The government should remain neutral on religion

As the latest 2006 census figures show, the number of Australians professing no religion rose from 16 to 19 per cent, and those professing Christianity dipped from 71 per cent to 64 per cent as a proportion of the population. A far smaller proportion of the population than this are regular church goers or strong adherents to a faith. Perhaps the Prime Minister is spending $115 million getting the religious into schools to spread the message due to the overall decrease of religiosity in the community.

The Australian reported on October 31, 2006 that Peter Rawlings, a Mornington Peninsula financial planner, religious education teacher and chaplain committee treasurer, thought up the NSCP. His local federal liberal MP Greg Hunt encouraged him to write to the Prime Minister who agreed to the idea.

It is reported that Rawlings attended a budget night business dinner, was photographed with the Prime Minister, personally lobbied Treasurer Peter Costello and had a formal meeting with Education Minister Julie Bishop and other parliamentarians. Obviously they all liked the sound of the program. Rawlings is quoted as saying, "I feel enormously privileged to have written a submission to the Prime Minister that, less than six months later, is a national program with $90 million attached to it”. Wouldn’t we all?

Direct government funding of religion is controversial. Religion is a matter of faith. This more than anything is the key reason why the government should remain neutral on religion. There is no proof that there is a “spiritual” realm or such a thing as “spiritual wellbeing”. Even the deeply religious generally acknowledge that religion is a matter of faith.

As Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott stated in the Sydney Morning Herald (January 3, 2007), “the impossibility of satisfactorily proving the existence of God or the divinity of Christ (let alone other doctrines such as the virgin birth) is a huge obstacle to those who regard themselves as sophisticated thinkers”. Given this, the non-religious should not be compelled to pay for religion through the tax system. The government, through the NSCP, endorses religion in general and gives it a similar status to other demands on the public purse such as health, education and social welfare.

The Queensland State Government endorses the Scripture Union Australia (SU) to supply all the chaplains in government schools in Queensland. SU also supplies many if not the majority of chaplains in other States.

SU states as the first point of its working principles "Evangelism and Teaching" that it is "committed to teaching basic Christian truths as an essential part of evangelism". Articles of faith are not “truths” as commonly understood.

SU further states that its core aims are:

• to make God's Good News known to children, young people and families;
• to encourage people of all ages to meet God daily through the Bible and prayer,
  so that they may come to personal faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, grow in Christian maturity and become both committed church members and servants of a world in need. (Scripture Union Australia web site)

SU may hold these views. However, the government in both the program guidelines and in media statements has stated that the NSCP is not about promoting religion to students. Chaplains must not "impose any religious beliefs or persuade an individual toward a particular set of religious beliefs … in assisting students in exploring their spirituality [and] providing guidance on religious, values and ethical matters". But doing this is the clearly stated aim of SU.

Likewise, the Council for Christian Education in Schools who train and supply chaplains to Victorian schools state that "the chaplain is able to offer their faith as a consistent part of their presence as they journey with people".

It is not credible for the government to fund a program that is all about religion, but then require the chaplains to somehow ignore their own religious beliefs in performing their duties, especially when the chaplains state that promoting their religious beliefs is their core aim.