Weekend Wrap for 14 November 2026
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 14 November 2026. The Wrap covers Australian secular politics — religious privilege and funding, religion in public schools, discrimination laws, voluntary assisted dying, and many other related issues. If someone forwarded this to you, you can subscribe on our website.
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Go Gentle Australia and eleven other organisations have asked the New South Wales government to delay the sale of six private hospitals to Calvary Health Care, a Catholic operator that has confirmed it will bar voluntary assisted dying at the sites it takes over. At Newcastle Private, which Go Gentle says fields one or two assisted-dying requests a week, that service would end. Calvary has suggested moving patients elsewhere. People close to death, its critics reply, often can't be moved.
The same question — how far a religious institution's own rules should reach into public life — arose elsewhere. In Western Australia, debate began on a bill that would stop religious schools sacking teachers or expelling students over their sexuality, while still letting them hire and enrol on religious grounds. A Nationals MP called it a political distraction and asked that it wait until 2027. In New South Wales, the Catholic bishops, Freedom for Faith and the Australian Christian Lobby lodged submissions against a Greens human rights bill, on the ground that faith-based schools, hospitals and charities doing public work would have to weigh rights such as non-discrimination.
In Canberra, the churches turned up on the other side of a speech argument. A Sydney Anglican bishop warned that Labor's Digital Duty of Care Bill could see church teaching treated as harmful content and taken offline; the eSafety Commissioner called that "a stretch". Jewish and Muslim groups want the same bill to give people a right to sue platforms that fail to police religious and racial hatred. And the acting prime minister said the government would "continue to monitor" its hate-speech laws, after the federal police task force on radical preachers laid no charges.
Victoria votes on 28 November, and religion runs through the campaign. The state's Catholic schools accuse the government of a quiet cabinet decision to claw back funding, which the government denies. The Rationalist Society says the Liberals won't say whether they'd return scripture classes to the school day. And the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria joined a Melbourne rally against the major parties' shared promise of free abortion care — a promise both of them made, which leaves an objecting voter with nowhere obvious to turn.
News this week
VIC: No response from Victorian Liberal Party to questions about its policy on scripture program (7 November 2026)
The Rationalist Society of Australia says the Victorian Liberals won't say whether they'd return Special Religious Instruction — scripture classes — to normal class time in state schools. The Society says it has written to the party's leaders repeatedly since August last year, most recently to education spokesperson Brad Rowswell, without a reply. At a previous election the Liberals promised to put scripture back into the school day; this time they've offered a curriculum review and said nothing about it. The Andrews government moved scripture out of class time in 2015, after which, the Society notes, enrolments fell by about 99 per cent. Victoria votes on 28 November.
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Rationalist Society of Australia
National: Internet watchdog plays down fears over censorship (10 November 2026)
A Sydney Anglican bishop, Michael Stead, says Labor's Digital Duty of Care Bill could see church teaching treated as harmful content and taken offline. He points to the Sydney diocese's teaching that men are heads of the household and its refusal to ordain women, and argues the bill never defines "harmful", leaving that to the government of the day. At a Senate hearing the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, called the fear "a stretch" and said churches weren't her focus. The same bill has Jewish and Muslim groups, mobilised by the Australia Institute, pushing for a right to sue platforms that fail to police racial and religious hatred. The Coalition will oppose it.
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The Canberra Times
The Age
NSW: Hospital takeovers must not restrict VAD access (10 November 2026)
Go Gentle Australia and eleven other organisations have written to the New South Wales health minister asking the government to delay the licence approvals for Calvary Health Care's purchase of six private hospitals. Calvary has confirmed its hospitals will follow Catholic Health Australia's Code of Ethical Standards, which prohibits voluntary assisted dying, and the service would end at Newcastle Private and Hunter Valley Private. Go Gentle says Newcastle Private receives one or two assisted-dying requests a week, and that patients close to death often can't be transferred, as Calvary has suggested they could be. The groups also criticise the consultation: two weeks, with submissions capped at 200 words.
