The government should remain neutral on religion

On June 27 Prime Minister John Howard announced the first round of funding for the National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) with funding for 1,392 of the 1,503 applications received. This is about 15 per cent of Australian schools. At the same time the PM increased funding by $25 million to a total of $115 million over three years.

The underlying message of the Prime Minister’s announcement and the Education Minister’s earlier press release on May 30 is that the popularity of the program should somehow silence the critics. Of course, what neither of them point out is that the 85 per cent of schools who may be uneasy with the program, and have not, to-date, applied for funding, will get nothing.

John Howard announced the NSCP in October 2006. It allocated $90 million of Commonwealth funding over three years for school chaplains to give - in the Prime Minister’s words - “pastoral care and spiritual guidance” to school students and staff.

The program directly funds religion and undermines what remains of the separation of church and state in Australia. It is against the spirit of section 116 of the Australian Constitution that states:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

The program further requires the executive branch of the Government to examine and judge religious matters, as it is the minister (and prime minister) who has final say over who is funded.

The program is contrary to the Commonwealth's obligations under international human rights instruments to which it is a signatory. The Commonwealth discriminates against the non-religious students and staff because the NSCP is not open to them. One cannot employ non-religious counsellors or other welfare workers.

The program is one of the Prime Minister’s hobby horses and does not rest on any solid policy foundations. State, Territory and Australian Government Ministers of Education, in 1999, agreed to the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century that contains the current statement of goals for education in Australia. This statement does not mention or identify the issue of “spiritual guidance” of students as an educational priority. Likewise, the Australian Government’s reform agenda for schools for the next four years says nothing of spiritual guidance of students.

Liberal party policy has not previously promoted spirituality and religion and doing so contradicts many of their other policy statements. Liberal Way, the Federal Platform of the Liberal Party of Australia, does not mention spirituality or its promotion. Indeed, it speaks of the “separation and distribution of powers as the best protection for the democratic process”, “the Government keeping to its core business” and “giving all citizens equal rights under the law”.

The Nine Values for Australian Schooling, endorsed by the Australian Government and the basis for the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools, likewise does not mention spirituality or religion.

So if it is not government, departmental or Liberal party policy, where did the NSCP come from? The answer lies in the Prime Minister’s and other key cabinet members’ social attitudes and religiosity.

John Howard professes to be a committed Christian and has made many decisions which directly and indirectly promote Christianity and the wealth, power and influence of the Christian Churches. As commentator Max Wallace noted these decisions “further entrench the Churches in various aspects of society as a way to counterbalance their falling church attendances”.

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.

This paradox in the program is perhaps why the program authors and supporters consistently down play the program’s religiosity. They talk of pastoral care and student wellbeing. But if this is all the program is about why the requirement that those funded be religious? There is no requirement in the program that chaplains have any particular teaching, counselling or social work qualifications or experience.

Australian students deserve the most qualified and experienced people to assist with their welfare, whether they be religious or not. School students are caught in the Howard Government’s latest front in their ongoing “cultural war”, this time against secular counsellors, social workers and teachers.

One must note that Queensland has received a disproportionate amount of NSCP funding with more than 450 schools being funded, nearly all of them state schools. Business has never been better for SU Queensland, with a state government monopoly and now about $30 million of federal funds.

Parents can take their children to church services or other religious instruction if they wish. Children and parents can consult with religious persons any time. Chaplains should not be specifically funded by taxpayers as a part of the education system. Religious activities should be funded by the churches and parents who want it, not by us all through the tax system.

It is disingenuous for the Prime Minister and the Education Minister to trumpet the popularity of the NSCP as they have, when schools have the “choice” of funding for a chaplain or no funding. It would be interesting to see how many schools would have chosen a counsellor rather than a chaplain if given a choice.

The NSCP sets a precedent of directly funding religious activities that may well be used by supporters to argue for broader direct government funding of religious activities.

The Government should be announcing policies and funding that benefit 100 per cent of Australian schools, not just those who may share the Prime Minister’s ideological commitment to religion.