“My right to swing my religious fist is being crushed by those demanding I not contact their face.” – Justin Schieber (@justinsweh)

Martin Boers (@MartinBoers), Laming blog

Regular readers will know I very rarely host guest bloggers. Last week, however, I came across a post from Martin Boers, a parent of school-age children and a passionate advocate for secular education. Martin’s post is so well-written and topical I had to share it. He has kindly given me permission to reblog it here on Gladly.

On his Laming blog, Martin responds to an article in the Adelaide Advertiser by Peter James, CEO of Scripture Union Queensland, the evangelical, missionary organisation which supplies the majority of Queensland’s school chaplains. He takes James to task over his complaint that the  public debate over chaplaincy is characterised by ‘anti-religious cheap shots and mocking’.

James’ article, in turn, responds to a piece by Tory Shepherd, which asks how Australians would react to the contention there should be an imam in every school.

I’ve met Peter James. He’s a nice enough man – certainly an improvement on his predecessor, the rock-jawed and intellectually vacuous Tim Mander. But, as Martin points out, James’ thinking is as clouded and woolly as one might expect from someone who accepts the Bible as the literal truth and sees the imposition of his particular brand of Christianity as a sacred entitlement – the denial of which he interprets as ‘discrimination’ and ‘religious vilification’.

Read Martin Boers’ ‘A Reply to Peter James’ – I think you’ll agree it’s a post worth sharing.  You can link directly to Martin’s blog here:  http://lisbon2.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/a-reply-to-peter-james.html

Follow Martin on Twitter at @MartinBoers.

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A reply to Peter James

by Martin Boers, Laming blog

On Friday, 20 June, I had the great privilege of speaking at the Humanist Society of NSW symposium on the Enlightenment and the Roots of Humanism. The event was hosted by Greens MP Adam Bandt in the Macquarie Room at Parliament House, Sydney.

Also on the program were president of the Rationalist Society of Australia, Meredith Doig, well known humanist author, David Tribe, , Emeritus Professor Frank Stillwell, Unitarian Minister, Ian Ellis-Jones and treasurer of the Humanist Society of NSW, Dr Victor Bien.

My speech focused on 18th century Enlightenment philosopher and law reformer, Jeremy Bentham and his influence on Australia’s government, law, public institutions, history and national identity.

Although Jeremy Bentham never set foot in Australia his influence suffuses almost every aspect of Australian public life. In the speech I argue that far from Christianity being the dominant influence in the development of Australia, it is Jeremy Bentham who has most shaped our history, our constitution, our government, public institutions, even the way we shop! We are not a Christian nation, we are a Benthamite society.

The speech was recorded and you can watch it here.  Later, when I have more time I will finish hyperlinking the transcript of the speech and have it published.

A fully referenced transcript of the speech is online here.

If you are fascinated by Jeremy Bentham, you might also enjoy this song:  Jeremy Bentham’s Head

Jeremy Bentham

 Chrys Stevenson

Senator Penny Wright (Greens, spokesperson for schools) made a fine effort today trying to get some answers from the government about Mr Abbott’s $37 million gift to chaplaincy providers (see my two previous posts).

You can watch Senator Wright grilling the government’s senate education representative Senator Marise Payne here (starts at 21:00).

Following is a media release from Senator Wright’s office.

MEDIA RELEASE

23 June 2014

Chaplains oversight gone as invalidated program continues

The Abbott Government’s response to the High Court decision will see chaplains and welfare workers remain in schools without any Federal Government oversight, says Australian Greens spokesperson for schools Senator Penny Wright.

Senator Wright said the Commonwealth Government’s explanation that chaplains and welfare workers would now be overseen by State governments was inadequate.

“The High Court decision means the chaplaincy program can no longer be funded or administered by the Federal Government – the Federal Education Department website clearly spells this out,” Senator Wright said.

“So all the guidelines, codes of conduct and complaints procedures have gone out the window.

“But because the Commonwealth has chosen not to recoup money not yet spent, chaplains and welfare workers will remain in schools until the end of the year.

“The Australian Government must not deny responsibility for this – the states cannot simply take over the Federal Education Department’s administration of the invalidated chaplaincy program.

“The Federal Government needs to explain how they will ensure the safety and wellbeing of students for the next six months.”

