Weekend Wrap for 10 October 2026

WA: Observing Christian prayers in parliament does not negatively impact MPs, Australian Christian Lobby tells inquiry (4 October 2026)
The Australian Christian Lobby has told a Western Australian parliamentary committee that observing Christian prayers at the start of each sitting day does not disadvantage MPs, and that removing them would turn "neutrality between religions" into a preference for "official non-religion". The submission, to the Legislative Assembly's inquiry into whether to drop the Lord's Prayer from the standing orders, devotes a page and a half to rebutting the Rationalist Society, and argues that "no constitutional liberty should depend on majority headcounts" — a shift from the lobby's older habit of citing the Christian majority in the Census. Premier Roger Cook has said he wants the prayers kept; Labor backbencher Dave Kelly is leading the push to replace them with a moment of silence.
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Rationalist Society of Australia

National: Allegra Spender announces she'll introduce bill to protect students and teachers from discrimination (6 October 2026)
Independent MP Allegra Spender says she will introduce a bill to stop religious schools expelling students over their sexuality or dismissing staff over marital status, gender or sexuality. Spender, the member for Wentworth, would keep the exemption that lets religious bodies employ staff who share their faith, but close the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act that allow discrimination against LGBTQ students and teachers — the gap Scott Morrison once said could be fixed "within a fortnight", and that Labor has twice set aside. She pointed to Karen Pack, who says Morling College dismissed her in 2020 after she married her same-sex partner — an account the college has disputed. The bill is due to be introduced the following week.
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OUTinPerth

WA: Prioritise student wellbeing instead of funding faith-based recruitment agencies, RSA tells WA government (6 October 2026)
The Rationalist Society has called on the Cook government to let Western Australian public schools hire their own secular wellbeing staff instead of routing the money through faith-based labour-hire agencies. Documents it obtained under freedom-of-information laws show up to 39 per cent of the state's $28 million-a-year chaplaincy and wellbeing program goes to the providers' administrative overheads, that the education department has refused school requests to employ staff directly, and that it has clawed back funds from schools left unable to engage a chaplain and "forced to go without". YouthCARE, the main provider, employs only Christians — a practice the state's Equal Opportunity Commissioner called prima facie religious discrimination in 2021. Four schools are trialling direct employment, while the rest must still outsource.
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Rationalist Society of Australia

WA: Growing calls for Catholic Church to defrock sex offender bishop Christopher Saunders (8 October 2026)
Christopher Saunders, the former Catholic Bishop of Broome, has been jailed for six and a half years after a Perth District Court jury found him guilty of one count of sexual penetration and twelve of indecent assault against young Aboriginal men in the Kimberley. The sentence has renewed the questions the church has not answered: why it took years to act after allegations reached police and Catholic safeguarding bodies in 2018, why it urged people to pray for him, and why, at 76, he still has not been defrocked. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference chair, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, apologised to the victims for the betrayal of their trust.
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The ABC (8 October)
The ABC (7 October)

NSW: 'No face-to-face visits': Banned Sydney church school flagged 15 times for harm without inspector visit (9 October 2026)
The Department of Communities and Justice has told a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry that it received 15 risk-of-significant-harm notifications about children at Redeemer Baptist School in Parramatta since 2004, and that not one triggered a face-to-face field assessment — it relied on phone assessments and referrals instead. The church that runs the school was banned from out-of-home foster care in 1981 over concerns about isolation and family separation, yet education authorities granted the school registration two years later. Former students and staff, some calling it a cult, have described sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse and forced communal living, and have asked the government to treat the school and church as a system of group-based coercive control. The school says its compliance record is "unblemished" and that church and school are separate entities — a claim submissions to the inquiry dispute.
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The Sydney Morning Herald

National: 'Apocalyptic' Christian group maintains charity status, months on from probe (10 October 2026)
Eight months after the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission announced it was investigating the Korean sect Shincheonji, the group remains a registered charity with tax concessions, its charitable purpose recorded as "advancing religion". An ABC investigation into its Melbourne chapter earlier this year reported high-pressure recruitment, financial pressure on members and isolation; a former member described being pushed to sell her possessions to keep up payments. The regulator will not say whether the investigation is still running. Cult-survivor advocate Maria Esguerra calls the retained status an "unearned badge of legitimacy" and points to a gap in public protection and oversight.
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The ABC