RSA Weekly For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia
Sunday 24 August 2025 Hi , It’s nice to see some promising developments regarding a couple of issues that we’ve been actively campaigning on for a long time now. Public school communities in Western Australia
are leading the way in calling for removal of the outsourcing arrangements that see chaplains hired based on religious credentials. In majority non-religious Tasmania, the Legislative Council has become the first house of a state parliament to end the practice of reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the opening of proceedings each day. These are positive steps in the right direction. If you'd like to share your thoughts about articles in the RSA Weekly, email me on: sigladman@rationalist.com.au. Si Gladman Executive
Director, Rationalist Society of Australia |
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| RSA WA school communities’ push for secular wellbeing workers poses
threat to outsourcing of chaplaincy21 Aug: Public school communities across Western Australia could send a clear message to the state government this weekend that they want wellbeing support roles to be secular and directly employed through the state’s education department. Delegates attending the annual conference of the Western Australian Council of State School Organisations (WACSSO), will consider a motion that asks for WACSSO to
advocate for every public school to have “state government employed and funded wellbeing positions that are permanent, secular, professional, with direct employment by schools.” Read the full article |
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| RSA RSA welcomes change as Tassie upper house drops the Lord’s
Prayer19 Aug: The Rationalist Society of Australia welcomes the decision of the Tasmanian Parliament’s upper house to remove the Lord’s Prayer from its formal proceedings, but is calling for further secular reform. On the opening day of the new parliamentary term, the President of the Legislative Council, Craig Farrell, announced that he would no longer include the Lord’s Prayer at the opening of each day. This makes the Tasmanian
Legislative Council the first chamber of an Australia state parliament to remove the Lord’s Prayer. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Fiscal restraint or culture wars? Councils winding back climate action 23 Aug: Councils across Victoria are scaling back climate change
commitments, removing the words “climate emergency” from key documents and, in some cases, scrapping programs. Disputes over the language of climate change and how public money should be spent addressing it have erupted at a number of councils. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Ex-pastor at Pete Hegseth’s church calls for public executions and says Bible backs Ice raids 22 Aug: The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth,
has repeatedly endorsed the Reformation Red Pill podcast, and has appeared on four episodes. But the former pastor who hosts the show, and who attends Hegseth’s theocratic church, has voiced a range of extreme positions in recent months on issues including Ice raids, capital punishment, the racist “great replacement” theory, adultery and neo-Nazism. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN ‘Gender ideology’, quotas and anti-discrimination laws on the agenda for Queensland LNP state conference 22 Aug: At this weekend’s state
conference, Queensland Liberal National party members will debate banning gender-affirming care for children and repealing a ban on conversion practices. But the word “abortion” does not appear on the agenda for the LNP’s first convention since winning last year’s state election. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Texas can’t require public schools to display Ten Commandments in class, judge rules 21 Aug: Texas cannot require public schools to display
the Ten Commandments in every classroom, a judge said a temporary ruling against the state’s new requirement, making it the third such state law to be blocked by a court. Texas is the largest state to attempt such a requirement, and US district judge Fred Biery’s ruling from San Antonio is the latest in a widening legal fight that’s expected to eventually go before the US supreme court. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Malaysian state threatens to jail Muslim men who skip Friday prayers 20 Aug: The Malaysian state of Terengganu has threatened to jail men who
skip Friday prayers without a valid reason for up to two years. Under sharia law in the state, first-time offenders could be imprisoned for up to two years, and fined 3,000 ringgit, or both, according to new rules that came into effect this week. Read the full article |
| THE AGE ‘Censorship is never the answer’: Writers festival organisers call for braver spaces 19 Aug: Writers festival organisers around the country are
expressing dismay over the fallout from the Bendigo Writers Festival saying such codes of conduct “stifle freedom of expression.” “Censorship is never the right answer,” says Brooke Webb, chief executive of the Sydney Writers’ Festival, adding that freedom of speech and freedom of expression underpin a civil society. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Fears emerge on Liberal religious right that cult inquiry unfairly targets Pentecostal churches 18 Aug: A parliamentary inquiry considering how to
outlaw coercive cult practices in Victoria has alarmed a part of the Liberal Party’s religious right that fears pastors could be criminalised and Pentecostal churches unfairly targeted. Traditional churches have also been closely watching the work of state parliament’s legal and social issues committee, concerned that religious freedoms could be eroded. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Far-right Israeli politician barred from Australia ahead of speaking tour 18 Aug: A far-right Israeli politician, who has described
Palestinian children in Gaza as “enemies” and called for Israel’s total control of the West Bank, has been denied entry into Australia ahead of an upcoming “solidarity tour”. Simcha Rothman, a member of the far-right party Religious Zionism, was scheduled to appear at two public events in Sydney and Melbourne in August and two private events billed as a “solidarity tour”. Read the full article |
| COURIER MAIL Pastor accused of exposing himself to interns now leading SEQ church 17 Aug: A pastor and married father of three who abruptly quit a