In response to the High Court decision invalidating the National School Chaplaincy and Welfare Program, the Coalition announced it would waive the subsequent debt on payments made to date, including $74 million for 2014 – allowing chaplains and welfare workers remain in schools until the end of the year.

——————

Chrys Stevenson

This morning I blogged a lot of questions about Scripture Union CEO, Peter James’ claim that chaplaincy was funded up until the end of December – despite having been declared illegal by the High Court of Australia.

At the time, it was my understanding that chaplaincy payments were made quarterly and that the next tranche of funds was due on 30 June. Clearly, with the court decision falling prior to that date, that tranche, if due, should not have been paid.

It’s now become clear that, after the decision was handed down in Ron Williams’ first case and the government realised another High Court challenge was likely, they changed the funding arrangements. Now (at considerably more expense to taxpayers in lost interest), chaplaincy providers are paid yearly, in January.

So, here is the position as I understand it now.

• Chaplaincy providers were paid, in advance, to provide a full year of chaplaincy services for 2014. That payment was made in January.
• That money came from the $222 million the Gillard government committed to chaplaincy to cover a 3 year period; that is, $74 million per year – or $37 million per half year.
• On 19 June, 2014, the High Court ruled that Federal  funding for chaplaincy is illegal – and that all payments made to date have been illegal.
• Technically, that money should have had to have been repaid to Consolidated Revenue but, not unfairly in my opinion, the Finance Minister waived the debt. Chaplaincy providers would not have to return money paid for services rendered.
• But, now it becomes obvious that not only was the debt for services rendered waived, but so was the debt for $37 million(half of the $74 million annual cost) paid in advance to fund the program from June-December 2014; money that will be in the banks of the para-church organisations but not yet spent on chaplains’ wages.

Why has this amount been waived?

Fair enough that the chaplaincy providers don’t have to repay money already paid in wages to chaplains. But, the government has made it clear that, effective immediately,  the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program can no longer be funded or administered by the Federal government. It is dead. Kaput.

Why then, has the government effectively gifted $37 million of taxpayers’ money to chaplaincy providers for services that have not yet been rendered for a program which has now been deemed illegal?

If we are as hard up as Treasurer Joe Hockey claims,  how can we afford this $37 million gift to para-church organisations to go off and do their own thing for the next six months?

It’s outrageous and irresponsible.

That $37 million should have to be repaid. The scheme is no longer operative. The money has not yet been expended on wages. The money belongs in Consolidated Revenue, not in the pockets of the para-church organisations.

Chrys Stevenson

Update: See update here.

There are some actions so unethical that we who don’t move within political or religious circles can hardly conceive of them. Naively, one imagines that even among politicians and fundamentalist Christians there must be some scruples. But, if information that has just come to hand is accurate, it appears there is no level to which they will not stoop.

Now, it’s the weekend and it’s hard to check the validity of everything that comes next, so a  lot of this has to be prefaced by ‘if’.

It’s come to my attention today that in a media conference after the High Court ruled that Federal funding for the National School Chaplaincy Program was ruled illegal – for the second time – by the High Court – Peter James, CEO of Scripture Union Queensland, confirmed in answer to a journalists’ questions that funding for chaplaincy had been paid up to the end of December.

“The funding for the current year has been paid and is available for use up until December.” – Peter James around 2:15.

When Williams won his first High Court challenge against chaplaincy, the decision was handed down close to the end of the financial year, sending the Gillard government into a mad scramble to pass legislation in order to pay the sum of $16.4 million outstanding to chaplaincy providers for what we understand (but may be wrong) was a quarterly payment. This suggests that advance payments due to chaplaincy providers fall due on or after 30 June.

Assuming arrangements haven’t changed, that payment is due again on or after 30 June this year. This is almost certainly why the High Court made such a quick decision and handed down the ruling before that date – to avoid the illegal disbursement of any more taxpayers’ money.

If Mr James is correct, and his organisation has been paid what appears to be 6 months in advance for chaplaincy services before the due date, it raises the very serious question as to whether the government has deliberately set out to circumvent a High Court ruling. I am no constitutional lawyer, but it seems to me that may be illegal.