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Go Gentle Australia
NSW: Proposed NSW human rights bill could endanger religious freedom, critics warn (11 November 2026)
The Catholic bishops of New South Wales, Freedom for Faith and the Australian Christian Lobby have all lodged submissions against Greens MP Jenny Leong's Human Rights Bill 2025, which would legislate about 40 rights. The Sydney Archdiocese, writing for the state's bishops, calls the bill "fundamentally flawed". The objection is that faith-affiliated schools, hospitals and welfare services carrying out public functions would have to weigh the bill's rights, including non-discrimination, and that religious bodies couldn't claim those rights in their own institutional capacity. The Lobby says targeted reforms would do instead. The ACT, Victoria and Queensland already have human rights acts.
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The Catholic Weekly
VIC: The quiet cabinet decision driving a pre-election school funding brawl (12 November 2026)
Victoria's Catholic schools and Opposition Leader Jess Wilson accuse the Carroll government of concealing an October cabinet decision to claw back more than $200 million earmarked for non-government schools, days before the pre-election budget update. The government denies cutting anything, but agrees the schools will get less over the next four years under an adjusted formula, changed to stop them being funded above 100 per cent of their Schooling Resource Standard entitlement. "Catholic schools are fully funded under Gonski and will continue to be," a Labor spokesperson said. The Victorian Catholic Education Authority says its modelling puts Catholic schools more than $200 million worse off over four years if Labor is returned. Victoria votes on 28 November.
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The Age
WA: Nationals MP says Equal Opportunity Bill is a "political distraction" (12 November 2026)
Debate has begun in Western Australia's Legislative Assembly on the Cook government's Equal Opportunity Bill, which would stop religious schools sacking teachers or expelling students over their sexuality, while still letting them discriminate on religion. Nationals MP Lauchlan Hunter opposes narrowing the faith-school exemptions, arguing every teaching post may involve delivering a religious ethos, and wants a protection for people who express genuinely held religious beliefs. He called the bill a political distraction and asked that it wait until 2027. The opposition says it won't support the bill unless the clause dropping the Act's definitions of man and woman is changed. A coalition of unions and community groups, Fair and Safe WA, has urged every MP to back it.
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OUTinPerth (12 November)
OUTinPerth (11 November)
National: Labor 'to monitor' if changes are needed to hate laws (13 November 2026)
The federal police task force on hate preachers, Operation Antrobus, has laid no charges since the Bondi Hanukkah attack, and Commissioner Krissy Barrett says she suspects preachers are using legal advice to keep sermons "right to the edge" of vilification. Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said the government would "continue to monitor" whether the laws are strong enough. In January it proposed a federal criminal vilification offence aimed at religious preaching, then shelved it when it failed to satisfy the Greens and split the Coalition. Marles said Labor won't remove religious motivation from the definition of terrorism. The national security monitor is expected to report on 20 November on folding violent religious extremism into a broader category of "ideology".
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CathNews
TAS: Rockliff apologises over school Christmas row but stands by his comments (13 November 2026)
Premier Jeremy Rockliff has apologised "for the outcome" of a row over a Launceston primary school's end-of-year event, while standing by what he said. Trevallyn Primary renamed its "Christmas on the Hill" event the "End of Year Extravaganza" to make it more inclusive; carols and Santa stayed on the programme. Rockliff posted on Facebook about efforts to remove references to Christmas at an unnamed school, minutes after a news site named Trevallyn. Education union members at the school then passed six motions condemning his "misinformation and personal attacks" on its leadership, and demanded apologies from him and Education Minister Jo Palmer. Rockliff calls his statements "very measured".
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The Examiner
Commentary and analysis
Michael Galvin: Jillian Segal's antisemitism report blurs the line between prejudice and politics (9 November 2026)
Galvin, an adjunct fellow at Victoria University, argues that the antisemitism envoy's latest report leans on the contested IHRA definition — he counts 27 uses — to blur anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and objects to its call for external oversight of the ABC and SBS while private media go unmentioned. It's a critical reading of the report, published as the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion prepares its final report, due 18 December.
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Independent Australia
Char Weeks: The cruellest journey: When seriously ill patients must move to access voluntary assisted dying (12 November 2026)
Weeks argues that hospitals which refuse voluntary assisted dying on religious or ethical grounds should have to report the patient transfers they cause, and answer for the delays, costs and distress that follow. She cites a 2023 study in which institutional objections shaped the experiences of 17 of 28 patients. Respecting an institution's beliefs, she writes, doesn't absolve it of the consequences — a plain argument against the model Calvary is now extending.
