Weekend Wrap for 26 September 2026
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 26 September 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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The world leader of the Exclusive Brethren, Bruce Hales, has spent two decades telling his flock that Jews are evil infidels who can never atone for "murdering" Jesus. The claim is set out in leaked sermons published this week by The Age. The same church ran a covert, multimillion-dollar campaign for the Coalition at the last election, and its spokesman told a parliamentary committee last month that the Brethren find antisemitism abhorrent. The sermons say something else, and the Coalition has said nothing.
When the committee moved to summon Hales, the Christian lobby group Freedom for Faith wrote in to argue that questioning him threatened the Brethren's religious freedom — scrutiny of political conduct recast as an attack on faith. While the inquiry chased the Brethren, Catholic Schools NSW and the Victorian Catholic Education Authority, both registered charities for "advancing religion", warned parents off the Greens and the teals at the election and have barely rated a mention.
In the states, the fights are smaller and older. In Western Australia, a parliamentary committee is weighing whether to keep opening each day with the Lord's Prayer, and Pentecostal pastor Margaret Court has told her followers the prayer must stay and the Ten Commandments belong back in schools. Premier Roger Cook has taken her side before the committee has even reported. In Tasmania, the Liberals have handed their MPs a conscience vote on the Greens' bill to ban conversion practices, and three of them have already said they'll vote no.
A church that hid its election spending, a lobby group that calls a subpoena persecution, and a premier defending daily prayers are all drawing on one assumption: that a religious motive earns a pass where a secular one wouldn't.
News this week
National: Actions of Catholic school authorities appear to fly under the radar of parliament's election review (20 September 2026)
The Rationalist Society has flagged a gap in the federal election inquiry. While the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters pursues the Exclusive Brethren, the conduct of Catholic Schools NSW and the Victorian Catholic Education Authority has barely come up. Both are registered charities for advancing religion and education, and both wrote to parents during the campaign: Catholic Schools NSW cautioned families against the Greens and "teal independents", while the Victorian body praised a sitting MP as a long-time friend of Catholic education. The charities regulator has since reminded charities they may not promote or oppose candidates. The committee's interim report mentioned neither body. The Society wants "advancing religion" removed as a charitable purpose and the regulator given real power to enforce the rules.
➧ READ MORE:
Rationalist Society of Australia
WA: Pastor Margaret Court calls on WA govt to keep prayers in parliament, argues schools need Ten Commandments (24 September 2026)
The West Australian Legislative Assembly opens each sitting day with two Christian prayers, including the Lord's Prayer, and its Procedure and Privileges Committee is considering whether to replace them with something more inclusive. Labor backbencher Dave Kelly, who is leading the push, says he has found wide support among colleagues for letting the Speaker invite a moment of quiet reflection instead. Pentecostal pastor Margaret Court has used her church's Facebook page to urge the government to keep the prayers and to put the Ten Commandments "back in our schools". Premier Roger Cook has already declared his opposition to any change, before the committee has reported. The Rationalist Society, which made two submissions to the inquiry, says public institutions should stay neutral on religion.
➧ READ MORE:
Rationalist Society of Australia
TAS: Liberal conscience vote on Tasmanian conversion therapy bans welcomed (25 September 2026)
Tasmania's Liberal MPs will get a conscience vote on the Greens' bill to ban conversion practices, after the parliamentary party agreed to a free vote. Premier Jeremy Rockliff supports the ban. Police Minister Felix Ellis, Primary Industries Minister Gavin Pearce and backbencher Michael Ferguson have said they will vote against it, arguing it would stop doctors, counsellors and parents advising young people about gender. Greens deputy leader Vica Bayley called that misleading: the bill protects prayer, ordinary counselling and good-faith medical care, and targets only attempts to change or suppress someone's sexual orientation or gender identity. Equality Tasmania, which welcomed the free vote, points to La Trobe University research finding one in 20 young LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians has experienced conversion practices. The bill is expected to be debated later this year.