My suspicions that the government may have pulled a ‘swifty’ are raised by Attorney-General George Brandis’ eagerness to announce that the Finance Minister has arranged to ‘waive’ the debt of  $150m in illegal funds paid to SUQ.  If I am right (and, this has yet to be confirmed) this would include money paid after the Williams (2) hearing, in anticipation of a negative High Court ruling, before its due date, in advance, to cover chaplaincy services for the next six (?) months.

So is the Finance Minister waiving the debt for the disbursement of millions of taxpayers’ money which SUQ hasn’t even had a chance to use yet?

Has SUQ accepted millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money paid early to avoid a High Court ruling? Will SUQ spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, illegally disbursed from Consolidated Revenue?

If this is the case, I’d like to know how Mr James and his organisation square what seems to be tantamount to the theft of taxpayers’ money with their so-called ‘Christian values’.

I will try to confirm what has happened over the next few days, and my bet is that if the government has pulled another ‘swifty’ on the High Court ruling, Ron Williams will be seeking legal advice. I suspect also that the justices of the High Court will be none too pleased at the government thumbing their nose at them, the Australian Constitution, and, by extension, Australian taxpayers, a second time.

Chrys Stevenson

Update: See update here.

The Federal government has made the following statement following the High Court’s decision in favour of Ron Williams’ contention that Federal funding for the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare program is illegal:

National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program High Court judgment

On 19 June 2014, the High Court of Australia found the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program to be invalid.

Thursday 19 June 2014

News

Following the High Court’s decision, the Commonwealth no longer has capacity to administer or control the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program.

It may be that services continue to be provided at particular schools – whether that is the case will be a matter for the individual schools and the providers of chaplaincy and student welfare services to determine.

The Commonwealth has decided to waive its right to recover payments that have already been made under the program funding agreements. In reaching this decision, the Commonwealth has given careful consideration to the range of factors that are relevant to the exercise of its power to waive debts owing to it.

The Department of Education will provide further information to schools, funding recipients and education authorities on the decision and its impact on the specific circumstances relating to each provider following further analysis of the decision.

What does the High Court decision mean for the new National School Chaplaincy Programme?

As part of the 2014-15 Federal Budget, the Australian Government allocated $243.8 million over four years to fund the National School Chaplaincy Programme.

Implications of the High Court decision on the future of the programme are being considered.

———————–

What does this mean?

It means that the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program is dead – set adrift by Abbott and his henchmen.

If the current funding arrangements mirror those of 20 June 2012 when the judgement in Williams I was handed down, substantial moneys are due to funding recipients on  30 June. In 2012 that amount was $16.44 million—which triggered the financial amendment bill required to keep the cash flowing to the para-churches.

And, it seems from this missive, that money cannot and will not be paid by the Federal government.

If schools want to keep their chaplains, it’s going to be up to them and the chaplaincy providers to find some way to pay their wages.

The government seems to have no heart for ‘saving legislation’ as occurred in June 2012 after the first Williams decision. The NSCSWP has been deemed unsalvageable. From now until at least 2015, the Federal government has washed its hands off the whole grubby, illegal affair.

What is more important is that,  from 1 July, chaplains will not be subject to the NSCSWP guidelines  – which at least, in theory prevented counselling and proselytising – because this program no longer exists. The terms under which they work will be entirely dependent upon local education policies, individual school’s policies and whatever requirements imposed upon the by bodies like Scripture Union and ACCESS Ministries.

It is notable that the Federal government and the states do not seem to have colluded to continue the program seamlessly by funding it through tied grants. That would have been constitutional via S.96 of the Constitution. But, it requires the states to agree to accept the funding and administer the program. Perhaps that has not happened.

With revelations of proselytising, inappropriate counselling, homophobia and links to homophobic hate groups, and, worse, court actions pending over criminal activities by chaplains the states would be taking on a poisoned chalice in agreeing to take responsibility for school chaplaincy. The funding recipients – particularly ACCESS Ministries – are really ‘on the nose’.

We can only speculate that, if the Federal government tried to anticipate a win for Williams by making arrangements through the states, the states were not as co-operative as the Federal government may have wished – and for good reason!

What the Federal government has now is a quarter of a billion dollar commitment to a new chaplaincy program they cannot administer themselves and for which, at least for now, there are now statutory guidelines.  If funded through tied grants to the states, it will be up to each state to either agree to a single set of guidelines (unlikely!) or to negotiate the terms under which they are prepared to accept the money (messy!).

