RSA Weekly For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia
Saturday 6 September 2025 Hi , The alleged election-related activities of the Exclusive Brethren church are set to come under scrutiny in the federal parliament, with the launch of a new committee inquiry examining
electoral matters. Nine Newspapers have today reported on the concerns that some Liberal Party members had about the church's influence on the party. Earlier in the week, we published a video featuring a number of speeches on the topic by Labor MPs in the parliament (see below). We'll be engaging with the parliamentary inquiry to raise concerns about the reported conduct of some
religious charities at this year's election. 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 RSA highlights discrimination against non-religious people in
mounting case for protections in NSW5 Sep: The Rationalist Society of Australia has highlighted examples of discrimination against non-religious people in New South Wales as part of a submission that expressed support for new protections in the state’s anti-discrimination laws. In a submission to the NSW Law Reform Commission, as part of a review of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW), the RSA said it would support the addition of a new
attribute to protect people against discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief, or lack thereof, in equal manner. Read the full article |
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| RSA Christianity “must not be forgotten” in New South Wales, says
Premier Minns1 Sep: Premier Chris Minns has argued that Christianity “must not be forgotten” in New South Wales as he launched a new coalition of Christian leaders that has pledged to “renew the relevance” of the faith across the state. The Labor leader was among the political leaders and 50 Christian community leaders at the launch of the Christian Alliance Council of NSW. Read the full article |
| ABC Catholic Church attempted to revive outlawed 'Ellis defence' in sexual abuse case 6 Sep: The Catholic Church attempted to reopen a highly controversial
legal loophole that stopped it being sued by victims of sexual abuse for millions of dollars in damages, an ABC investigation can reveal. The 'Ellis defence' was a legal loophole that held the church could not be sued because it did not exist as a legal entity. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Liberal campaigners feared Brethren-fuelled Dutton victory 6 Sep: The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church pumped so much cash and on-the-ground
support into the Liberal Party’s 2025 election campaign that some party officials feared the religious sect would hold significant sway over an incoming Dutton government. “So many of our candidates would have been beholden to the Brethren – and I think they would have made policy demands,” said a party campaigner. Read the full article |
| ABC Police bill urgently passes NT parliament, as anti-discrimination reform pulled from agenda 5 Sep: The government had planned to debate its promised
reform of the Anti-Discrimination Act this week but pulled the bill from the agenda after backlash from church groups. The Australian Association of Christian Schools wrote to NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby asking her to "urgently amend" the bill. Read the full article |
| ABC Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell has lost his bid for bail over Camp Sovereignty charges 5 Sep: Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell has been denied bail over
charges linked to an attack on a First Nations camp in Melbourne over the weekend. Sewell faced court on Wednesday and was remanded in custody after police argued he was too dangerous to be allowed to walk the streets. Read the full
article |
| THE AGE Call to treat neo-Nazis as terrorists 4 Sep: Australia’s peak Jewish representative body has called for laws to proscribe neo-Nazis as an extremist
organisation, while the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service has called for the National Socialist Network to be treated as domestic terrorists. Read the full article |
| CANBERRA TIMES (VIA CATH NEWS) ‘Hostile’ takeover of hospital completed with $65m payment 3 Sep: Calvary will receive another $65 million from the ACT to
settle the takeover of its public hospital in Bruce, Canberra, which was fully absorbed into the territory’s public health system ahead of a new $1 billion hospital project. Read the full article |
| ABC Labor proposes blanket refusal of freedom of information requests in overhaul of transparency laws 3 Sep: The Albanese government will ask the
parliament to dramatically expand its power to hide government documents in a bid to wind back decades-old transparency standards. A Labor bill to water down free information laws would allow public servants to issue blanket refusals to act on requests for information. Read the full article |
| THE AUSTRALIAN (VIA CATH NEWS) Leaders warn against NT religious freedom reforms 2 Sep: Faith leaders and the federal Coalition warn the Northern Territory
Government’s push to protect religious freedoms would only restrict the right of schools to employ teachers who embody their values. Read the full article |
| ROY MORGAN Australians evenly split on teaching religion in government schools 2 Sep: New research published by Roy Morgan shows a “profound shift” in the
Australian public’s attitudes concerning weekly religious instruction in government schools, with opposition rising to 50% this year from 28% in the late 1990s. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Outlaw religious discrimination: Islamophobia envoy’s call 1 Sep: The imminent release of a landmark report by the nation’s first special envoy to
combat Islamophobia is set to reopen a long-running and contentious debate about how to protect against religious discrimination. One of the key recommendations by scholar Aftab Malik, sources said, is that legal recourse is needed to protect Muslims, as well as Australians of all faiths, against discrimination based on their religion. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Farage attacked for ‘ugly’ rhetoric of plan for mass deportation of asylum seekers 27 Aug: Nigel Farage has been accused of “ugly” and
