Weekend Wrap for 14 September 2025
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 14 September 2025, where you can catch up on the latest secular-related news from around the country.
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At the National Level
The Albanese government has rejected a request for it to remove daily acts of Christian worship from the houses of the national parliament or replace them with practices that are secular, more welcoming for all, more unifying, and more reflective of our modern and diverse Australia. In a letter to the RSA, Patrick Gorman MP, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, said that the government acknowledged parliament needed to “represent a diverse Australian community” but that it did “not propose to seek a change to existing arrangements”. Mr Gorman said the recitation of Christian prayers was a long-standing tradition in the Australian Parliament. “There are competing views about the suitability of retaining prayers in the Parliament, and the Parliament needs to strike a balance between its traditions and heritage and the need to represent a diverse Australian community. Recognising this, the Government does not propose to seek a change to existing arrangements.” (11 Sep 2025)
Read more at the Rationalist Society of Australia
Muslim groups say rethinking religious discrimination and approaches to counter-terrorism should be a top priority to address a spike in Islamophobic incidents, ahead of a report by the government's special envoy on the issue. Since October 7, 2023, there has been a 530 per cent increase in incidents reported to the Islamophobia Register Australia. The register's co-executive director, Nora Amath, said that it involved violence, verbal abuse, and intimidation, often targeting visibly Muslim women. She said there has been a further spike in recent weeks after anti-immigration rallies, including a fake bomb allegedly being thrown into a mosque on the Gold Coast. (12 Sep 2025)
Read more at ABC News
The push to outlaw religious discrimination should be revived and counter-terrorism laws should be reviewed, according to a landmark report by Australia's first ever Islamophobia envoy. Aftab Malik delivered his 54 recommendations on Friday, including calls for twin inquiries into the prevalence of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Mr Albanese said his government would consider all of Mr Malik's recommendations but said he would not progress religious discrimination laws without bipartisan support. (12 Sep 2025)
Read more at ABC News
Within months of leaving parliament, former health minister Greg Hunt started working for a Plymouth Brethren-linked company whose owners won $135 million in government contracts for COVID supplies. It was the first of three companies linked to senior Brethren figures in Australia and New Zealand that have engaged Mr Hunt as a board adviser, at a time when the church has fostered closer links to the Liberals. The Sydney-based church, which has been described by former members and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a "cult", is supported by a business empire which includes more than 3,000 companies around the world. While their campaigning for Liberal candidates at recent elections has put the group in the spotlight, their networking with senior Liberals has drawn less focus. (13 Sep 2025)
Read more at ABC News
The latest survey from Roy Morgan Research suggests that after years of increasing acceptance of LGBTIQA+ people in Australia, the tide has begun to turn and increasingly people agree with the statement that “homosexuality is immoral”. The research company regularly reaches out to Australians to gauge their view on a range of topics and over the decades they’ve often taken the temperature on attitudes towards people in the LGBTIQA+ communities. Their latest survey has found that 21 per cent of those surveyed believe homosexuality is immoral, up from a low 18% recorded from 2018 to 2020. (13 Sep 2025)
Read more at OUTinPerth
Around the Country
NT: The Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party (CLP) government is set to amend rather than overturn Labor's 2022 anti-discrimination legislation—which removed the ability for religious schools to preference staff members who shared the same faith of the school or to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity—as they had promised at the last territory election. The proposed changes would only restore the right of a religious school to prefer staff of the same religion in limited circumstances, only governing conduct while the staff member was at school, and only if the school comes up with a written policy that outlines the elements of religious doctrine with which staff are expected to comply. (7 Sep 2025)
Read more at The Catholic Weekly
WA: Stephen Wells, a candidate for Busselton City Council, is standing on a platform that includes claims that the Australian people have been lied to about the LGBTQ agenda, climate change, multiculturalism, and World War II. It’s sparked calls for urgent law reform, and Premier Roger Cook has voiced his support for bringing in compulsory voting at the local government level. Wells has been labeled a neo-Nazi, and confirmed to OUTinPerth he’s proud to be a “a proud and unapologetic member of the National Socialist Network.” (10 Sep 2025)
Read more at OUTinPerth
TAS: A nation-leading Bill was unanimously passed in Tasmania’s Lower House, allowing stronger penalties for prejudice and hate-motivated crimes and greater protections for LGBTQ+ and other minorities. Tasmania’s Lower House has been praised for unanimously passing what it says are nation-leading new hate crime provisions. The draft legislation was announced by Tasmanian Attorney-General Guy Barnett in November and allows judges to impose harsher penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice, discrimination and hate. (11 Sep 2025)
Read more at Q News
VIC: Victoria’s voluntary euthanasia program is struggling to keep up with surging demand from dying Victorians as the program’s review board seeks changes to rules blocking access. More than 830 people signed up to the assisted dying scheme last financial year, but forecasts show that figure is expected to balloon to 1300 by 2028, prompting the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board to warn that the system is “not sustainable” and big changes are needed. The board’s deputy chair, Paula Shelton, wrote in its annual report: “Victoria will need to adjust the way it supports the system through which VAD requests proceed”. Up to 25 per cent of people in the program died before they could pass through the initial steps, according to the report. (12 Sep 2025)