scandal-ridden New Zealand megachurch amid shocking allegations has been quietly installed at a church south of Brisbane. Brent Cameron, who resigned from the Arise network of 10 Pentecostal churches amid an explosive review into hundreds of claims against it, is now leading a congregation in Logan City. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Islamophobia on the rise in Australia and majority of incidents are not reported, report says 17 Aug: The Islamic Council of Victoria has
reported an increase in Islamophobia, warning that the number of victims is likely far higher than reported. On Saturday, the council held its first conference on Islamophobia, with politicians, police, religious leaders and academics among those in attendance at the event in Melbourne. Read the full article |
| THE WEST VIC BROLGA The Last Prayer: Moyne councillors vote to cut Christian ties 24 Jul: At the Moyne Shire Council, Councillor Jordan Lockett moved a
motion to stop the tradition of opening with a Christian prayer. “I found it quite an odd way to start a meeting, because we're not a church," Lockett said, emphasising his view was “not anti religion at all”. Read the full article |
When the Moyne Shire Council in Victoria voted to remove prayers from its meetings last month, some councillors who opposed the decision warned of battle lines being drawn, a “war for the soul of the West”, and raved on about “anti-Christian devil worshippers” and “the Left”. What do you think? Email your comments to: editor@rationalist.com.au |
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| RATIONALE It’s fantasy to think AI can be free from bias and
ideology Declan Humphreys: In July, the United States government made it clear that artificial intelligence (AI) companies wanting to do business with the White House will need to ensure their AI systems are “objective and free from top-down ideological bias”. The apparent contradiction of calling for unbiased AI while also dictating how AI models should discuss DEI shows the notion of ideologically free AI is a
fantasy. Read the full article |
| ABC Inside the fringe groups fighting a 'quasi civil war' with self-styled sheriffs and their own court Mahmood Fazal: Many dismiss the label
"sovereign citizens", but during COVID these groups were united by their rejection of the legitimacy of governments and courts. They believe a new age is coming that will put regular people at the top of the social hierarchy. It's playing out across the country. Read the full article |
| ABC What I’ve learned from teaching ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Siân Lim: It has been five years since I last taught The Handmaid’s Tale. The
change that has taken place in the lives of my students has been extraordinary... While, thankfully, people are still taking to the streets, there is a pervasive sense that the world has inexorably shifted — as Atwood suggests, the pendulum has swung. Read
the full article |
| LOGOS Where Have the Timothys Gone? 4 Ways to Address the Minister Drought Michael F. Bird: I lament to say that I believe we are experiencing a
similar kind of drought in various places around the world—one for the next harvest of gospel workers. As I survey my immediate ecclesiastical landscape, I see that seminary enrollments are down, more churches than ever have vacancies in key positions, the demand for part-time ministers in children’s and youth ministries is increasing, and it often feels far harder to convince people to consider a career in vocational Christian ministry. Read the full article |
| ABC RADIO The papacy and the battle for the soul of the Catholic Church If the first hundred days of a papacy can shake up the Catholic church, how
much drama occurs over 80 years? For author Philip Shenon, there has been a constant tension – how much should the church express judgement of the modern world and how much mercy should it extend. Philip’s the author of a sweeping new history of the church since World War II. Listen to the full episode |
| PEARLS & IRRITATIONS Requiem for liberalism: Palestine and the exposure of Western ideals Pam Stavropoulos: Continued enabling by ostensibly
liberal democratic governments of the ongoing genocide in Gaza ... reveals more than the hypocrisy of those who purport to represent us. It exposes the double-edged nature — and indeed bankruptcy — of liberal ideals at the heart of the Western philosophical tradition itself. Read the full article |
| ABC Beneath the stable hierarchical edifice of the Mormon church lies a destabilising dynamic Brenton Griffin: There is an undeniable
centralised hierarchy which will dictate who the next Prophet will be — and the restorationist, charismatic roots of the religion are central to Mormon cosmology. Though the line of succession for the Prophet of the Mormon Church is clear, the seeds of schism remain. Read the full article |
| PEARLS & IRRITATIONS The Gaza crisis and the Australian Church John Warhurst: The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has illustrated once again
that Australian Catholics should not look to their church for high-level collective moral leadership. The best that can be expected is a piecemeal response. That is my recent experience anyway, which began painfully with dealings with the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference... Read the full article |
| THE FREETHINKER The continued decline of free speech in India: the case of Ali Khan Mahmudabad Ananya Singh: In a country that never tires of
declaring itself to be the world’s largest democracy, a historian and public intellectual was held in custody for doing what any responsible citizen ought to do. In May, Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad wrote a post on Facebook following the then-recent military standoff between India and Pakistan. This was enough to provoke a backlash that can only be described as emblematic of the new illiberal normal. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Gilead rising: In Trump’s America, misogyny has found a powerful toehold Julia Baird: You know you’ve reached a low point when reporters
need to ask if America’s defence secretary does, in fact, support women having the vote. Yes, a hard and long fought-for basic right to have a voice in public life. Yet they were prompted to when, earlier this month, Pete Hegseth approvingly posted a CNN segment on Christian nationalist and pastor Doug Wilson. Read the full article |
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