Weekend Wrap for 30 May 2026
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 30 May 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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For three weeks now the Tickle v Giggle ruling has set the agenda, but until this week the conservative response was mostly talk. This week it became a bill. Nationals MP Alison Penfold tabled the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sex-based Rights) Bill 2026 in the House on 25 May, a private member's bill to write a biological definition of "sex" back into the Act. Penfold told parliament the legislation was drafted with help from the Australian Christian Lobby and the Christian-based Human Rights Law Alliance. The campaign to narrow anti-discrimination law now has a parliamentary vehicle, and that vehicle was built in part by religious lobby groups.
It will not pass while the Coalition sits in opposition, and Penfold knows it. Her real ask was a joint select committee to reopen the whole Sex Discrimination Act. That is the longer game: keep the question alive, keep "what is a woman" on the order paper, and wait for a change of government. In the meantime the rhetoric does its own work.
A countermobilisation arrived the same week. A new collective, Not in Our Name, launched an open letter inviting women to publicly back the trans community and defend the Act. Independent MP Monique Ryan, a doctor, used a parliamentary speech to argue that sex and gender are not the simple binary the bill assumes. And in the NSW Legislative Council, Greens MLC Amanda Cohn took Premier Chris Minns to task over his "biological differences" comments, telling the chamber that Labor's drift toward this framing was a "harmful capitulation to right-wing culture wars."
On the other side of the ledger, the religious freedom narrative is being built out in parallel. The Australian Christian Lobby launched a Christian Freedom Index at Parliament House, claiming 74 laws restrict Christian expression. The Coalition reaffirmed at a Christian Schools Australia dinner that faith-based schools should keep their exemptions to discriminate. And in Victoria, a multifaith bloc of bishops and other leaders asked the Law Reform Commission to narrow the state's conversion practices ban, arguing it criminalises prayer and pastoral conversation.
News this week
National: National MP's bill to define 'biological gender' slammed by rights activists (25 May 2026)
Nationals MP Alison Penfold tabled the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sex-based Rights) Bill 2026 in the House of Representatives, a private member's bill to insert a biological definition of "sex" into the Sex Discrimination Act and to create explicit carve-outs for women-only spaces, services and activities, including online. Penfold told parliament the bill was drafted with assistance from the Australian Christian Lobby and the Christian-based Human Rights Law Alliance, with the group Binary also claiming a role. She conceded the bill cannot pass from opposition and instead called on the Prime Minister to establish a joint select committee to review the Act. Equality Australia and Intersex Human Rights Australia warned it would weaken protections for trans and intersex people, and for women.
➧ READ MORE:
OUTinPerth
QNews
QLD: Homophobic Harassment At Storage Facility Leads To $116,000 Court Award (26 May 2026)
The Federal Circuit and Family Court has awarded a Queensland storage facility worker $116,000 after finding he was subjected to months of homophobic and sexual harassment by a contractor and a customer at a Storage King site. Judge Salvatore Vasta described the conduct as "repeated, deliberate and humiliating" and held that the Fair Work Act's sexual harassment protections extend beyond fellow employees to customers, contractors and others connected with a workplace. Legal commentators called the ruling a "new frontier" in workplace harassment law. The decision matters for secular anti-discrimination protections precisely because it widens who the law shields from anti-LGBTQIA+ conduct.
➧ READ MORE:
Star Observer
National: Coalition Reaffirms Support For Religious Schools To Discriminate Against LGBTQIA+ People (27 May 2026)
Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser used a speech to Christian Schools Australia to reaffirm the Coalition's support for religious schools retaining exemptions that allow employment and enrolment decisions to be made on the basis of faith. Leeser said the Coalition backed "parental choice, institutional autonomy, freedom of religion" and would never "indulge the fantasies of the Law Reform Commission," which in 2024 recommended removing the exemptions that permit discrimination against LGBTQIA+ students and staff. Labor shelved its own reform after failing to secure Coalition support. The episode confirms the exemptions remain a live partisan dividing line, with faith-based schools' statutory right to discriminate now openly defended as policy.
