Weekend Wrap for 7 November 2026
Welcome to the NSL Weekend Wrap for 7 November 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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A Catholic hospital operator has confirmed that if its purchase of two Newcastle private hospitals goes ahead, it will stop providing IVF, elective abortions, voluntary assisted dying and gender reassignment procedures at both. Calvary Health Care is taking on 14 hospitals across the country after the collapse of Healthscope, and expects to control the two Newcastle sites by the end of the month. NSW Health Minister Ryan Park says the state can't dictate what services a private hospital offers, only whether an operator is fit to hold a licence. Which services a region can get will now be set in part by a code of Catholic ethics.
In Canberra, a coalition of women's legal groups, LGBTQI+ advocates and law academics has written to the Prime Minister asking him to end the religious exemptions that let faith-based schools discriminate against staff and students. The letter arrives while independent MP Allegra Spender's bill to remove those exemptions waits for a government position, and while Western Australia moves on the same question in its own equal opportunity rewrite.
Five state and territory health ministers asked the Commonwealth to lift the ban that stops doctors discussing voluntary assisted dying by phone or video, a restriction that sends rural patients travelling for care others receive at home.
And the Australian War Memorial told the Rationalist Society it isn't responsible for the Christian content of the Anzac Day Dawn Service, and pointed to the RSL's ACT branch.
News this week
National: Women's Groups And LGBTQIA+ Advocates Unite To Demand Religious School Protections (31 October 2026)
A coalition of women's legal and advocacy groups, LGBTQIA+ advocates and law academics has written to the Prime Minister asking him to end the religious exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act that leave teachers and students open to discrimination. Equality Australia, which organised the letter, points to women demoted or sacked over a pregnancy, a new relationship or leaving violence, and to LGBTQIA+ staff and students treated the same way. It wants the exemptions removed and urges Labor to back independent MP Allegra Spender's bill, introduced on 12 October, which would end the carve-outs while still letting religious schools appoint staff of their own faith. The government hasn't responded.
➧ READ MORE:
Star Observer
National: War Memorial "not responsible for changing the format" of religious Anzac Day service (1 November 2026)
The Australian War Memorial has told the Rationalist Society it isn't responsible for the religious content of the Anzac Day Dawn Service, which it hosts on behalf of the ACT branch of the RSL. The Society says the nationally televised service is dominated by Christian prayers, hymns and benedictions, led only by Christian chaplains, and that documents obtained under freedom of information show the 2026 presiding chaplain argued the Lord's Prayer "overtly excludes other faiths and none". The Memorial says the RSL dropped the prayer this year. The Society wants the Memorial to take responsibility for the service's content, and has asked about secular reform for 2027; its petition has passed 2,000 signatures.
➧ READ MORE:
Rationalist Society of Australia
National: VAD telehealth reform an 'issue of equity' (2 November 2026)
Health ministers from Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia and the ACT have asked federal health minister Mark Butler and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland to allow telehealth for lawful voluntary assisted dying. A 2023 Federal Court ruling found the word "suicide" in the Commonwealth Criminal Code can cover deaths under state VAD laws, which makes discussing the subject by phone or video an offence carrying fines of up to $300,000. The ministers call it a question of equity: rural and remote patients face repeated travel, or no access at all, to a choice others receive at home. Labor's national conference backed reform in July, though the Prime Minister personally opposed the motion.
➧ READ MORE:
The Medical Republic
NSW: Calvary Health Care confirms controversial cuts to services at two Newcastle hospitals (5 November 2026)
Calvary Health Care has confirmed that if it buys Newcastle Private and Hunter Valley Private hospitals, it will stop providing IVF, elective abortions, voluntary assisted dying and gender reassignment procedures there, in line with the Code of Ethical Standards for Catholic Health and Aged Care. The Catholic operator is taking on 14 hospitals nationally after the collapse of Healthscope, and hopes to control the two Newcastle sites by the end of the month, subject to a licence transfer and ACCC approval. NSW Health Minister Ryan Park says the government can't dictate the services a private hospital offers, only whether an operator is fit to hold a licence, and that it will work to fill any gaps. Doctors at the hospitals have warned the public system can't absorb the extra demand.