➧ READ MORE:
OUTinPerth
ABC News
National: Exclusive Brethren leader calls Jews 'wicked', 'infidel' as Coalition remains silent (26 September 2026)
Leaked sermons spanning two decades show the Exclusive Brethren's world leader, Bruce Hales, preaching that Jews are evil infidels who can never atone for "murdering" Jesus — the ancient "deicide" charge that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry calls one of the clearest markers of antisemitism. Publicly, the church, now the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, told a parliamentary committee last month that it finds antisemitism abhorrent. The church ran a covert, multimillion-dollar campaign for the Coalition at the last election, and in a recent address Hales also swung behind Pauline Hanson. As the committee moved to summon Hales and his son Gareth, the Christian lobby group Freedom for Faith wrote in to argue the summons threatened the Brethren's religious freedom. The Coalition has not responded to the sermons.
➧ READ MORE:
The Age (26 September)
The Age (22 September)
Commentary and analysis
Derya Iner and Linda Briskman: Muslim children are not the exception to Islamophobia, they are growing up inside it (21 September 2026)
Derya Iner and Linda Briskman argue that anti-Muslim hostility now reaches Australian children directly — at school, from teachers, on public transport — and that governments have treated it as something to be endured rather than confronted, unlike the national-threat framing given to antisemitism. Written while the antisemitism royal commission continues, it asks which forms of religious hatred the state decides to act on.
➧ READ MORE:
ABC Religion & Ethics
Opportunities for action
NSW: Make a submission to the NSW Law Reform Commission's review of the Anti-Discrimination Act — closing soon. Read the NSL's submission here. The Commission's second consultation paper, on complaint procedures, remedies and compliance, is open, with submissions and a community survey closing 2 October 2026. The wider review reaches the religious exemptions that let publicly funded faith schools discriminate against LGBTIQ+ staff and students. Make a submission or complete the survey via the NSW Law Reform Commission.
TAS: Write to your Tasmanian MPs on the conversion practices bill. New this week: the Liberals have granted their MPs a conscience vote on the Greens' Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026, and Police Minister Felix Ellis, Primary Industries Minister Gavin Pearce and backbencher Michael Ferguson have declared they will vote against it, while Premier Jeremy Rockliff supports the ban. The bill is expected to be debated in October or November. With the vote no longer bound by party lines, individual members are now the audience. Find and contact your local members via the Tasmanian House of Assembly member list.
WA: Have your say on Christian prayers in the WA parliament. New this week: the Legislative Assembly's Procedure and Privileges Committee is considering whether to replace the daily Lord's Prayer with a more inclusive opening, Premier Roger Cook has publicly opposed change, and Pentecostal pastor Margaret Court is campaigning to keep the prayers and add the Ten Commandments to schools. 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.
NSW: Follow the final days of Operation Rosny. ICAC's inquiry into the NSW Liberals' right faction, the taxpayer-funded Catholic Schools NSW body and the fight over Sydney's Catholic cemeteries has reached its ninth week. The evidence in recent weeks has sat on the property-developer and Liberal-lobbying strand rather than the Catholic Schools angle, and the Commission is due to hold its final day of public hearings on Tuesday 29 September 2026, after which findings will follow. The remaining hearing is livestreamed via the ICAC Operation Rosny live stream page.
QLD: Sign the Queensland parliament e-petition to keep state schools in Pride in Diversity. After the education department withdrew from the LGBTIQ+ inclusion programme, PFLAG's Shelley Argent lodged an e-petition asking it to rejoin and to restore support for staff. Queensland residents can sign until 20 November 2026 via the Queensland Parliament e-petition 4694-26.
National / NT: Email the Attorney-General on voluntary assisted dying and telehealth. A line in the Commonwealth Criminal Code bans electronic communication about VAD and forces regional patients to wait for scripts by post. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young's Criminal Code Amendment (Equal Access to Voluntary Assisted Dying) Bill 2026 is before the Senate, and the South Australian government has now added its voice, with Health Minister Blair Boyer and Attorney-General Kyam Maher urging the Commonwealth to act. Email Attorney-General Michelle Rowland via Go Gentle Australia's telehealth campaign.
VIC / National: Register for VADCON26, the Voluntary Assisted Dying Conference, in Melbourne on 19–20 October 2026. The conference brings together clinicians, advocates and researchers working on access to and improvement of VAD laws. Details and registration via Go Gentle Australia.
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 recently 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!
More coming soon!
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