➧ READ MORE:
Star Observer
CathNews
National: Michaelia Cash Attacks Trans International Women's Day Event And Gets Everything Wrong (27 May 2026)
In Senate estimates, Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash grilled the Australian Human Rights Commission over its position on transgender women, asking President Hugh de Kretser "what is a woman?" He replied: "an adult human female, and that includes transgender women." Cash held up a photograph of Trans Justice Project director Jackie Turner and claimed she had organised a trans-only International Women's Day event, contrasting it with the Lesbian Action Group's bid to exclude trans women. The event was in fact run by the Inner City Legal Centre, funded by the NSW Office for Women, and open to all. The exchange illustrates how the post-Giggle "what is a woman" framing is being deployed in federal forums.
➧ READ MORE:
Star Observer
OUTinPerth
VIC: Victorian faith leaders seek amendments to conversion therapy laws (28 May 2026)
A bloc of Victorian faith leaders — including the state's Catholic bishops and Anglican, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh representatives — lodged a submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission's review of the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021, asking that the law be narrowed rather than expanded. The leaders affirmed opposition to coercive practices but argued the Act's "broad overreach" criminalises ordinary conversation, parental guidance, pastoral care and prayer, and pointed to narrower bans in NSW and South Australia. The submission frames the conversion practices ban as a restriction on religious activity, the same religious-freedom argument now being run against anti-discrimination law more broadly.
➧ READ MORE:
CathNews
National: Not In Our Name: Aussie Women Urged To Defend The Sex Discrimination Act In Open Letter (28 May 2026)
A new collective, Not in Our Name (NION) Women Australia, launched with an open letter inviting women to publicly declare solidarity with the trans community and oppose proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act. Spokesperson Kylie Benton-Connell said a small minority were "spreading fear and hate for their own political gain" and claiming to speak for all women in order to attack trans rights. The campaign is a direct response to the cluster of bills and statements seeking to redefine "sex" in law, and aims to contest the claim that women's interests require narrowing trans protections.
➧ READ MORE:
Star Observer
OUTinPerth
National: Federal government giving tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars to church restoration projects (28 May 2026)
The Rationalist Society of Australia has drawn attention to federal budget allocations directing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to church property. The 2026 budget papers show the Albanese government providing $25 million to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia to restore its Redfern site ($12.9 million of it in 2026/27), following an earlier $60 million commitment to the Catholic Church's St Patrick's Cathedral precinct in Melbourne. The RSA contrasts this with the $500,000 so far committed toward a $1.5 million memorial for survivors of clergy child sexual abuse in Ballarat. The allocations revive longstanding church-state questions about public money flowing to asset-rich religious institutions: the Catholic Church's national holdings were estimated at more than $30 billion in 2018.
➧ READ MORE:
Rationalist Society of Australia
National: Monique Ryan Gives Powerful Speech Defending Trans People And The Sex Discrimination Act (28 May 2026)
Independent member for Kooyong and former paediatric neurologist Dr Monique Ryan used a parliamentary speech to defend the Sex Discrimination Act against the Coalition's proposed amendments. Ryan argued that inserting a binary biological definition of "sex" would "fundamentally alter how protections are interpreted and applied," and that sex and gender exist on a spectrum informed by genetics, hormones, anatomy and lived experience. She said protections built up over decades through legislation and case law should not be unwound as a reaction to a single court ruling. Her speech gives the crossbench a clear medical and legal counter-argument to the "biological reality" framing driving the reform push.
➧ READ MORE:
Star Observer
NSW: Anti-abortion activist concedes pictures of human foetuses may have been sugar glider joeys (28 May 2026)
Anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe — who has worked with state and federal MPs to restrict abortion access and believes all abortion should be criminalised — has conceded that images she promoted as human twin foetuses, named "Ruth and Emma", were almost certainly sugar glider joeys lifted from a TikTok video. Guardian Australia revealed the image was a hoax, after a person said they had sent it under a pseudonym to test whether Howe fact-checked her claims. Howe said the detail "doesn't actually matter" and would rename next week's Sydney anti-abortion rally accordingly. The episode follows the Wrap's coverage of the 2 June rally outside NSW Parliament tied to a bill to ban sex-selective abortion, and bears on the credibility of the campaign to recriminalise abortion.