It can and will never be a ‘national’ program again. Given this, it provides little or no political value for the Federal government and is likely to cause only headaches and political liability to the states.

The allocation of a quarter of a billion dollars to chaplaincy in an austerity budget has caused widespread outrage. Whatever the funding recipients might say, there is clearly very little public support for the program. For example, a poll by the Sydney Morning Herald, following the judgement in Williams’ favour, attracted over 19,000 responses, with 82 per cent of respondents saying the program should now be scrapped completely.

So, for now, school chaplaincy is in limbo. There is no suggestion emanating from the Federal government that they will fund it through the states and we can only speculate on why this rather ‘obvious’ solution hasn’t been implemented. Meanwhile, Abbott and his team have done a Pontius Pilate on the scheme instituted by Howard in 2006 and meddled with by the  Gillard government. It is no more and they have washed their hands of it. Williams has killed it.

Will another chaplaincy scheme arise from the ashes? Perhaps. But it will never be a national scheme and it seems very likely that the Federal government and the states have grown rather weary of this ill-conceived adventure of placing minimally qualified evangelical missionaries into state schools to deal with at-risk, vulnerable kids.

As someone wrote on Facebook recently: Bringing children and churches together – what could go wrong?

Chrys Stevenson

Yesterday, Senator Louise Pratt gave a Senate speech calling for an end to the National School Chaplaincy Program.  Senator Pratt drew on information I supplied to LGBTIQ lobby, Allout, and from information which emerged from Allout’s survey about chaplaincy. Here is the text from Hansard.

The High Court’s decision will be handed down tomorrow, Thursday, 19 June at 10am. Ron Williams and I will be in Sydney for the decision.

It remains to be seen how the government will respond to a positive decision for Williams. But it is likely that pressure will need to be placed upon the states not to accept funding for the continuation of this fatally flawed and increasingly politically damaging program. Reason Road has a good run down on the problem and suggestions for ways to campaign against chaplaincy.

Chrys Stevenson

Hansard

Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (19:29): I rise this evening to share my concerns in this place about the coalition School Chaplaincy Program. There is in our country a mounting and substantial evidence base that young people, especially young lesbian, gay, bisexual or other gender non-conforming people, are being discriminated against by many school chaplains provided through the national school chaplaincy program. I have worked with school chaplains over the years and I have found them to be well-intentioned people. But I also know about the very real suffering that the anti-gay beliefs that some of them hold can cause LGBT young people, even when no harm is intended.

As we know, LGBT young people are at an extremely disproportionate risk of self-harm, suicide and general feelings of shame and depression compared to non-LGBT youth. These feelings are generated not because there is any wrong with their identity but because of the stigma directed towards them by others. And so, while many young people may have positive chaplain experiences ourselves, we in this place have to listen to what young people tell us, especially our most vulnerable youth.

Last week, the LGBT rights organisation All Out ran a survey inviting Australians to share their stories of school chaplains. Over 2,200 people responded, including over 1,000 high-school students aged 13 to 18. Many of these students came from WA and 15 per cent identified as L, G, B or T. The Australian community has been debating school chaplains for some time, but this is the first time that we have heard from the students themselves, and the stories that they have shared are overwhelming. We have heard dozens of firsthand student accounts that describe chaplains as being explicitly anti-gay. Here is one short excerpt:

My best friend was getting bullied by other students last year for being gay, so went to speak to our school chaplain about it. … He suffers from anxiety and depression, has attempted suicide in the past and occasionally self-harms. He spoke to our chaplain about being bullied and about how he has begun to believe what people are saying about him being a ‘fag’ and ‘a disgusting, gay idiot’. … The chaplain told him that his bullies were right and that homosexuality is a degrading sin that sends people to hell. …. That night I got a phone call from his Mum telling me he had tried to overdose on medicine pills and was in hospital having his stomach pumped.

And here is another:

… this term the Chaplain warned us against … non-marital sex. When I asked him about what a lesbian couple of faith would do if they couldn’t get married, he simply replied that gay and lesbian people could never be proper Christians. … He went on to talk about how … gays and lesbians were … unnatural, indecent and perverse. … this event made me feel as if my sexuality was something to be ashamed of. I consider myself a strong person, and for this to affect me so deeply made me realise the dangers of mixing religion with public education.