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The ABC
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Age
Commentary and analysis
Paul Gregoire: Antisemitism Envoy Continues to Overhaul Australian Institutions to Provide Cover for Israel (4 November 2026)
Gregoire reads the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism’s 40-page report as an attempt to write the contested IHRA definition of antisemitism into the rules of Australian institutions — universities, schools, healthcare, the arts, sport and the media — and argues its practical effect is to brand criticism of Israel as bigotry. He walks through the measures it proposes, from a university “report card” and funding tied to compliance to protest “safe access zones” and new controls on visas and online content, and contends they would narrow legitimate political speech. It’s a sharp critique from the civil-liberties side of the debate the envoy’s report reopened when it was released on 30 October.
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Sydney Criminal Lawyers
Trevor Cobbold: Grandparents' school fees mask billions in private school overfunding (5 November 2026)
Cobbold, who convenes Save Our Schools, argues that the funding formula for private schools understates what their families can afford, because money grandparents put towards fees never shows up as taxable income. He cites research reported in The Age that puts the average grandparent contribution at $1,676 a year for children in Victorian Catholic schools and $5,593 in independent schools, and estimates the resulting overfunding at well over a billion dollars a year. He wants an independent review of how the system works.
➧ READ MORE:
Save Our Schools
Brian Greig: The law reform bill is good – but can be much better (5 November 2026)
Greig, of Just.Equal, welcomes Western Australia's Equal Opportunity Bill for ending the exemptions that let faith-based schools, hospitals, aged care and housing services discriminate against LGBTIQA+ people in hiring, firing and service delivery. He then sets out where it falls short: an adoption carve-out in section 59, a vilification test that demands proof of incitement, no specific protection against harassment, and a drafting error on discriminatory awards. With no ban on conversion practices in the bill, he notes, Western Australia stays the last state without one.
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OUTinPerth
Michael Cook: Andrew Denton's Dutch solution (6 November 2026)
Writing in the Catholic Weekly, Cook puts the church's case against widening voluntary assisted dying. He reads Go Gentle's Andrew Denton as wanting more than the current laws allow — telehealth consultations, access for people with dementia, and an end to the right of Catholic hospitals and aged-care homes to refuse the procedure on their premises — and points to the Netherlands as a warning that such schemes broaden over time. It is the case against the reforms the state health ministers are now urging, put at length.
➧ READ MORE:
The Catholic Weekly
Fact-checks and explainers
EXPLAINER: What happens when a Catholic operator buys the hospitals?
Calvary Health Care has confirmed that if it buys Newcastle Private and Hunter Valley Private hospitals, it will stop providing IVF, elective abortions, voluntary assisted dying and gender reassignment procedures, in line with a Catholic code of ethics. It’s easy to assume that before a sale like this goes through, someone — the state, the health department, the competition regulator — weighs up whether a region keeps those services. None of them can. Here is how a private-hospital sale can remove lawful services, and why the usual oversight mechanisms don’t catch it.
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EXPLAINER: What is the IHRA antisemitism definition, and why is it contested?
The Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, released a report on 30 October that makes embedding the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism a priority across government, schools and universities. The Jewish Council of Australia called that push a threat to free speech and academic freedom. The dispute is about a single contested document, written in 2004 to help agencies count antisemitic incidents rather than to police speech, and carrying eleven examples, seven of them about Israel. The definition doesn’t ban criticism of Israel, but embedding it in binding institutional rules is another matter. Here is what the definition says, why it’s contested, and what the main alternative, the Jerusalem Declaration, offers instead.
➧ READ MORE
FACT-CHECK: Does the Tasmanian conversion bill really criminalise prayer?
