fringe group. The Queensland government introduced legislation in 2019 to expand the definition of murder to include reckless indifference to human life." (9 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Age
Waleed Aly: Identity politics has the power to be meaningful. If only we stopped making it an incoherent mess
"Is appointing a special envoy for combatting antisemitism an exercise in identity politics? What about the forthcoming envoy for Islamophobia? I wouldn’t have thought of asking this a week ago, but fretting about such things has become something of a national sport since Senator Fatima Payman’s defection from the Labor Party, and the Muslim Vote movement – which seeks to mobilise Muslim voters, possibly behind pro-Palestinian independents – started making headlines. Now, presumably, it’s the frame through which all political actions must pass. In those cases at least, the prevailing verdict seems clear. A steady stream of editorials and opinion pieces lament Payman’s embrace of identity politics. The prime minister didn’t use that specific phrase, but he struck the same pose in warning that “faith-based political parties” would “undermine social cohesion”, and a “faith-based party system” would simply cause “minority groups to isolate themselves”. This echoes one of the most common criticisms of identity politics: that by organising groups around one or two identities, it can only lead ultimately to separatism; that it makes building broad coalitions across society just about impossible." (11 Jul 2024)
Read more at The Age
Maurice Quirk: Payman saga proves politicians and journalists are weaponising religion without understanding it
"Anthony Albanese last week expressed discomfort at the notion of “faith-based political parties” following Senator Fatima Payman’s defection and subsequent resignation from the Labor Party. Albanese stated that religion-based politics are not the path to social cohesion, and that political factions only serve to further isolate minority religions. But little attention has been paid to what Albanese and other politicians are actually talking about when they talk about religion. While Australia is formally a secular nation, it is unavoidable that religion plays a significant role in our culture and politics. These influences range from the everyday — annual public holidays for Easter and Christmas — to the controversial — the influence of fundamentalist Christian movements on national debates such as marriage equality. It’s no secret that Christianity dominates in Australia, having both the largest national demographic and claim over our calendar. What is more complex is when and how politicians like Albanese differentiate between religion and culture." (12 Jul 2024)
Read more at Crikey
Events and Campaigns
The WA government is seeking expressions of interest from organisations interested on taking on the role of being a peak body for the state’s LGBTIQA+ communities.
Read more at Out in Perth
Griffith University researchers are exploring Registered Nurses’ and Nurse Practitioners’ willingness to participate in Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD).
Read more at The Lamp
The Australia Institute are calling on federal parliament to pass truth in political advertising laws that are nationally consistent, constitutional and uphold freedom of speech. View the petition at The Australia Institute
The Human Rights Law Centre are running a website for those who want to support an Australian Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms.
Visit the Charter of Rights website here
A change.org petition has been started, calling for churches to lose their tax-free status and for "the religious influence of churches in Australian politics and society" to be limited. It's currently up to 30,000 signatures. View the petition at change.org
The Australian Education Union is running a campaign calling for “every school, every child” to receive fair education funding. Support the campaign here.
The Human Rights for NSW alliance has launched a campaign calling for NSW to pass a Human Rights Act.
That's it for another week!
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