It is important to mention that a minority of students—about five to 10 per cent of students in this survey—reported positive experiences with chaplains, including stories of chaplains helping them to overcome self-esteem issues and bullying. Of the 1,000 or so parents and other adults who were part of the survey, about 25 per cent reported positive chaplain experiences, including how chaplains had boosted confidence. However, most of the stories were negative, and almost all of the stories from LGBT young people were negative. As well as the two stories I have just quoted, students described chaplains helping them to ‘pray the gay away’ and advising them to sleep with a member of the opposite sex to ‘correct’ their same sex attraction. One very serious story involved a student being told by a chaplain that they should leave home because they had homosexual parents. The family felt unwelcome at the school and subsequently moved. Many non-Christian students also reported that chaplains had harassed them about adopting religion.

In my years as a senator I have heard countless stories of the challenges that LGBT young people face at school, but even I am overwhelmed by some of the heartbreaking stories that this survey revealed—all breaches of program guidelines and the duty of care owed to these students, a duty of care that these stories demonstrate is being breached, a duty of care that states these services must not be biased on the grounds of religious ideology or sexuality. Extraordinarily, the government has refused to give any assurances that even the current program’s standards and safeguards will be maintained—and this could lead to the rules designed to prevent this kind of proselytising being wound back even further

And this is not even the whole picture. I have also had a few very serious reports passed on to me this week, again stories reported by Western Australian school students who are especially vulnerable because of their sexual orientations. These stories describe chaplains committing serious criminal offences against them. Needless to say, these stories will be further investigated and the children will be connected to the appropriate police and support services, where this has not already happened. But obviously we are dealing with a system that is broken and not working, a system that is failing our most vulnerable youth.

I know some great chaplains. They work with love and authenticity, doing wonderful things for our young people. But on a national level we must face the fact that our chaplaincy program is failing Australian young people. We know this because of a steady accumulation of media investigations revealing everything from the distribution of homophobic ‘biblezines’ in our schools to continuous proselytizing to students, against their parents wishes. We know it because of the findings of the Northern Territory Ombudsman in 2009 and similar findings in 2011 by the Federal Ombudsman. We know it because of the damning reviews of this program by academic experts such as Professor Marion Maddox.

It is extraordinary to me that, in the face of such issues, qualified non-religious youth workers are being pushed out of this program in favour of chaplains. A choice between a chaplain or a youth worker is actually being taken away from schools—schools will now only be able to choose a chaplain. It is extraordinary that a government that has promoted choice and autonomy for our schools is forcing chaplains over youth workers on those schools.

I would also like to highlight that questions have begun to surface about links between Australia’s three biggest school chaplain providers—Access Ministries, Scripture Union Queensland and GenR8 Ministries—and extreme anti-gay movements such as the Lausanne evangelical conference. This conference is well known for its links to anti-gay movements that promote anti-homosexuality laws in African countries—places like Uganda and Nigeria, where we have seen extreme anti-gay laws put forward promoting things like imprisonment and the death penalty.

This week, the High Court will hand down its decision on whether the National Schools Chaplaincy Program is unconstitutional, and I hope that the court will find that the Constitution does indeed prevent the federal government from handing over money to religious providers to put untrained chaplains in our schools—chaplains who, however well intended, are in many cases harming our children.

Regardless of the outcome, it is important to me to see this program stopped. Any person giving counselling to our young people should have the proper qualifications, as recognised by organisations like the Psychological Association, and should not hold discriminatory views. Our young people have told us very clearly that they do not feel safe at school, and it is our job to listen to them and to respond. (Time expired)

Sign Peter Short’s petition here.

Peter Short has oesophageal cancer. His condition is terminal. He is going to die.

Peter wants to choose how and when he dies. He’s not particularly afraid of the pain – he knows that can probably be managed by morphine – but he doesn’t like the idea of losing his independence, of being bedridden,  or of the last memory he leaves being of ‘ a’ scarecrow in bed on a morphine tube’.

South Australian doctor, Rodney Syme, has offered to provide assistance to Peter when the time comes, but risks prosecution for doing so.

Syme has recently admitted to giving a terminal patient Nembutal to allow him to end his life.  In part, he has made the admission in order to test the law and with the hope of setting a positive precedent.

