Weekend Wrap for 28 March 2026
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 28 March 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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South Australia re-elected Labor convincingly last Saturday, but the secular ledger from that election is mixed at best. Cory Bernardi — one of the most reliably anti-secular voices in Australian politics — is heading back to the SA upper house courtesy of One Nation.
Across the country, the pattern is familiar: religious lobbying is quietly active on multiple fronts simultaneously. In WA, the same week community groups were pushing to get Christian prayers out of parliament and religious organisations out of public school wellbeing roles, a new Parliamentary Friends of School Chaplaincy group quietly set up shop to push back.
And at the federal level, the government's hate speech legislation — introduced after the Bondi attack — protects people on the basis of race, but left LGBTQI+ Australians out of the new vilification offence entirely. And there are still exemptions for religion.
Please note that as this is our first Wrap for 2026, we'll be extending our date coverage a little to catch up on some things.
News this week
WA: New parliamentary friendship group to promote chaplaincy as WA school communities call for change (17 Mar 2026)
Religious lobbyists and their allies in the WA parliament have responded to growing community pressure for secular school wellbeing officers by establishing a new Parliamentary Friends of School Chaplaincy group. This comes despite WA's peak parent body, WACSSO, voting last year to support direct employment of secular wellbeing workers rather than outsourcing through religious providers — a model that effectively requires applicants to hold Christian credentials. The Cook government ran a small trial of direct employment but has not responded to the RSA's questions about its future. The new parliamentary group, which mirrors one established federally after the Albanese government provided a secular option, has the stated aims of advocating for chaplaincy's "benefits" and supporting religious organisations' continued role in public schools. Read more at the Rationalist Society of Australia
National: Nick McKim defends trans kids during impassioned Senate speech (18 Mar 2026)
Greens senator Nick McKim used the Senate floor to mount a pointed defence of transgender young people and deliver a direct attack on One Nation, which is polling above 20% nationally for the first time in its 29-year history — ahead of the combined Liberal and National vote. McKim was responding to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson's call for an immediate ban on all gender-affirming care for young people, including puberty blockers and hormone therapies, a position McKim described as a dangerous culture war being waged at children's expense. The article notes that Hanson's claim that puberty blockers are irreversible is factually wrong, and that One Nation's rising poll numbers make their stance on trans rights increasingly consequential in Australian political life. Read more at Star Observer
National: Canavan wants Australians to have more babies (19 Mar 2026)
Newly installed Nationals leader Senator Matthew Canavan, a practising Catholic, has made pronatalism a centrepiece of his new leadership, linking declining fertility rates to reduced government support for families since the Howard era. While framing his politics through a quote from CS Lewis about ordinary happiness rather than salvation, Canavan invoked his faith openly as the lens through which he views family policy. He stopped short of advocating any theocratic program but argued strongly for greater state support for parents who want to spend more time at home with newborns — a position that aligns closely with the social conservatism of his church, and which sidesteps questions about bodily autonomy and reproductive choice that his preferred policy direction would inevitably raise. Read more at the Catholic Leader
WA: Calls grow for WA parliament to remove daily acts of religious worship (19 Mar 2026)
The RSA has lodged a submission to a WA parliamentary committee arguing that the Legislative Assembly's daily Lord's Prayer should be replaced with a period of silent reflection. Significantly, a former Clerk of the WA Parliament made a similar submission, calling Christian-only prayers incompatible with a diverse, multicultural parliament. The RSA noted that as of the 2021 Census, people with no religion already outnumbered Christians in WA — a proportion expected to exceed 50% by 2026. The submission argued that imposing Christian worship is discriminatory, exclusionary, and incompatible with the principle of separation of church and state; that it sends a signal to non-religious and non-Christian parliamentarians that they are not fully welcome in their own workplace. Read more at the Rationalist Society of Australia
SA: Laws protecting LGBTQIA+ people exist around Australia – SA lags behind (19 Mar 2026)
South Australia is the only mainland state with no anti-vilification laws protecting LGBTQI+ people, a gap this explainer maps against a national backdrop of rising hate crimes. While NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, the NT and the ACT all have some form of anti-vilification protection for the LGBTQI+ community (varying considerably in scope), SA has none at all. Notably, the federal government's 2026 hate speech legislation, rushed through in response to the Bondi attack, also excluded LGBTQI+ status from the new racial vilification offence — meaning the community is doubly unprotected under both state and federal law. The irony here is that SA was the first state to decriminalise homosexuality in 1975, yet now sits at the back of the pack on legal protections. Read more at Star Observer
NSW: The long-awaited Sackar Review into hate speech will be released in two weeks (19 Mar 2026)
Greens NSW upper house MP Dr Amanda Cohn successfully moved a motion to force the release of the Sackar Review — the NSW government's independent review of criminal law protections against hate speech — after the government had been sitting on it since November 2025. The review, commissioned in response to escalating hate crime activity, examines whether existing legal protections are sufficient for vulnerable communities including LGBTQI+ people. Newly introduced NSW hate crime laws targeting homophobic violence via dating apps are already before parliament, making the Sackar Review's findings particularly timely. The NSW government disputed that the motion could compel release of cabinet documents, but the public pressure created by the motion is significant. Read more at Star Observer