“destructive” rhetoric after announcing plans to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and pledging to pay despotic regimes such as the Taliban to take them back. Unveiling Reform UK’s 'Operation Restoring Justice', Farage said he would rip up the UK’s postwar human rights commitments. Read the full article |
In the federal parliament in recent days, a number of Labor MPs have raised allegations about the behaviour of the Exclusive Brethren church at polling stations during the federal election earlier this year. What do you think? Email your comments to: editor@rationalist.com.au |
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| RATIONALE AI slop: An unwelcome form of online
content Adam Nemeroff: You’ve probably encountered images in your social media feeds that look like a cross between photographs and computer-generated graphics. Some are fantastical... These are examples of artificial intelligence slop, low- to mid-quality content – video, images, audio, text or a mix – created with AI tools, often with little regard for accuracy. Read the full article |
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| RATIONALE Non-religious Australians are now asking for a
fair go Si Gladman: For much of the past decade, conservative religious groups have dominated the public discussion with demands for ‘religious freedom’ and religious rights. Yet, such debates have ignored our nation’s international commitments to the equal treatment of religion and belief. Many non-religious Australians feel that, for too long, our voices have been ignored by parliaments and governments. We are
now seeking a fair go and an end to this discrimination. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Dentist. Surveyor. Driver. Nazi. Unmasked extremists in everyday jobs Nick McKenzie and Michael Bachelard: Ballarat dentist Ian Lomax is
not only into teeth. It turns out he’s also an enthusiastic white nationalist who allegedly stormed the Indigenous Camp Sovereignty with fellow members of the National Socialist Network, Australia’s largest neo-Nazi group. Read the full article |
| THE CONVERSATION Neo-Nazis and racist rallies: why it’s important the Australian media call them for what they are Denis Muller: There were
omissions and misjudgments in the media’s coverage of last weekend’s so-called anti-immigration rallies, leaving an unintentionally sanitised account of what occurred. The main misjudgment was to persist in using the organisers’ description of the rallies as “March for Australia” and “anti-immigration” after it had become obvious the emotional dynamo behind them was racism. Read the full article |
| CRIKEY Labor’s Trumpian lies about robodebt are at the heart of its assault on freedom of information Bernard Keane: Appropriately for a
colossal attack on transparency, Labor’s freedom of information (FOI) bill is accompanied by an extraordinary Trumpian lie about robodebt. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland offered her justification for a key change which would dramatically alter the cabinet document exemption in our current FOI laws: that the change was based on what we’d learnt from the robodebt outrage. Read the full article |
| THE AGE The spiralling descent of an alleged police killer Melissa Cunningham: The last time Freeman saw his extended family was Christmas 2018,
and he spent the day erratically regurgitating his fanatical views to weary relatives on everything from religion and doomsday theories to the impending apocalypse. Read the full article |
| THE FUTURE OF EVERYTHING Why does Chris Minns want to undermine a hard-won tenet of Australian democracy? Tim Dunlop: When the Premier of our
second-biggest State decides to have a special function inside the parliament and gives his support to the formation of an organisation dedicated to one religion at the expense of all others, he is damaging our chances of maintaining the much-lauded notion of “social cohesion”. Read the full article |
| ABC US Secretary of Defense part of Christian nationalist faith that just moved closer to power Emily Clark: Religious scholars have had their
own questions about Mr Hegseth's faith and the spiritual advice that guides him. That's because the secretary of defense is part of a congregation of churches co-founded by a man who openly calls for the US to become a Christian nation run by a Christian government. Read the full article |
| THE CONVERSATION 3 states push to put the Ten Commandments back in school Charles J. Russo and Lydia Artz: The ongoing cases seem aimed at
overturning a 45-year-old US Supreme Court precedent prohibiting the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. As religion and education law researchers, we believe this situation is especially noteworthy because of its timing. Read the full article |
| THE CONVERSATION An Arkansas group’s effort to build a white ethnostate forms part of a wider US movement Paul J. Becker: As a scholar of
right-wing extremism, I have examined several groups calling for a white homeland in America. The creation of a white ethnostate is often seen as an ultimate goal of such white nationalism, which argues that white people form part of a genetically and culturally superior race deserving of protection and preservation. Read the full article |
| THE FREETHINKER Religious privilege and assisted dying: an unhealthy relationship Keith Porteous Wood: Bishops have repeatedly voted over the
last 50 years or so in the Lords to resist liberalisation on ethical issues for which there is strong public support, such as same sex marriage and assisted dying. Historically, they have sought to foster the notion that their opinions, by dint of coming from Church doctrine, contain some enhanced moral authority. Read the full article |
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