➧ READ MORE:
The Guardian
National: Expressing Christian faith riskier than five years ago: survey (29 May 2026)
The Australian Christian Lobby launched a Christian Freedom Index at Parliament House, accompanied by a Christian Freedom Survey of more than 10,000 Christians which reported that 92 per cent felt it was riskier to profess their faith than five years ago and that almost half self-censor. ACL chief executive Michelle Pearse linked the claimed erosion to healthcare referral rules for euthanasia and abortion, restrictions on teaching and prayer about sexuality, and vilification laws, and ranked Victoria the most restrictive state. The index, which asserts 74 laws restrict Christian freedom, supplies a quantified grievance narrative that recasts secular and anti-discrimination law as a threat to religion, the same framing now underpinning the legislative push on the Sex Discrimination Act.
➧ READ MORE:
CathNews
NSW: Chris Minns Slammed In Parliament Over His 'Biological Differences' Comments (29 May 2026)
Greens MLC Dr Amanda Cohn used an address to the NSW Legislative Council to rebuke Premier Chris Minns over his comments that "biological differences" in sex must be "reflected in the law." Cohn said the remarks implied that the law should not reflect the existence of trans, gender diverse and intersex people, and described them as a "harmful capitulation to right-wing culture wars" from Labor. She argued both sex and gender are more complex than a binary, and criticised the International Olympic Committee's new SRY gene screening policy, citing the gene's discoverer that the test is being misapplied. The exchange marks the state-level continuation of the same fight now running federally.
➧ READ MORE:
Star Observer
Commentary and analysis
Sarah Schwartz and Shahram Akbarzadeh: Why Australia's public broadcasters were right not to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism (26 May 2026)
Jewish Council of Australia executive director Sarah Schwartz and Deakin University's Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh put the opposing case: that the IHRA definition's illustrative examples blur criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, chilling legitimate debate, and that the ABC and SBS were right to rely on their existing editorial standards. Read alongside Sackville's piece, the two map the poles of the definitional fight now before the Royal Commission.
➧ READ MORE:
ABC Religion & Ethics
Paul Heywood-Smith: The chilling effect of recent legislation (27 May 2026)
Adelaide barrister Paul Heywood-Smith examines the freedom-of-speech and freedom-of-assembly implications of the hate-speech and anti-extremism laws enacted after the December 2025 Bondi Beach attack — two NSW protest laws since struck down by the courts as burdening the implied freedom of political communication, and the Commonwealth's new "prohibited hate groups" regime under the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026. He argues the provisions are open-ended enough to chill lawful protest, pointing to a BDS group that has suspended its activities for fear of proscription. A useful companion to the Wrap's tracking of the same hate-group-listing laws (last week's White Australia High Court item).
➧ READ MORE:
Pearls & Irritations
Ronald Sackville: Do the ABC and SBS understand antisemitism? It isn't clear from their decision to reject the IHRA definition (28 May 2026)
Former Federal Court judge Ronald Sackville argues the ABC and SBS have failed to justify their refusal to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism — recently reaffirmed by Antisemitism and Social Cohesion Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell — and contends the broadcasters' own editorial policies handle antisemitism superficially. A detailed defence of the IHRA definition, and a pointed critique of the national broadcasters, set against the live Royal Commission.
➧ READ MORE:
ABC Religion & Ethics
Alice Taylor: What is the Sex Discrimination Act and how does it protect people? (28 May 2026)
With the Sex Discrimination Act now the subject of competing amendment proposals, Bond University law academic Alice Taylor sets out what the Act actually does: how direct and indirect discrimination work, the exceptions already built in (including those for religious educational institutions and single-sex services), and the little-noticed fact that no higher court has ever interpreted its core provisions. Taylor explains that the 2013 amendments, which added gender identity, sexual orientation and intersex status, and removed fixed definitions of "man" and "woman", passed with bipartisan support and were designed to recognise that sex is not binary. Useful grounding for assessing the Penfold and Coalition proposals on their substance rather than their slogans.
