The Australian government is bowing to the Christian lobby by giving the churches special exemptions from the law. This is evident in new legislation which has not been tested, notably the Australian Charities & Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012 and the Human Rights & Anti-discrimination Bill 2012, which is scheduled to come before the Senate on 18 February 2013.
Citizens should be wary of any move entrenching privilege for vested interests, as it is clearly anti-democratic. The nation’s problems cry to be managed with more democracy, not less.
The Humanist Society of Victoria joins with the Rationalist Society of Australia and other freethinking groups in announcing today a Manifesto for a secular Australia, which advances ten points of secularism.

Stephen Stuart

At its annual conference yesterday, 3 August 2012, Parents Victoria adopted the policy of the Australian Education Union, Victoria branch, with regard to special religious instruction (SRI) in Victorian government schools, and directed its executive to lobby for SRI to be removed from compulsory school hours. The executive had consulted the members in May 2012 and  argued that there was no way of providing SRI for all the different religions in the community, and that schools should not divide children by religion but should treat them all as Australians.

The Victoria branch of the Australian Education Union, which represented 46,000 teachers, had on 13 May 2011 called for SRI in government schools to be disallowed during school hours; it resolved that public education must remain ‘free and secular’.

The latest development of Parents Victoria is welcome news for secularists such as Humanists, as well as for liberal-minded believers. It means that an awareness of the problematic status of SRI is spreading from groups of activists into the wider community. It is the Humanist view that State neutrality with respect to religion is the best guarantee of religious freedom, and dividing schoolchildren by religion is bad education.

If you too object to SRI, you might like to post your comment below.

Stephen Stuart

The Australian Government, after consultation with educational ‘stakeholders’ and following public submissions and an ombudsman’s report on the School Chaplaincy Program, has decided to broaden the program by admitting secular welfare workers on a par with religious chaplains.

Commencing in 2012, the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program will do away with the previous religious monopoly on ‘supporting the spiritual, social and emotional wellbeing of school students’ and leave the choice firmly with the school. – SS

Click to go to the Departmental media release          Read more >

Counselling at Shafston College, Qld, above left (click), and also at above right (click) for a Wikipedia world wide summary of counselling in elementary school. – HG