Read more at CathNews (originally published at the Herald Sun)
WA: Just Equal Australia says the delay by the State Government to pass hate-speech laws is allowing a spate of anti-LGBTIQA+ commentary in Western Australia. The lobby group says the news in recent days that a neo-NAZI candidate in the Busselton Council election and a right-wing candidate running for Albany Council, have both targeted the LGBTIQA+ community with claims, that would be actionable if they were based around race, show the need for government action. WA spokesperson for Just-Equal, Brian Greig, said WA is one of the few states without any anti-vilification laws to protect LGBTIQA+ people. (12 Sep 2025)
Read more at OUTinPerth
Commentary and Analysis
Michael Bachelard: God, Christ, man, woman: The ‘divine order’ that defines life for Exclusive Brethren women
"Everyone in this church is subject to the whims of its all-powerful leader, multimillionaire Sydney businessman Bruce D. Hales – known internally as BDH, the Lord’s Servant, the Elect Vessel or, when talking business, the CEO. Criticising him or his sons, known as the 'Royal family', is unthinkable. But for women, the strictures are even tighter. Church doctrine means Rebecca was 'subject' to her father, and then, when she married, to her husband. Like most women, she married young, had children and has never been permitted to occupy a position of authority over a man, in business or in life. ... Members of the Brethren spent millions of dollars and weeks of their time in a highly co-ordinated attempt to help Peter Dutton become prime minister at the last federal election. Even the women stepped out, though they were requested to wear non-Brethren attire to 'fly under the radar'. The intervention has caused enormous division in the Liberal Party, and it was the church’s treatment of women that most offended many. Former senator Linda Reynolds told this masthead that it was 'unacceptable that we were associated with a group whose treatment of women, to me, is reprehensible and misogynistic'." (7 Sep 2025)
Read more at The Age
Voices From Voluntary Assisted Dying: Episode 16 – Dr Arnold’s opposition to acceptance of VAD: a personal journey
"[The Honourable Reverend] Dr Lynn Arnold once stood firmly against voluntary assisted dying (VAD). Initially concerned about the potential for abuse, his perspective changed after witnessing the prolonged suffering of his cousin and, later, supporting his mother through her own VAD journey. Her decision, carried out with dignity and care, revealed to him the system’s safeguards and the emotional depth of choosing death on one’s own terms. ... He speaks candidly about the internal conflict, the healing power of compassionate medical care, and the importance of support for both the person choosing VAD and their loved ones. He also discusses how his theological views evolved, emphasising the Anglican Church’s openness to individual conscience on the matter." (8 Sep 2025)
Listen to this episode at OMNY
Mehmet Ozalp: Landmark report makes 54 recommendations to combat Islamophobia in Australia. Now government must act
"Australian Muslim communities have been calling for official recognition of Islamophobia as a serious social problem for many years. Now, for the first time, the long-awaited report from Australia’s first Islamophobia envoy has given the federal government a comprehensive set of 54 recommendations for addressing it. ... While Malik’s report is groundbreaking, it is not beyond critique. The recommendations rely heavily on government goodwill. A cross-agency taskforce is proposed, but without an independent authority to enforce them, implementation could easily stall. Some recommendations may prove controversial. Strengthening online safety laws and holding media accountable could be criticised as limiting free speech. Anticipating this criticism, Malik stresses his recommendations are not about silencing criticism of Islam. Rather, 'they are intended to address the serious issue of prejudice, racism and hate that incite discrimination, hostility or violence'." (12 Sep 2025)
Read more at The Conversation
Paul Gregoire: Antisemitism Envoy’s Refusal to Criticise Neo-Nazis Reveals Her Role is a Ruse
"The official version of events is that Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal has come up with a plan to prevent a crisis in Jewish prejudice in the public sphere. The truth on the ground is that arch-Zionist Jillian Segal is seeking to engineer a societywide suppression of Palestinian support and identity. And the envoy’s refusal to condemn rising neo-Nazism reveals her ruse. Segal was appointed by PM Anthony Albanese in July 2024, back when the public was new to ideas of Zionism and were too being increasingly inundated with chastising claims about rising antisemitism. It was also prior to the now broader understanding that Zionists conflate criticism of the Israeli setter colonial project with Judaism to then demonise opposition to it as antisemitic." (12 Sep 2025)
Read more at Sydney Criminal Lawyers
Events and Campaigns
CURRENT
This week on Four Corners, former members tell reporter Louise Milligan about the psychological manipulation, surveillance, and threats the church allegedly uses against them, as well as attempts to intimidate them and buy their silence. Whistleblowers also reveal the group's attempts at political penetration, including covert election campaigning, despite members traditionally being discouraged from voting.
Watch Big Brethren on Monday 15 September at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
ONGOING
The full videos of presentations and panel discussions from the 2023 Secularism Australia Conference are freely available for viewing on the Secularism Australia website and on YouTube!
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
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 is running a campaign calling for NSW to pass a Human Rights Act.
That's it for another week!
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