WA: Rainbow Futures WA responds to rising anti-LGBTIQA+ activity (19 Mar 2026)
Rainbow Futures WA has launched its Safer WA Communities campaign in response to a documented escalation of anti-LGBTQI+ activity in the state, including anonymous flyer distribution targeting community members, increased online harassment, and political activity targeting transgender people. CEO Dr Misty Farquhar warned this follows a familiar historical pattern: coordinated messaging that frames LGBTQI+ people as a social problem, creating an environment where harassment feels more acceptable. The campaign comes amid incidents including the bombing of an Invasion Day rally and individual community members being personally targeted. The campaign is not about attributing any particular source to the activity, but the pattern described — organised flyers, coordinated online harassment, political mobilisation — closely matches the tactics of religiously motivated conservative lobby networks operating in Australia and internationally. Read more at OUTinPerth
National: Equality Australia issues new US travel advice for LGBTQ+ Australians (20 Mar 2026)
Equality Australia has updated its safety advice for LGBTQI+ Australians travelling to the United States, following the Trump administration's finalisation of new visa rules requiring gender markers to reflect sex assigned at birth — taking effect on 10 April. Legal adviser Heather Corkhill warned that travel carries particular risks for people with an X gender marker, those who have updated their gender markers, or anyone with a visible history of LGBTQI+ advocacy. Reports of travellers from other countries being refused entry, detained on arrival, or permanently banned have been documented. The deteriorating rights climate in the US — driven substantially by Christian nationalist policy agendas — is now formally recognised as a travel safety risk for Australian citizens. Read more at Star Observer
SA: Controversial One Nation leader Cory Bernardi wins SA upper house seat (22 Mar 2026)
Cory Bernardi, one of the most reliably anti-secular politicians in recent Australian history, has secured a seat in the SA Legislative Council on the One Nation ticket following the state election. Bernardi, who previously founded the Australian Conservatives party on a platform of religious conservatism and left the Senate in 2021, returns to elected office with a track record including opposition to marriage equality, support for religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law, and close ties to international conservative religious networks. His presence in the SA upper house gives religious conservative voices a formal platform in a state that already lacks anti-vilification protections for LGBTQI+ people — and where the newly re-elected Labor government will need crossbench support for any legislative agenda. Read more at Star Observer
NT: NT euthanasia laws to prevent doctors initiating discussion (23 Mar 2026)
The Northern Territory's Country Liberal Party government has finalised its voluntary assisted dying legislation, with a notable restriction: doctors will be prohibited from raising VAD as an option with their patients, who must initiate all discussions themselves. The same "gag clause" exists in South Australia (Victoria having lifted its ban last year). Notably, the Australian Christian Lobby welcomed this provision specifically, with its NT director arguing it protects patients from "coercion" — the standard religious lobby framing that VAD discussions by clinicians constitute undue pressure rather than informed consent. The model requires two independent assessments, limits eligibility to those with a terminal prognosis of 12 months or less, and is expected to be introduced to parliament by mid-year for a conscience vote. Read more at CathNews (originally published at NT News)
NSW: Mater Hospital opens $42 million palliative care centre (24 Mar 2026)
St Vincent's Mater Hospital in Wollstonecraft has opened a $42 million palliative care and day surgery facility, with $18.5 million contributed by the Friends of the Mater Foundation. The Ritchie Family Centre for Supportive and Palliative Care will serve around 235 patients a year in 12 beds, also functioning as a research and teaching hub. The facility's chairman invoked the founding philosophy of the Sisters who established the Mater 120 years ago — "that no one should die alone" — in describing its purpose. The opening is worth noting in a secular context because Catholic health institutions remain major publicly funded providers of palliative care in Australia, and their institutional position on end-of-life care explicitly excludes VAD, raising ongoing questions about the scope of care available to patients within their facilities. Read more at the Catholic Weekly
National: IOC transgender eligibility ban sparks human rights backlash in Australia (27 Mar 2026)
The International Olympic Committee has announced that eligibility for female category events at Olympic Games from the 2028 Los Angeles Games will be limited to "biological females," determined by a one-time SRY gene screening via saliva, cheek swab, or blood sample. The policy follows Donald Trump's announcement that transgender athletes would be denied US visas to compete. Australian legal, human rights, and sports bodies have called on the Australian Sport Commission, Australian Olympic Commission, and national sporting bodies to reject the guidelines, arguing they will expose all women to potential harassment and coercion, and may breach Australian anti-discrimination law. The IOC decision represents a significant win for the international campaign — driven substantially by religious conservative and far-right networks — to exclude transgender women from competitive sport. Read more at OUTinPerth
VIC: Archbishop Comensoli welcomes safeguarding audit report on Melbourne Archdiocese (27 Mar 2026)
The Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese has received a safeguarding audit by Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd, conducted by three independent auditors, assessing compliance with both Victorian Child Safe Standards and the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards. Archbishop Comensoli welcomed the report, which confirmed areas of strength but also identified where the archdiocese needs to continue improving. ACSL chief executive Ursula Stephens cautioned that "safeguarding is not a task that can ever be considered complete" and that real cultural change requires ongoing effort. The audit is part of the post-Royal Commission accountability framework imposed on the Catholic Church, and its public release is itself a product of the secular pressure that framework generated — though the independence of church-commissioned audits from external oversight remains a standing question. Read more at CathNews
Commentary and analysis
Aftab Malik: How can the healing begin? Islamophobia, antisemitism and social cohesion after Bondi (8 Mar 2026)
Australia's Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, offers a wide-ranging analysis of the social fallout from the 14 December 2025 Bondi Beach terror attack, arguing that the genuine grief owed to the Jewish community must not become licence for Islamophobia — and that both failures of protection are connected. Malik documents a 740% surge in reported anti-Muslim incidents in the two weeks after Bondi, driven substantially by social media platforms and amplified by political rhetoric that conflated the attack with pro-Palestinian protest and "failed multiculturalism." He argues that framing the attackers' actions as expressions of Islam — rather than as the acts of religiously illiterate extremists explicitly repudiated by Islamic scholarship and by the Australian Muslim community — does real harm to social cohesion, and he calls out the way some media and politicians have exploited the tragedy to generate a "permission to hate." Critically from a secular perspective, Malik warns that new hate speech legislation which protects some communities but not others — as the 2026 Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act does, excluding LGBTQI+ people and applying the vilification offence only to race — "will confirm the growing scepticism that there exists a hierarchy of hate in society." Read more at ABC Religion & Ethics
Ron Levy, Selen Ercan and John Dryzek: Who should determine the limits of free speech? From Royal Commission to public deliberation (20 Mar 2026)
This piece, by three democratic theory scholars, argues that the question of where to draw the line on free speech — particularly regarding speech that intersects with religious and ethnic identity — is too important to be left solely to a royal commission or the government of the day. They advocate for broader deliberative democratic processes involving citizens rather than expert-only determinations. This is directly relevant to secular concerns about the Antisemitism and Social Cohesion Royal Commission's scope, particularly whether it will properly address the religious exemptions embedded in Australian hate speech law and the exclusion of LGBTQI+ people from the new vilification offence. Read more at ABC Religion & Ethics
Anthony Venn-Brown / Sally Sara: Changing Australia: Anthony Venn-Brown and creating gay pride (25 Mar 2026)
A Radio National interview with Anthony Venn-Brown OAM, one of Australia's most prominent advocates against religious conversion therapy. Venn-Brown is a former high-profile Pentecostal preacher who spent over 20 years attempting to change his sexual orientation through prayer, exorcism, and conversion therapy before coming out in 1992. He is widely credited with helping deconstruct the "ex-gay" movement in Australia and has worked to educate churches and the wider public on the harm caused by religiously motivated attempts to alter sexual orientation. This interview, timed in the context of broader debates about LGBTQI+ rights and religious institutional power, is a reminder of the personal cost of that power when exercised without constraint. Listen to this interview on ABC Radio National
Gareth Evans: Free speech and antisemitism: drawing the line (26 Mar 2026)
In his submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, former foreign minister Gareth Evans makes a careful and important argument that protest slogans like "From the River to the Sea" and "Globalise the Intifada" should not be subject to blanket legislative bans, but evaluated case-by-case against established hate speech principles. He argues the 2026 Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act — rushed through in weeks after the Bondi attack — sets a test that could, if applied over-broadly, chill legitimate political speech. Evans distinguishes between speech that harms (inciting violence, intimidating, humiliating) and speech that merely offends or insults, arguing only the former warrants criminal sanction. Crucially for secular interests, he supports removing the "offend or insult" limbs of s.18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, and warns against the religious exemptions that remain embedded in Australian hate speech law. Read more at Pearls & Irritations
Julian-Pascal Saadi: Homophobic violence and the limits of legislation (27 Mar 2026)
Julian-Pascal Saadi examines the gap between new hate crime laws and the lived reality of homophobic violence, asking whether legislation alone is sufficient to address systemic anti-LGBTQI+ attitudes. Published the same week NSW introduced major new hate crime offences targeting homophobic violence facilitated via dating apps, the article questions whether criminal penalties address the underlying cultural and, implicitly, religious drivers of that violence. It is a companion piece to the broader policy debate about the Sackar Review, the federal hate speech laws that excluded LGBTQI+ people, and the role of religious institutions in shaping social attitudes toward same-sex relationships and gender diversity. Read more at ABC Religion & Ethics
Opportunities for action
ONGOING
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.
Our activities
NSL is involved in the joint 2026 Census - Not Religious? Mark 'No Religion' campaign aiming to improve the accuracy of census religion data. Visit the campaign website to learn more.
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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