Peter accepts that choosing to die before one’s ‘allotted time’ is not a choice that sits well with everyone. He’s not even entirely sure it’s what he’ll decide to do. But he wants to have a choice. That, in itself, says Peter would significantly ease the burden on him and his family. Other people may choose differently. That’s the good thing about choice – it means your rights aren’t diminished by other people’s ideas of what is right or wrong for them.

In Oregon, where physicians are permitted to prescribe lethal medication for terminally ill patients who are deemed psychologically fit to make a rational decision, it’s become clear that giving patients choice has a powerfully, positive effect. Rather than encouraging patients to end their lives, the comfort of knowing they have control over their pain and their life seems to add to the quality of their remaining days. Knowing there is an ‘out’ seems to provide paitents with more strength to endure the pain and discomforts of their illness. Most patients don’t have their prescription filled. Of those who do, most never use it.

On the other hand, a terminally ill man on my Facebook page this week indicated that his ‘plan’ was to drive his car off a cliff before his condition becomes too bad. That ‘plan’ involves someone dying before they really need to, a great deal of trauma for his family and friends, the loss of a valuable asset (the car as well as the man!) to his family, not to mention the trauma, cost and inconvenience caused to those who have to retrieve the body and the wreckage!

A doctor told me that, after diagnosing a patient with a highly treatable form of bowel cancer, the man said, “Nah! I’m not doin’ with that!”, went home and shot himself in the head. One wonders if she had been able to assure him that, if at any time his condition was deemed terminal he would have the choice of palliative care or ending his life, peacefully at the time of his choosing, whether he may have lived and spared his wife the trauma of finding his dead body in the shed.

When people don’t get to choose to die with dignity, it doesn’t mean they calmly accept their fate.  Instead, they turn to other methods like hanging, shooting, or gassing themselves in their vehicles. Is this really acceptable to our politicians? Is granddad swinging from a rope in the shed what Christians want for our elderly? Because that’s what we’re getting under the current arrangements.

My argument is that we are not preventing deaths by refusing to legalise voluntary euthanasia – we are forcing people into premature and violent deaths.

“The choice,” said Peter Short in an interview with Michael Short on “The Zone“, “becomes incredibly powerful because whether or not I choose to avail myself of assistance from Rodney Syme in making that call is not really the important part of this conversation. The important thing to me is that I have come to realise that having that choice takes a burden off me, which is extremely palliative in its own right.”

70-85 per cent of Australians want the option to choose a dignified, medically assisted, death if they are diagnosed with a terminal disease. Claiming that right imposes no obligation on anyone else to make a similar choice.  Despite shameless propaganda from the Catholic Church and other religious anti-euthanasia groups, the checks and balances instituted in countries and jurisdictions where voluntary euthanasia is legal are effective; there is not a skerrick of evidence that the systems are being abused by murderous doctors, hypodermic-happy nurses or avaricious family members.

Groups like the Australian Christian Lobby do not represent the majority of Christians or their views on this matter. A poll conducted by The Australia Institute in 2011 showed 65 per cent support for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia amongst Australian Christians. 73 per cent of older Christians support legislative change to allow them the choice to die with dignity. There is even a group, Christians supporting choice for voluntary euthanasia, headed by my friend Ian Wood, which represents Christians who support end-of-life choices.

It’s time for politicians to start listening to what the people of Australia want and looking at real research and evidence rather than the poppycock and lies being spouted by religious lobbyists.

Like many Australians, Peter Short is not a religious person. Why should the views of a minority of religious zealots restrict his end-of-life choices?  Why should a doctor who is prepared to help him have to do it at the risk of his reputation and freedom?

Peter wants the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia to provide him with the right to die at a time and manner of his own choosing. And he wants the legislation to be the legacy he leaves to the people of Australia.

Recently, Senator Richard Di Natale visited Peter and his family at their home. Senator Di Natale has asked Peter to travel to Canberra to speak in favour of a bill he’s introducing for medically assisted death for the terminally ill. Senator Di Natale is working to get bipartisan support for the bill.

What would make a real difference, says Peter,  would be  for him to be able to present a petition signed by a huge number of people showing they support legislation to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

You can find more information on Peter’s blog here:  pgs28.wordpress.com.

You can help by signing Peter’s petition and circulating the details via Facebook, Twitter and your other social networks and, if you have a blog, by blogging about it. Peter’s twitter address is @28Short.