➧ READ MORE:
The Conversation
Opportunities for action
CURRENT
National: Not in Our Name (NION) Women Australia is inviting women across the country to publicly sign an open letter in solidarity with the trans community and in defence of the Sex Discrimination Act, as several bills seek to redefine "sex" in law. Sign the open letter via Action Network.
VIC: The Victorian Law Reform Commission is reviewing the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021. Faith leaders have lodged a submission urging the Act be narrowed. Secular voices that support retaining strong conversion practices protections should not leave this consultation to religious organisations alone. Details of the VLRC review are on the Commission's website.
National: Nationals MP Alison Penfold has called on the Prime Minister to establish a joint select committee to review the Sex Discrimination Act, including her bill to insert a biological definition of "sex." If such a committee is established and opens submissions, secular and human rights voices will be needed to counter the religious lobby's input. Contact your federal member or senator to register your view on any review of the Act.
National: GRAI (GLBTI Rights in Ageing Inc) is urging former and current LGBTIQA+ Defence personnel to engage with the Senate inquiry into the Defence Force Discipline Amendment (RCDVS Implementation and Related Measures No. 1) Bill 2026 before 31 May 2026. The bill would extinguish historical homosexual service offence convictions but, as drafted, excludes veterans who were never formally convicted — those who were administratively discharged, forced to resign, or had security clearances removed. Affected veterans and their families can submit directly to the Senate inquiry or provide information confidentially to GRAI. Visit the OUTinPerth story for details and links.
NSW: The NSW Human Rights Bill 2025 has been referred to a parliamentary inquiry and submissions are now open. The Australian Christian Lobby is actively mobilising its networks to oppose the Bill. Secular, humanist, and human rights voices are needed to counterbalance the religious lobby's input. Visit the NSW Parliament website to find the inquiry and submission details. Submissions close 3 July 2026.
TAS: The independent statutory review of Tasmania's End-of-Life Choices (Voluntary Assisted Dying) Act 2021 is underway. Community members, particularly those with experience of the VAD system, are encouraged to make written submissions, with public consultations scheduled at the University of Tasmania Law School (Sandy Bay) and Cygnet Town Hall. The review is also conducting a public survey. Do not leave this space to the ACL alone: secular voices supporting VAD access and adequate safeguards must be heard. Contact VADReview@health.tas.gov.au for submission details. More details about the review can be found at the Tasmanian Department of Health's website.
TAS: Tasmania: Equality Tasmania, Women's Health Tasmania, and Working It Out have formally written to the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner requesting an inquiry into the proposed sale of Hobart Private Hospital to Calvary Health Care. If you are a Tasmanian who supports continued access to gender-affirming and other healthcare services that Calvary's Catholic ethical guidelines would prohibit, consider contacting the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner's office to support the call for an inquiry or following Equality Tasmania's campaign.
National: Dying With Dignity NSW has an opportunity for people to send a message to Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and ask her to make changes to improve VAD availability (by using telehealth). For people in regional areas and those who are unable to travel it is more difficult, or even impossible, to access VAD. This could be easily fixed by excluding VAD from telehealth prohibition. Visit their campaign here.
National: Go Gentle Australia's 2026 State of VAD Report made a compelling case for a straightforward amendment to the Commonwealth Criminal Code: remove the restriction that treats electronic communication and telehealth discussions about voluntary assisted dying as potential facilitation of suicide. This one-line fix would allow dying people — particularly those in regional and remote areas — to consult with VAD practitioners via telehealth rather than being required to travel repeatedly for in-person appointments. A central Queensland man died waiting for VAD access because of bureaucratic prescription mail rules. This is a discrete, fixable federal legislative problem. Contact your federal member or senator to call for the amendment.
ONGOING
The Rationalist Society of Australia is running a Change.org petition calling on the Australian War Memorial to take direct responsibility for the Anzac Day Dawn Service and end the imposition of Christian worship on a national commemoration. Read and sign the petition at change.org.
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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