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30 Aug: Anthony Albanese says there will be a question in the census on sexuality, following days of backlash – including among Labor MPs – against the decision to ditch a proposal to include questions on gender and sexuality. The prime minister told ABC Melbourne radio his government had not gone through the census questions “line by line” and it was for the Australian Bureau of Statistics to decide what was asked. Read the full article

29 Aug: The Rationalist Society of Australia has called on members of the Tasmanian Parliament to examine, through a committee process, the appropriateness of observing exclusively Christian prayers each day. In a letter to all members of the state’s House of Assembly and Legislative Council, RSA Executive Director Si Gladman told MPs that now was the right time for both chambers to consider more appropriate models for commencing daily proceedings. Read the full article

28 Aug: The ‘Census21 – Not Religious?’ campaign is seeking clarification from the Albanese government following its recent announcement regarding proposed topics for the Census in 2026. Michael Dove, spokesperson for ‘Census21 – Not Religious?’, has written to Dr Leigh, to ask whether the announcement has implications for the proposed new religion question. Read the full article

28 Aug: The Papua New Guinean government has enlisted the help of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to ferry Pope Francis to the remote town of Vanimo in far northwest Sepik province when he tours the country from Sept. 6-9. “The Australian government has graciously accepted our call for support and will provide an ADF carrier to bring the pope to Vanimo and back to Port Moresby,” PNG foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko told local media. Read the full article

28 Aug: The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, says the government decided not to add questions on sexuality to the 2026 census to avoid “divisive” community debates. Marles said the government had opted to take the existing set of questions to the next census rather than adding five new topics – including sexuality – as had been proposed, out of concern for social cohesion. Read the full article

27 Aug: Calls to restrict a series of sex education books have been endorsed by electors in one of Western Australia's largest regional cities amid what an LGBTQI advocacy group has labelled a sign of "moral panic". Motions backing restrictions on books Welcome to Sex and Sex: A Book for Teens were passed at a meeting of electors in Albany. Read the full article

27 Aug: Two federal Labor MPs have told the Sydney Morning Herald that the Albanese government decided not to include a question on LGBTIQ status in the next Census to avoid a possible backlash from faith groups. Labor’s own policy platform had a commitment to ensuring the 2026 survey would ask new questions to capture the true number of sexually and gender diverse Australians. Read the full article

26 Aug: The Rationalist Society of Australia has urged the South Australian government to “do the right thing” by the LGBTIQ community and remove religious exemptions to the state’s equal opportunity laws. In a letter to the state’s Attorney-General, Kyam Maher, the RSA’s Executive Director Si Gladman said the Albanese government’s decision to abandon its proposal to address federal exemptions to anti-discrimination laws had opened the way for the South Australian government to act. Read the full article

22 Aug: Emma felt she had no choice but to keep her girlfriend and their child a secret from a conservative Catholic school leadership. Under current laws, the religion teacher could legally be fired for her relationship and said she was told as much by the school principal and her union. About six years into her teaching career, her divorce and subsequent girlfriend were all kept under wraps until she went to apply for carer’s leave when her new partner was pregnant. Read the full article

20 Aug: The Victorian Bar has debated whether judges and lawyers should stop wearing their robes and medals at special religious services to avoid any conflict of interest perceptions. The issue was discussed at a special event to examine issues affecting Victorian barristers but the discussions have raised concerns among some lawyers of faith that there could be a broader agenda to undermine the place of religion among the community. Read the full article

5 Aug: An army chaplain has rejected suggestions he told a grieving widow to consider her "future partner" when making funeral plans for her husband, who was killed in a training exercise. The independent inquiry reopened for a fourth phase of public hearings examining the circumstances of a 2023 Australian Army MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crash. Read the full article

Stephen Woodford, of Rationality Rules, takes aim at what he describes as speculation and misinformation being pushed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and J.K. Rowling over Tunisian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif. What do you think? Email your comments to: editor@rationalist.com.au

David James: In geoeconomic and financial terms, the Earth has begun shifting on its axis. Triggered by the West’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and America’s increasingly aggressive posture towards China, the shape of the world economy is being transformed. It is arguably the biggest repositioning in two centuries. Read the full article

Anna Hardy: Earlier this year, a father defended the attempted so-called ‘honour killing’ of his own daughter in South Australia’s Supreme Court with the chilling words – “she deserved it”. Incidents like this force us to confront a deeply unsettling question: How could any parent forsake their most fundamental instinct – the safety of their own child – in the name of ‘honour’? Read the full article

Michael Koziol: It’s funny how it’s always LGBTQ issues that have to be sacrificed to maintain the peace. But taken together, these decisions tell us a lot about where Albanese and his government feel they sit in the national conversation. It tells us they are hyper-sensitive to any criticism that they are not singularly focused on the cost of living, and do not believe they can walk and chew gum at the same time. Read the full article

Margaret Chambers: In Australia, attacking Christianity has become a sport for the elites and the political class. Just as in Paris, the evocation of ‘tolerance’ and ‘love’ is eerily resemblant of attacks on Christianity in our own country. Indeed, in Australia, the most savage attacks on our religious institutions are carried out in the name of ‘inclusivity’ and ‘equality’. Read the full article

Jacinta Collins: The discourse surrounding religious freedom in Australia has become increasingly contentious, especially in the context of schooling. As a former Australian Senator and now as the executive director of the National Catholic Education Commission, I have noted with concern the growing perception that holding religious beliefs and values — and making choices based on them — is somehow discriminatory or at odds with modern society. Read the full article

What happens if you're a politician, lawyer or judge, faithful to your religious beliefs, but bound to operate in a secular democracy? In the US, this question is a lively debate, and on issues such as abortion and the death penalty, it affects both the right and the left. Listen to the episode

Samuel McKee: In the space of eighty years, and to an alarming extent, philosophy of science has degenerated. Once, it inspired revolutionary breakthroughs. Now, it is dominated by thinkers who have not seen a laboratory or an observatory since high school and who use their platforms to disseminate nonsense. Read the full article

Brian Barry: I do not dispute that decency is important and pervasive in Orwell’s thought, but I do worry that once we get clearer about what Orwellian decency is, we find that it cannot do the job he wants it to do. To put it simply: Orwellian decency, whatever it is, is not a moral virtue. Read the full article

Samantha Rose Hill: I often think about the darkest hour of Arendt’s life, when she was contemplating suicide in the Gurs internment camp. She had no sense of what the future held. There was only the present moment, and in that moment, she decided to risk everything by living, because she loved life too much to give it up. Read the full article

Niniek Karmini, David Rising, Nicole Winfield: When the Vatican acknowledged in 2022 that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning, East Timorese independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had sexually abused young boys, it appeared that the global clergy sexual abuse scandal that has compromised the Catholic Church’s credibility around the world had finally arrived in Asia’s newest country. Read the full article