Sign Peter Short’s petition here.

Chrys Stevenson

Related:  The Debate on Assisted Dying: Distortion, Misinformation and the Influence of the Religious Lobby – a speech by Chrys Stevenson  for the Dying with Dignity NSW AGM and conference, 24 March 2011

Activist dead wrong on voluntary euthanasia – Chrys Stevenson and Dr David Leaf, ABC’s Religion and Ethics, 18 October 2011

The High Court of Australia will hand down its decision on the case of Williams vs the Commonwealth and Others on the matter of Federal funding for the National School Chaplaincy Program at 10am, Thursday, 19 June.

Ron Williams hopes to be in Sydney at his solicitors’ office for the decision. Coincidentally, I also fly into Sydney on Thursday morning, so we’re hoping to have reason to celebrate later in the day.

Ron still needs assistance in paying his considerable legal fees.  If you are able to assist, please visit his website at http://www.highcourtchallenge.com

Chrys Stevenson

Following the reversal of the decision to allow the employment of secular welfare workers under the umbrella of the National School Chaplaincy program, there has been much chatter on social networks about how outrageous it is to deprive schools of this option.

Increasingly, attention seems to be turning away from the idea that the National School Chaplaincy Program is an ideological and political pork-barrel program based on no research and with no performance indicators. Instead, there is nostalgia for those halcyon days when the NSCP (renamed the NSCSWP) included secular welfare workers.

“If only the government would allow schools to ‘choose‘,” go the online arguments, “all would be well …”

Well, excuse me for being blunt, but this is absolute, unadulterated bullshit. And, frankly, I’m sick to death of hearing this ill-informed, wishy-washy argument from people who should know better.

The National School Chaplaincy Program was initiated by John Howard for the express purpose of putting evangelical missionaries into schools. It is not student focused. It was never about helping kids. Let me repeat that. It was never designed to help kids.

The National School Chaplaincy Program  did not emerge out of any identified need in schools for welfare workers. It did not derive from any campaigning on the part of schools. It was not initiated in response to independent research by education and mental health experts. No!  It was conceived to advance an ideological position which held that ‘secular’ schools were ‘value free’ spaces and that if parents and teachers weren’t going to instill ‘Christian values’ into children, the government would respond by sending in an army of Christian soldiers to do the job.

It is a program designed to win the hearts, minds and votes of conservative Christians in marginal seats. And the strategy might have worked if John Howard hadn’t been outfoxed by Kevin Rudd who launched a ‘holier than thou’ campaign to win back Christian votes for Labor. Julia Gillard continued that mission by selling out to the Australian Christian Lobby – not only over chaplaincy but also on the issue of equal marriage.

Howard insisted that he was calling these evangelical missionaries ‘chaplains’ because that word had a certain ‘connotation’. The program was absolutely intended to be religious from its inception. When Julia Gillard extended funding for the program to $220 million, she promised the Australian Christian Lobby that it would not be secularised and that it would be a chaplaincy program with everything that word implied.

After Ron Williams’ first High Court case, the criticisms of both the public and the High Court justices prompted (then) Education Minister, Peter Garrett, to open it up to ‘secular’ welfare workers – but you can be sure this was done after consultation with the ALP’s religious right faction and with a ‘wink wink’, ‘nudge nudge’, don’t-you-worry-about-that we’ll-say-it’s-secular-but-it-won’t-be-really assurance.

The ‘secular option’ was never a viable choice for most schools. It was mostly smoke and mirrors.

Initially, the ‘secular’ option was not available to schools which already had a chaplain – only for the 1000 extra schools that would ‘benefit’ from the extension of the program. In reality, the number of truly non-religious workers employed in the early days of this secular munificence amounted to a single digit number.

Never slow to grab on to a taxpayers’ dollar, para-church organisations like ACCESS Ministries signed on to supply ‘secular welfare workers’ as well as religious chaplains – from the same pool of people!

Further, in order to gain employment through the para-church organisations, the ‘secular’ workers still had to provide religious references and attest to their Christian faith.

