Weekend Wrap for 22 September 2024
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 22 September 2024, where you can catch up on the latest secular-related news from around the country.
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At the National Level
When Jillian Segal AO took up the anti-Semitism envoy role in July this year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese labelled the appointment a "critical step" on the way to easing the tensions playing out in Australia as a result of the war in Gaza. But more than two months on, the promised Islamophobia equivalent hasn't been appointed, leading to concern within some influential parts of the Islamic community. The Australian National Imams Council's Bilal Rauf has labelled the delay "very disappointing and concerning" and has called for urgent action. As the weeks without an Islamophobia envoy roll on, he said there's a growing sense of scepticism and disappointment within parts of the community. (17 Sep 2024)
Read more at ABC News
For a second week in a row, Senator Pauline Hanson has failed to have her bill that would remove protections on the basis of gender identity from the federal Sex Discrimination Act considered by the parliament. Senator Hanson attempted to introduce her Sex Discrimination Act (Acknowledging Biological Reality) Bill into the senate last week, but it was blocked from having a first reading by Labor, The Greens and some members of the crossbench. On Tuesday morning Senator Hanson attempted to suspend the Standing Orders of the senate so that her bill could move forward but the move was voted down 30 to 27. (17 Sep 2024)
Read more at Out in Perth
The Albanese government was warned that excluding questions on sexual orientation and gender identity from the census could increase feelings of exclusion in the LGBTQ+ community and even risk the success of the data collection exercise, newly released documents reveal. A trove of documents on the government’s deliberations on the census, produced after an order from the Senate, reveal Andrew Leigh had approved the ABS proposal for gender and sexuality questions before reportedly being overruled by Anthony Albanese. (20 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Guardian
A coalition of cross-benchers have joined Australia’s largest states to push the commonwealth to invest more in public schools, escalating a standoff that risks derailing the next funding agreement. Independent senators David Pocock, Fatima Payman and Jacqui Lambie teamed with the Greens on Monday to back calls from five states for the commonwealth share towards public schools to rise by 5% to 25%, a figure they say is necessary to finally reach 100% public funding. The education minister, Jason Clare, has maintained increasing commonwealth funding by 2.5% is fair and state governments must “chip in money too” to close the remaining gap. (21 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Guardian
Around the Country
TAS: Dean Winter, who became leader of the Labor Party following their loss at the March election, said Labor viewed the practice of reciting a daily prayer in Tasmanian state parliament as “an important mark of respect to the Christian faith” and “reflective of the expectations of the broader community”. Mr Winter said the Labor Party would not support an examination, through their respective committee processes, of the appropriateness of observing exclusively Christian prayers at the opening of each day. (16 Sep 2024)
Read more at the Rationalist Society of Australia
WA: Western Australia’s Attorney General John Quigley says the government’s passage of the Births, Deaths, Marriages Registration Amendment (Sex or Gender Changes) Bill 2024 shows its ongoing commitment to equality. The bill passed the parliament on Tuesday after being approved by the Legislative Council last week. "The passage of these reforms reinforces the State Government’s commitment to equality for all Western Australians and our broader reform agenda supporting diversity and inclusion,” Attorney General John Quigley said. "It means that the Gender Reassignment Board will be abolished and a new administrative application process implemented for people seeking to change their sex or gender on their birth certificate." (17 Sep 2024)
Read more at Out in Perth
NT: Over the first two weeks of the new government, the Northern Territory’s new Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has emphasised her focus on tackling crime and reducing wasteful spending on “Labor’s pet projects” – raising questions about what could soon hit the chopping block. Among the projects seemingly put on the backburner is voluntary assisted dying, which Mrs Finocchiaro said had to be managed “in a really respectful way”. An independent report on VAD in the Territory was handed to the previous Labor government in July, finding “overwhelming” community support for the return of assisted dying laws in the NT. Finocchiaro says restoring the right to euthanasia in the NT is "not a priority" for her new Country Liberal Party government. (18 Sep 2024)
Read more at CathNews (originally published at NT News)
NSW: The New South Wales government has reaffirmed that it is committed to allowing the controversial Special Religious Education (SRE) program to continue taking up precious learning time in public schools. At the budget estimates hearing in August, education minister and Deputy Premier Prue Car told the Legislative Council’s Education and Early Learning Committee that the Labor government had no plans to make changes to the program. Ms Car also confirmed that she meets with faith leaders and people involved in SRE “quite regularly”. (18 Sep 2024)
Read more at the Rationalist Society of Australia
NSW: The Minns government has offered an unconditional apology to victims, survivors, families and the LGBTQ community for the way NSW authorities handled gay hate crimes over a four-decade period, backing all 19 recommendations handed down by the world-first commission of inquiry. Nearly 10 months after NSW Supreme Court Justice John Sackar presented his final, nearly 3500-page report into unsolved suspected murders of members of the LGBTQ communities in NSW between 1970 and 2010, the government said the inquiry showed major shortfalls in the way those deaths had been dealt with. “It is unacceptable that investigations were not consistently handled with professionalism, fairness, respect and compassion. For this, we apologise unreservedly to victims, survivors, loved ones, and LGBTIQ+ communities,” the NSW government said. (19 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Age
TAS: In a letter to the RSA, Liberal leader Jeremy Rockliff explained the process for changing the Standing Orders – the rules that govern the business of the House of Assembly and Legislative Council – and said any proposal to remove prayers would not be made lightly. Mr Rockliff said that observing prayers was a “long tradition”, with prayers having been incorporated into the Standing Orders in 1937. Along with prioritising tradition, he said the parliament, in its decision making, considered inclusivity and democratic principles. (20 Sep 2024)
