As the end of the year draws near, I just want to thank you for your ongoing support of our work in 2024 and to share with you some of the highlights that you have helped to make possible.

It has been another big year for us, with much of our work focusing on advocating for secular reform in a number of issue areas. And, in our online Rationale magazine, we have continued to publish high-quality articles by rationalist thinkers and share letters from our members on a wide range of topics.

Your support has been crucial in helping us to continue this work and make an impact in 2024.

At our annual general meeting last month, we were pleased to welcome Vicki Caulfield, Collin Acton and Victor Franco onto the board. They bring immense experience as champions of secularism and evidence-based policy. See our new board here. Also, we recognised the contribution of our former president, Meredith Doig, by conferring upon her Life Membership to the RSA.

We have also introduced a new membership category – ‘Enduring Membership’ – for those wanting to make a more significant upfront and long-term contribution to the RSA. Find out more here.

During the holiday period, the RSA Weekly bulletin will be on pause for one week before returning in the new year.

I encourage you to read through the highlights section below to catch up on some of our advocacy work in 2024. But these are just a small number of the issues we have been focused on.

On behalf of the Rationalist Society of Australia, I hope you all have a merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Si Gladman
Executive Director

Highlights from our 2024

The Tasmanian government thanked us for our advocacy after the state removed blasphemy from its law books. We’re now turning our focus to other states, especially South Australia, where sacrilege laws are still used. Read about our advocacy work here.

We took a discrimination complaint to the ACT Human Rights Commission about the Christian domination of Anzac Day Dawn Services at the Australian War Memorial. We’re also leading the call for secular change on religious chaplaincy in Defence. Read about our advocacy work here.

We’ve supported the joint campaign (with a number of pro-secular organisations) calling for the Australian Bureau of Statistics to remove the inherent bias in the Census religion question. The ABS is proposing to do just that – despite attacks from religious interests. We’ll have to wait and see. Read about our advocacy work here.

We have stepped up our call for greater transparency and accountability of Basic Religious Charities (BRCs) and the removal of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose. The Productivity Commission has also stood firm in urging the removal of the BRC category. Read about our advocacy work here.

Politicians and councillors across the country have been hearing from us on the need to reform parliamentary procedures/meeting procedures to replace exclusionary prayer rituals with practices that are more welcoming and that better reflect the community. Read about our advocacy work here.