I wrote about this in an article on ABC’s Religion and Ethics portal:

“In two separate advertisements on Seek.Com, faith-based funding recipient, Young Life Australia, calls for student welfare workers to fill positions at the Sunshine Coast and in the New South Wales Southern Highlands. To obtain this ‘secular’ position, applicants must commit to attend the Christian charity’s ‘training events’ throughout the year and align with Young Life’s values and statement of mission purpose. Central to this is a commitment to ‘the evangelisation of young people’.  ‘Highly desirable’ qualifications for these ‘secular’ positions are a ‘background in youth-related Christian mission’, a committed Christian faith and a reference from the applicant’s minister or pastor.”

When I rang chaplaincy funding recipient, Campus Crusade for Christ, they confirmed they will provide student welfare workers but stressed their employment conditions require all staff to be practicing Christians.”

The National School Chaplaincy Guidelines changed barely at all under this new arrangement. The word ‘religious’ was changed to ‘spiritual’, no distinction was made between the duties of religious chaplains and ‘secular’ workers, and secular workers were perfectly free to provide ‘pastoral care’ and perform all the same religious functions as chaplains. All that changed was the nomenclature.

Some funding recipients which sounded secular turned out to have religious links. But, if you were a school and didn’t ask the right questions, you’d never know that your ‘secular’ welfare worker was being provided by an organisation with much the same ideology and employment criteria as the major parachurch organisations.

So please, please, please, people. Let us not get all misty eyed about the days when the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program provided ‘options’ to schools. In reality, the only real difference under the new scheme is that it is more open about the rampant religiosity of the program.

And even if the program wasn’t religious – even if ‘welfare workers’ had to show atheist credentials to get the job – it would still be  a shockingly bad idea to put poorly qualified people (of any religion or none) into schools to deal with kids with really serious issues. This isn’t about advancing an atheist ideology – this is about caring about kids’ welfare.

Yet, in the media and on social networks I keep hearing about the loss of ‘secular social workers’. Yes, it’s possible that some of the few legitimately ‘secular’ workers had social work qualifications. But it was never a requirement. The old scheme didn’t employ ‘secular social workers’  – it asked only for a Cert IV qualification or equivalent.  What’s more, there are ways of circumventing even that low requirement. A Cert IV is a low-level qualification that in no way equips someone to deal with at risk children. As the Australian Psychology Society says, placing people with such scanty knowledge in to schools is both ‘dangerous’ and ‘appalling’.  They should know!

Nobody who cares about kids’ mental health or welfare needs should be calling for the National School Chaplaincy Program to be modified to allow the ‘choice’ of  ‘secular workers’. Poorly qualified secular workers are barely better than poorly qualified religious fanatics.

It’s time to abolish this program. Its purpose is clearly to suit the ideological and political aims of the conservative right rather than the needs of at-risk kids. That, in itself, is appalling. To trade kids’ welfare – perhaps their lives – for political and ideological ends is a vomitously cynical act.

It makes me sick to my stomach that that’s how politics works in this country. It makes me sick that the more liberal churches are staying shtum on this issue. It makes me sick that well-meaning, enthusiastic young Christians are being thrown into a job for which they are poorly qualified, probably with no idea of the incredible harm they may be wreaking. It makes me sick that the ALP jumped on the bandwagon to appease their own powerful, fundamentalist Christian faction (take a bow, Joe de Bruyn) and to lure the ‘Christian vote’ away from the Liberals (take a bow, Kevin Rudd). It makes me sick that the lily-livered Greens are all rhetoric and no fucking action on this issue (take a bow Christine Milne). They whine about chaplaincy but do nothing in the Senate to arrest it. Sarah Hanson-Young is on record repeating the wish-washy, fence-sitting, misinformed position about giving schools ‘choice’.

Tony Abbott’s own audit committee gave the best advice on this program. “Abolish it.”

Abolish.

End it.

Get rid of it.

Don’t amend it. Don’t expand the ‘options’. Don’t reverse decisions about it.

Abolish it.

It’s a rort. It’s funded unconstitutionally. It isn’t student-focused. It isn’t based on kids’ needs. There is no credible research which establishes a need for the program or recognises a role fulfilled by by it. There is not one skerrick of evidence that it does any good at all and a great deal of growing evidence that it is ill-advised, dangerous, wasteful, homophobic, divisive, disrespectful of other religions and cultures, and that chaplains are routinely over-stepping the mark, both in respect to proselytising and counselling.

Abolish it.

Chrys (getting really, really annoyed) Stevenson