Read more at the Rationalist Society of Australia
QLD: Queensland LNP candidate Amanda Stoker has withdrawn her support for a rabbi who has repeatedly compared homosexuality to paedophilia, bestiality, and incest. Stoker had agreed to host a book launch for ultra-orthodox rabbi Shimon Cowen in Queensland Parliament House on Monday. The LNP's candidate for Oodgeroo at next month's state election claimed she was unaware of Dr Cowen's anti-homosexual views when she agreed to promote his book. Despite withdrawing from the launch, her image is still featured heavily on advertising material being used to promote the event. Dr Cowen has condemned feminism, transgender identity, abortion, and anti-discrimination laws which prevent schools from sacking homosexual teachers. (21 Sep 2024)
Read more at ABC News
Commentary and Analysis
Essam Al-Qhalib and Niv Sadrolodabaee: A job helping end people's lives? Bu says 'it's a privilege to do'
"Since voluntary assisted dying (VAD) was legalised across much of Australia, almost 2,500 terminally ill people have chosen to end their lives this way. VAD is currently legal in every state of Australia. Victoria led the way, passing laws in 2017 to make the practice legal in the state from 2019. ... A recent report by Go Gentle Australia found that, while VAD only made up somewhere between 0.5 per cent and 1.6 per cent of deaths in Australian states, demand was growing and there were still several barriers to access. The report also raised concerns about a shortage of VAD practitioners. The Victorian VAD review board's recently released annual report showed the proportion of VAD deaths that involve practitioner administration in the state was 19 per cent, which is significantly lower compared to other states." (15 Sep 2024)
Read more at SBS News
Chris Bonnor: Damned lies and school statistics… again
"The AEU research is entitled “A decade of inequity, How Australian governments have funded private schools above public schools since 2013“. From the beginning, it states that a majority of private schools in Australia receive more government funding per student than public schools of very similar size and geographical location, with student populations from very similar socio-educational backgrounds. It has repeated and enlarged on this methodology several times. ... Amidst all this, Catholic school peak groups have apparently remained quiet on the AEU revelations, but Catholic Schools NSW also parades average funding figures as apparent proof that the funding of private schools represents a huge discount to taxpayers – perhaps believing that a “discount” avoids the need to elaborate in any detail. It is also the case that CSNSW has issued claims about school system equity that defy the evidence test. ... More bluntly, when will the AEU properly engage with the problem created by the unlevelled school playing field, in which one system has obligations to all and the other can choose who and where to serve, whom to enrol and even whom to 'disenroll'?" (18 Sep 2024)
Read more at Pearls & Irritations
Tom Wark: Labor’s ‘fully funded’ schools claim misleads
"AAP FactCheck: Federal education minister Jason Clare claims a new agreement signed with the Western Australian government will “fully fund” public schools in the state, to the level recommended in the landmark Gonski Review. This is misleading. The federal government has not removed a “loophole” which may leave schools four per cent short of the Gonski level." (19 Sep 2024)
Read more at AAP
Michael Bachelard and Lucy Macken: How much money the Exclusive Brethren’s ‘ecosystem’ really makes
"Fundamentalist Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren has amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in its tax-free charities at the same time as private companies run by the family of the church’s supreme leader have made millions from COVID contracts. Recently released financial records give an indication of how cash circulates around what the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church calls its “community ecosystem” revealing, in particular, a massive boost from the pandemic for its leaders’ private business and the central role of one its charities. The new figures come as the family of global leader Bruce Hales – known by some inside the sect as the “royal family” – continue their multimillion-dollar trade in high-end Sydney housing. ... Women in the Brethren are treated as second-class citizens, taking the back seats in church meetings. Homosexuality is condemned, and Brethren members do not vote, even though they have been active in conservative political campaigns, including secretly donating to the Liberal and National parties and growing close to former prime minister John Howard." (20 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Age
Mike Seccombe: ‘Abbott was up to his neck in it’: The collapse of the Victorian Liberals
"Irrespective of whether the court finds Deeming was defamed by Pesutto, the undeniable reality is that she was and is a huge problem for the Liberal Party. She is not only an anti-trans activist. She is opposed to voluntary euthanasia, is anti-abortion and considers the authors of the Safe Schools policy to be “paedophile enablers”. She is also an anti-vaxxer. In her first speech after being elected in November 2022, she condemned left-wing school curriculums and the decriminalisation of sex work. She is a hardcore member of the religious right in Australia’s most progressive state. According to one of her former party colleagues, she is “a populist conservative … an activist more than a party member”. The irony is, he says, that she was selected by the party to fill a vacancy created by the expulsion of former upper house MP Bernie Finn from the Liberal Party after he said abortion should be banned in Victoria, even for rape survivors. Deeming is a case study of the battle that has gone on in the Victorian branch for years, between moderate and centrist forces and the religious- and hard-right." (21 Sep 2024)
Read more at The Saturday Paper
Events and Campaigns
Go Gentle Australia have released The State of VAD, a report collating and analysing available VAD data from all jurisdictions for the first time.
Download the report here
The full videos of presentations and panel discussions from the 2023 Secularism Australia Conference are now 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
A change.org petition has been started, calling for churches to lose their tax-free status and for "the religious influence of churches in Australian politics and society" to be limited. It's currently up to 31,000 signatures. View the petition at change.org
The Australian Education Union is running a campaign calling for “every school, every child” to receive fair education funding. It's currently up to 95,000 sign-ups. Support the campaign here.
The Human Rights for NSW alliance has launched a campaign calling for NSW to pass a Human Rights Act.
That's it for another week!
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