Tasmania’s House of Assembly passed the Greens’ Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026 on 29 October, and it now goes to the Legislative Council, where the same argument will play out again and Premier Jeremy Rockliff wants stronger religious protections written in. Two claims have framed that argument from the start. Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Guy Barnett says the bill risks criminalising religious conversations and prayers. Equality Tasmania’s Rodney Croome says the same provisions have run in Victoria and New South Wales without anyone being convicted for a conversation or a prayer. They point in opposite directions about what the bill would do in practice. Here is what it says, and how the claims hold up.
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Opportunities for action
TAS: Write to the Legislative Council on the conversion practices bill. Updated this week: the Greens' Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill passed the House of Assembly on 29 October, on a conscience vote and with cross-party support, and now goes to the Legislative Council. Attempts to carve out prayer, private conversations and health care were defeated in the lower house, but Premier Jeremy Rockliff has said he wants stronger religious protections added upstairs, so the exemptions will be argued again. No date has been set for the upper house. Write to Members of the Legislative Council urging them to pass the bill without weakening it, via the Tasmanian Legislative Council member list.
QLD: Sign the Queensland parliament e-petition to keep state schools in Pride in Diversity. After the education department withdrew from the LGBTIQ+ inclusion program, 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.
WA: Back the push to narrow religious-school exemptions in the Equal Opportunity reforms. The Western Australian government has introduced a rewrite of the Equal Opportunity Act that would stop religious schools sacking teachers or expelling students over sexuality, but keeps an exemption letting them hire and enrol on religious grounds. The Greens want that carve-out removed or minimised, and Labor is likely to need their support in the Legislative Council, where the exemptions will be contested. Write to the Premier and your local members urging that the religious exemptions be kept as narrow as possible. Find your members via the Parliament of Western Australia member list.
National: Back Allegra Spender's bill to end discrimination in religious schools. New this week: a coalition of women's legal groups, LGBTQIA+ advocates and law academics has written to the Prime Minister asking him to end the religious exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act, and Equality Australia has urged Labor to back the Spender bill. Independent MP Allegra Spender introduced the bill on 12 October; it would stop religious schools expelling LGBTQIA+ students or dismissing staff over sexuality or gender identity, while still letting them appoint staff of their own faith. The government hasn't said whether it will support it, and no debate date is set. Write to your federal MP urging them to back it, and find your member via the Parliament of Australia member list.
National / NT: Email the Attorney-General on voluntary assisted dying and telehealth. Updated this week: health ministers from Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia and the ACT have written to federal health minister Mark Butler and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland asking them to allow telehealth for lawful VAD. A provision in the Commonwealth Criminal Code bans electronic communication about VAD and forces regional patients to wait for scripts by post; a 2023 Federal Court ruling exposes practitioners who use telehealth for lawful VAD care to heavy fines. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young's Criminal Code Amendment (Equal Access to Voluntary Assisted Dying) Bill 2026 is before the Senate. Email Attorney-General Michelle Rowland via Go Gentle Australia's telehealth campaign.
WA: Back the call for secular wellbeing officers in public schools. The Rationalist Society has used freedom-of-information documents to show that up to 39 per cent of Western Australia's $28 million chaplaincy and wellbeing budget goes to the overheads of faith-based labour-hire firms, and that schools asking to employ their own secular staff are refused and in some cases left "forced to go without". Write to the Premier and your local members urging that schools be allowed to choose, and follow the campaign via the Rationalist Society's school chaplaincy campaign. Find your members via the Parliament of Western Australia member list.
WA: Have your say on Christian prayers in the WA parliament. The Legislative Assembly's procedures committee is considering whether to replace the daily Lord's Prayer with a more inclusive opening, while the Australian Christian Lobby has lodged a submission urging that the prayer be kept. Premier Roger Cook is opposed to change; Labor's Dave Kelly is leading the push for a moment of silence. 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.
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 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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