Weekend Wrap for 16 November 2025
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 16 November 2025, where you can catch up on the latest secular-related news from around the country.
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At the National Level
Go Gentle Australia has called on NSW MLC Susan Carter to withdraw her "cruel and ill-conceived VAD Amendment Bill", which, according to legal opinion, is constitutionally invalid. Expert opinion from Professor Patrick Keyzer and senior counsel Arthur Moses has apparently found the bill, which seeks to force aged care residents out of their homes if they seek VAD, is at odds with federal law. The bill “purports to carve out a special category of faith-based aged care facilities and confer an immunity on them from providing federally funded aged care services consistent with the Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth) and the Aged Care Rules 2025", Moses and Keyzer write in the joint opinion. “The Commonwealth Aged Care Act and Aged Care Rules guarantee the right of a person to have their needs, goals and preferences for end-of-life care be recognised and addressed by aged care service providers. This is spelled out in Commonwealth law. “The [Carter] Bill, if enacted, would be inconsistent with Commonwealth law and invalid," they conclude. (3 Nov 2025)
Read more at Go Gentle Australia
Around the Country
NSW: The Inner City Legal Centre (ICLC) is calling on the NSW Premier to properly fund a dedicated LGBTIQA+ community legal service, following the release of a new report warning that LGBTQIA+ people across the state are being left behind. ICLC CEO Katie Green said the Centre has been providing specialist legal support to LGBTIQA+ people for more than four decades, despite never having received dedicated government funding to provide the highly valued service. (10 Nov 2025)
Read more at the Star Observer
VIC: Melbourne universities have become hunting grounds for cults and high-control religious groups recruiting new members, with activity on campuses ramping up in recent years, a state inquiry has heard. Appearing before the parliamentary inquiry into the recruiting behaviours of cults and the number of survivors, Victoria Australian Catholic University Professor Julie Cogin, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, warned the panel that recruitment by high-control groups were “widespread” and that universities lacked the resources and support to combat the growing issue. Professor Cogin revealed ACU has made at least one report to Victoria Police, but that didn’t “prove to be helpful” as the force was not equipped to deal with such complaints. (11 Nov 2025)
Read more at CathNews (originally published at the Herald Sun)
WA: The RSA is seeking answers from the West Australian government on the status of the pilot program that allows a government school to directly hire a wellbeing support worker instead of outsourcing to a religious agency. The Cook government has not publicly promoted or acknowledged the pilot as part of the federally funded – and state-funded – National Student Wellbeing Program, even though a government backbencher spoke in parliament earlier this year about the government’s decision to hold the trial. Under the pilot, one public primary school has been allowed to directly employ a person for the wellbeing support role without having to source a chaplain or wellbeing officer via third-party labour hire firms. However, it is not known whether this role will continue beyond the end of the pilot period next year. (11 Nov 2025)
Read more at the Rationalist Society of Australia
SA: A new push to change South Australia's abortion laws to limit terminations after 23 weeks has been voted down in state parliament's upper house. The vote was carried out on Wednesday, with 11 members voting against and eight members voting for. Upper House MP Sarah Game, an independent formerly of One Nation, launched the bill in September to place limits on abortions after 23 weeks. The proposal sought to limit terminations after 23 weeks to situations where there was a significant risk of fetal abnormalities, to save the life of the expectant mother or the life of another fetus. (12 Nov 2025)
Read more at ABC News
QLD: The Queensland government has reshuffled its school curriculum board, dumping union executives to instead introduce “a diverse skill set” with three new members, including the founder of a right-wing lobby group. The changes removed two nominated members – Queensland Teachers’ Union president Cresta Richardson and Independent Education Union Queensland branch secretary Terry Burke – and replaced them with former Rockhampton Catholic Education Diocese director Leesa Jeffcoat AM and James Power, hotelier and founding member of Advance Australia, a right-wing lobby group that spent half of its $4 million federal election advertising campaign budget on ousting Brisbane’s federal Greens MPs. (14 Nov 2025)
Read more at The Age
Commentary and Analysis
Neil Foster: Aged Care, VAD, Religious Freedom and s 109
"The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2022 (NSW) allows persons with a terminal illness to choose death, which can be self-administered or administered by a health professional. Many health professionals have religious convictions which mean that they find the procedures for persons to choose death morally unacceptable. They do not wish to be involved in the process. Under the legislation there is a right for individual health professionals to conscientiously object to the procedures, and to decline to be involved: see sections 9, 21 and 32. Faith-based hospitals may also decline to be involved in VAD procedures. However, at the moment faith-based aged care facilities are obliged to allow medical practitioners onto their premises to administer VAD. A Private Member’s Bill has been introduced into the NSW Parliament which will amend the Act to allow faith-based residential aged care facilities the same choice as that available to faith-based hospitals, to decline to be involved in VAD or to decline to allow VAD to be administered on their premises. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Amendment (Residential Facilities) Bill 2025 is due to be debated soon." (10 Nov 2025)
Read more at Law and Religion Australia
Events and Campaigns
CURRENT
Religious MPs in NSW Parliament are trying to amend the voluntary assisted dying laws to allow aged care facilities to deny their residents access to VAD. Faith based aged care providers want the right to prioritise their religious beliefs over the rights and choices of elderly residents in their care. Use this tool at the Dying With Dignity NSW website to send a message to NSW MPs.
The NSW Government is inviting people across the state to help shape NSW’s first whole-of-government LGBTIQA+ Inclusion Strategy. Submissions will remain open until 10 December 2025. Click here to have your say.
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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