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Pearls & Irritations
Rod Lampard: Victoria's Presbyterian Church Backs Rally Against Free Abortions: Abortion is Not Healthcare (12 November 2026)
The religious case against Victoria's election promise of free abortion care. The moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, Rev Dr John Wilson, attended a Melbourne rally against the policy and wrote an open letter to both major-party leaders opposing it. Written for the Christian site the Daily Declaration, the piece is a useful marker of how organised the religious opposition to the Victorian pledge has become, alongside speakers from the Canberra Declaration and Reignite Democracy.
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The Daily Declaration
Fact-checks and explainers
EXPLAINER: Why can’t a doctor discuss assisted dying over the phone?
Voluntary assisted dying is lawful in every Australian state and the ACT, yet a Commonwealth criminal law makes it an offence to discuss it by phone, video or email. That law was written in 2005 to shut down pro-suicide websites, but in 2023 a Federal Court ruling held that “suicide” covers a lawful assisted death. The burden falls hardest on terminally ill patients in regional and remote areas, who must see a doctor in person or wait for one to travel. Five state and territory health ministers have asked the Commonwealth to lift the ban, and a Greens bill to do so is stalled in the Senate. Here's how the ban works.
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EXPLAINER: What happens when a Catholic operator buys the hospitals?
Calvary Health Care has confirmed that if it buys Newcastle Private and Hunter Valley Private hospitals, it will stop providing IVF, elective abortions, voluntary assisted dying and gender reassignment procedures, in line with a Catholic code of ethics. It’s easy to assume that before a sale like this goes through, someone — the state, the health department, the competition regulator — weighs up whether a region keeps those services. None of them can. Here is how a private-hospital sale can remove lawful services, and why the usual oversight mechanisms don’t catch it.
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EXPLAINER: What is the IHRA antisemitism definition, and why is it contested?
The Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, released a report on 30 October that makes embedding the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism a priority across government, schools and universities. The Jewish Council of Australia called that push a threat to free speech and academic freedom. The dispute is about a single contested document, written in 2004 to help agencies count antisemitic incidents rather than to police speech, and carrying eleven examples, seven of them about Israel. The definition doesn’t ban criticism of Israel, but embedding it in binding institutional rules is another matter. Here is what the definition says, why it’s contested, and what the main alternative, the Jerusalem Declaration, offers instead.
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FACT-CHECK: Does the Tasmanian conversion bill really criminalise prayer?
Tasmania’s House of Assembly passed the Greens’ Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026 on 29 October, and it now goes to the Legislative Council, where the same argument will play out again and Premier Jeremy Rockliff wants stronger religious protections written in. Two claims have framed that argument from the start. Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Guy Barnett says the bill risks criminalising religious conversations and prayers. Equality Tasmania’s Rodney Croome says the same provisions have run in Victoria and New South Wales without anyone being convicted for a conversation or a prayer. They point in opposite directions about what the bill would do in practice. Here is what it says, and how the claims hold up.
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Opportunities for action
TAS: Write to the Legislative Council on the conversion practices bill. The Greens' Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill passed the House of Assembly on 29 October and now goes to the Legislative Council, where Premier Jeremy Rockliff has said he wants stronger religious protections added and the Australian Christian Lobby is campaigning on what the lower-house vote means. Advocates expect the upper house to debate the bill in the week of 17 November, though no date has been confirmed. Write to Members of the Legislative Council urging them to pass the bill without weakening it, via the Tasmanian Legislative Council member list.
NSW: Back the call to pause the Calvary hospital takeover. New this week: Go Gentle Australia and eleven other organisations have asked the NSW government to delay the licence approvals for Calvary Health Care's purchase of six private hospitals, which would end voluntary assisted dying — and, under the Catholic code, IVF, elective abortion and gender-affirming care — at the sites affected. The licence transfer and competition-regulator approval are expected by the end of the month. Write to NSW Health Minister Ryan Park urging the government to weigh the loss of services before it signs off, and read the groups' case at Go Gentle Australia.
