Weekend Wrap for 21 May 2023

Anthony Klan: NSW ICAC finds disturbing details of Liberal Party's far-Right faction.
"Charles Perrottet, Jean-Claude Perrottet, Whitelaw and Liberal powerbroker Christian Ellis are alleged to be key figures in the far-Right NSW Reformers, a secretive fundamentalist Christian group within the NSW Liberal Party allegedly created to influence “public policy”, including by stacking local councils. ... One since-deleted webpage says Christian Ellis created the group in 2018 as a ‘voice within the Liberal Party’ to ‘work as a united and coordinated Christian voice’ to ‘reform this great state’, including by having hard-Right policies around abortion ‘reflected in public policy’. It says: ‘For years, we have seen the slow erosion of [Christian] values... as such we seek to reform this great state by adding a Christian voice to it.’" (16 May 2023)
Read more at Independent Australia

Paul Gregoire: Minns, Time to De-Christianise Parliament in Multifaith/Nonreligous NSW, Say Rationalists and Greens.
"The March state election saw Catholic premier Dominic Perrottet hand over the reins of NSW top minister to current Catholic premier Chris Minns, who is now set to establish a multifaith religious advisory group to parliament with a direct line to the multicultural affairs minister. ... However, the Rationalist Society of Australia (RSA) wrote to Minns and multicultural minister Steve Kamper on commencement of the 58th NSW parliament last week, suggesting that, in line with the state’s social makeup, reciting the Lord’s Prayer to begin each sitting day be abolished. While on the second sitting day of the new parliament, NSW Greens MLC Abigail Boyd moved a motion calling on the Procedure Committee to inquire into alternatives to reciting the Lord’s Prayer, which could involve a minute’s silence, a statement of duty or simply abolishing the practice." (16 May 2023)
Read more at Sydney Criminal Lawyers

Joanna Howe: The ACT’s takeover of Calvary Hospital overrides conscientious objection and threatens religious freedom.
"The ACT government asserts that its decision has nothing to do with religion, stating that negotiations with Calvary had broken down because they had been unable to reach an outcome that met the health needs of the Territory community. Reading between the lines, however, this compulsory acquisition is because Calvary Hospital and the ACT government had a fundamental disagreement over the definition of healthcare. For the government, the provision of abortion is non-negotiable, whereas Calvary Hospital relies on institutional conscientious objection to refrain from participating in abortion based on the conviction that it is morally wrong to intentionally end a human life. In my view, the decision to compulsorily acquire Calvary Hospital is driven by ideology and not efficiency, as the Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith asserts. Walter Abheyeratna, the ACT president of the Australian Medical Association, acknowledged as much when he said it was important to deliver public healthcare services without being bound by ideology." (17 May 2023)
Read more at ABC Religion & Ethics

Louise Talbot: Israel Folau doco examines how a legend became an outcast.
"Simply titled Folau, the two-part ABC documentary tracks the talented footballer from his humble Tongan upbringing in western Sydney to superstardom across three codes (NRL, AFL and rugby union) to his dismissal by Rugby Australia, after posting Bible verses widely perceived as homophobic on social media. 'The clash of rights interested me – the freedom of right to express versus the freedom of the right to live free from vilification,' [says Australian filmmaker Nel Minchin]. 'I was also interested in the workplace conversation as well, how far employers can reasonably go to control your own personal social media as well, and of course, the bigger conversation about the role of religion in society.'" (17 May 2023)
Read more at Independent Australia

David Smith: ‘Why do pastors keep falling?’: inside the shocking downfall of Hillsong church.
"The Secrets of Hillsong gives a voice to survivors and victims. For all its modernity, the church was corrosively traditional in its attitudes toward women, people of colour and the LGBTQ+ community. Senior positions were dominated by white men. Five female congregants in New York wrote a letter in 2017 alleging inappropriate sexual behaviour between staff and interns; all five have since departed. In 2015 a royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse found that Houston had failed to alert police about allegations his father, Frank, had sexually assaulted children. Houston has pleaded not guilty to a charge of concealing the crime until his father’s death in 2004. The case remains before the courts, with hearings to resume next month." (19 May 2023)
Read more at The Guardian

Angela Shanahan: Surgical strike on ACT’s Calvary hospital blows up in minister’s face.
"One thing about this imbroglio is that it has many strands, ideological, legal and, more important, practical. This is not the first time the ACT government has tried to take over Calvary Public Hospital. In 2010 the first attempt was thwarted, largely by the public outcry and stonewalling by the board. The explicit motivation was to get the Catholic Church out of healthcare and offer 'the full suite of fertility services', meaning abortion and sterilisation. The current government also brought up this issue in a recent ACT report that called Calvary’s ethics 'problematic'. ... Although Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith speaks basically to the government’s own constituents, she is adamant that this is not about religion or Catholic ethics, although the question of what will happen to the Catholic-run hospice in the case of voluntary assisted dying is of concern to many in Canberra." (20 May 2023)
Read more at The Australian