QLD: Sign the Queensland parliament e-petition to keep state schools in Pride in Diversity. Closing soon. After the education department withdrew from the LGBTIQ+ inclusion program, PFLAG's Shelley Argent lodged an e-petition asking it to rejoin and to restore support for staff. It has now passed 4,800 signatures. Queensland residents can sign until 20 November 2026 via the Queensland Parliament e-petition 4694-26.
WA: Have your say on the Equal Opportunity Bill's religious-school exemptions. Updated this week: debate has begun in the Legislative Assembly on the Cook government's bill, which would stop religious schools sacking teachers or expelling students over their sexuality while keeping an exemption to hire and enrol on religious grounds. The Nationals want the bill delayed to 2027 and a religious-belief protection added, and the opposition won't support it unless the clause dropping the Act's definitions of man and woman is changed, so the exemptions and the sex definitions will both be contested as the bill moves to the Legislative Council. Write to the Premier and your local members urging that the religious exemptions be kept as narrow as possible. Find your members via the Parliament of Western Australia member list.
National: Back Allegra Spender's bill to end discrimination in religious schools. New this week: a coalition of women's legal groups, LGBTQIA+ advocates and law academics has written to the Prime Minister asking him to end the religious exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act, and Equality Australia has urged Labor to back the Spender bill. Independent MP Allegra Spender introduced the bill on 12 October; it would stop religious schools expelling LGBTQIA+ students or dismissing staff over sexuality or gender identity, while still letting them appoint staff of their own faith. The government hasn't said whether it will support it, and no debate date is set. Write to your federal MP urging them to back it, and find your member via the Parliament of Australia member list.
National / NT: Email the Attorney-General on voluntary assisted dying and telehealth. Updated this week: health ministers from Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia and the ACT have written to federal health minister Mark Butler and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland asking them to allow telehealth for lawful VAD. A provision in the Commonwealth Criminal Code bans electronic communication about VAD and forces regional patients to wait for scripts by post; a 2023 Federal Court ruling exposes practitioners who use telehealth for lawful VAD care to heavy fines. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young's Criminal Code Amendment (Equal Access to Voluntary Assisted Dying) Bill 2026 is before the Senate. Email Attorney-General Michelle Rowland via Go Gentle Australia's telehealth campaign.
WA: Back the call for secular wellbeing officers in public schools. The Rationalist Society has used freedom-of-information documents to show that up to 39 per cent of Western Australia's $28 million chaplaincy and wellbeing budget goes to the overheads of faith-based labour-hire firms, and that schools asking to employ their own secular staff are refused and in some cases left "forced to go without". Write to the Premier and your local members urging that schools be allowed to choose, and follow the campaign via the Rationalist Society's school chaplaincy campaign. Find your members via the Parliament of Western Australia member list.
WA: Have your say on Christian prayers in the WA parliament. The Legislative Assembly's procedures committee is considering whether to replace the daily Lord's Prayer with a more inclusive opening, while the Australian Christian Lobby has lodged a submission urging that the prayer be kept. Premier Roger Cook is opposed to change; Labor's Dave Kelly is leading the push for a moment of silence. Write to the Premier and your local members urging a parliament that is neutral on religion. Find your members via the Parliament of Western Australia member list.
National: Sign the Census – Not Religious? campaign's petition to fix the Census religion question for future censuses. Census night has passed for 2026, but the leading question the ABS's own documents concede "may lead respondents to a particular response" will be back in 2031 unless it is changed. Sign the Change.org petition, and read why the wording is loaded.
National: Push back on the $1.2 billion Choice and Affordability Fund. Private school organisations are campaigning to extend the fund beyond 2029 — money available only to Catholic and Independent schools, outside the needs-based model. Support the AEU's For Every Child campaign.
National: Support an Australian Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms. The Human Rights Law Centre runs a site for supporters. Visit the Human Rights Act campaign website.
Our activities
We made a submission to the NSW Law Reform Commission's review of the Anti-Discrimination Act. You can read it here.
NSL was a partner in the joint 2026 Census – Not Religious? Mark 'No Religion' campaign, which ran through census night on 11 August and has now concluded. The petition remains open: visit the campaign website to learn more, or sign the Change.org petition calling on the ABS to change the leading religion question in the Census.
As always, the full videos of presentations and panel discussions from the 2023 Secularism Australia Conference (co-organised by NSL and other groups) are freely available for viewing on the Secularism Australia website and on YouTube!
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