RSA Weekly For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia
Saturday 13 September 2025 Hi , It's early days but there are signs that right-wing figures in Australia will seek to fan the flames of political division following the assassination of Christian conservative
Charlie Kirk. In an article today (see the 'Opinion / Analysis' section), Victorian Senator Ralph Babet writes that 'Leftism' is a "mental illness" and claims we need a society "centred on Christ" and "biblical principles". Also, we received a letter on behalf of the Prime Minister in recent days (see below). While Anthony Albanese says he supports separation of church and state, it seems
his Labor Party is happy continuing to impose acts of Christian worship on everyone in the houses of parliament each day. 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 Albanese government not budging on Christian prayers in
parliament11 Sep: The Albanese government has rejected a request for it to remove daily acts of Christian worship from the houses of the national parliament. In a letter to the Rationalist Society of Australia this week, Patrick Gorman MP, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, said that the government acknowledged parliament needed to “represent a diverse Australian community” but that it did “not propose to seek a change to
existing arrangements”. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Former health minister Greg Hunt an adviser to Exclusive Brethren-linked firm 13 Sep: Former health minister Greg Hunt joined an Exclusive
Brethren-linked health equipment company as a board adviser months after retiring at the 2022 federal election, a position he still holds as the closeness of the Liberal Party’s relationship with the church is under fresh scrutiny. Read the full article |
| ABC Islamophobia envoy calls for religious discrimination laws, review of approach to counter-terrorism 12 Sep: The push to outlaw religious discrimination
should be revived and counter-terrorism laws should be reviewed, according to a landmark report by Australia's first ever Islamophobia envoy. Aftab Mailk, who was appointed to the newly-created role last year, delivered his 54 recommendations on Friday. Read the full article |
| HERALD SUN (VIA CATH NEWS) Victoria’s euthanasia program struggling to keep up with demand 12 Sep: Victoria’s voluntary euthanasia program is struggling to
keep up with surging demand from dying Victorians as the program’s review board seeks changes to rules blocking access. More than 830 people signed up to the assisted dying scheme last financial year, but forecasts show that figure is expected to balloon to 1300 by 2028. Read the full article |
| MSNBC Trump and Vance gush over extremist at Christian nationalist conference 12 Sep: President Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, issued
videotaped remarks to attendees at a conference hosted by an avowed Christian nationalist this week. Trump declared his support for far-right political operative David Lane via a prerecorded, 90-second address to Lane’s Nehemiah Project Pastors Summit in North Carolina this week. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Victorian Liberals director resigns after messages mocking the party’s women’s council revealed 11 Sep: The director of the Victorian
Liberals, Stuart Smith, has resigned after leaked messages were published in which he ridiculed the party’s women’s council and upper house MP Bev McArthur. In the messages, Smith said the Liberal Women’s Council – the peak body representing women in the Victorian branch – were only able to reach resolutions at a meeting “after two men told them they had to”. Read the full article |
| THE AGE Neo-Nazis infiltrate NSW Parliament event to promote ‘racism 11 Sep: A known neo-Nazi facing criminal charges managed to infiltrate an event in NSW
Parliament where he was given a platform to ask questions about the benefits of “supremacy” and “racism”. Joel Davis, a member of the white supremacist group National Socialist Network, attended an event called “decoding decolonisation” from free speech group Western Heritage Australia. Read the full article |
| ABC Hopes Australia's first treaty with Aboriginal people will help close the gap 10 Sep: The country's first treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples provides a historic opportunity to help close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, First Nations leaders say. Legislation passed in Victoria's parliament on Tuesday establishes the treaty and sets up the First Peoples' Assembly as a permanent authority. Read the full article |
| ABC Former Anglican dean Graeme Lawrence charged with historical child sex offences 9 Sep: The former Anglican dean of Newcastle, Graeme Russell Lawrence,
has been granted conditional bail after he was charged with historical child sex offences. The 82-year-old faced an online bail hearing on Tuesday, with the court told he was on parole after serving a custodial sentence for similar matters. Read the
full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Premier condemns religious intolerance as Muslims in Queensland face heightened ‘fear and anxiety’ 9 Sep: The Queensland premier, David
Crisafulli, has condemned separate alleged threats against a Muslim school and a mosque in recent days as the community says it’s facing heightened “fear and anxiety”. The Muslim community says people are living in fear after an alleged bomb threat at a school and a threatening email was sent to a mosque last week. Read the full article |
| PEW RESEARCH CENTRE Many Religious ‘Nones’ Around the World Hold Spiritual Beliefs 4 Sep: Around the world, many people who do not identify with any
religion nevertheless hold a variety of spiritual and religious beliefs, including the belief that there is life after death, according to a study of religiously unaffiliated adults in 22 countries. Religiously unaffiliated adults in Europe and Australia are much less inclined to believe in God. Just 18% of “nones” in Australia are believers. Read the full article |
| PEW RESEARCH CENTRE The number of Christian-majority countries fell between 2010 and 2020 29 Jul: Between 2010 and 2020, Christians lost their majority status in
the United Kingdom (where they made up 49% of the population as of 2020), Australia (47%), France (46%) and Uruguay (44%). In three of these countries, no religious group held a majority in 2020. But the religiously unaffiliated category continued to be the second-largest in all three places, approaching Christians in size. Read the full article |
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| RATIONALE We risk a deluge of AI-written ‘science’ pushing
corporate interests David Comerford: We’ve seen numerous other examples in recent years, such as soft drinks companies and meat producers funding studies that are less likely than independent research to show links between their products and health risks. A major current worry is that AI tools reduce the costs of producing such evidence to virtually zero. Read the full article |
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| RATIONALE The price paid for usury David James: What does it mean when the entire Western world, and Japan, are mired in system-wide usury? Over 95 per cent of the money in these systems is credit: debt with an interest rate on it. The problem with this is simple arithmetic. Interest payments compound, increasing geometrically. Economic activity increases only linearly. Over time ... debt-based financial systems break – something that has been happening for thousands of
years. Read the full article |
| THE SPECTATOR The Left cannot handle the truth Senator Ralph Babet: Charlie stood for truth. The Left stands for lies and deception. Leftism
is not a legitimate political ideology, it is a mental illness founded on falsehoods. Our society cannot exist, let alone prosper, while leftist ideas fester inside it. I am convinced we can no longer live peacefully while the ideology of the far Left persists. A society not centred on Christ and biblical principles is like a ship without a rudder. Read the full article |
| PEW RESEARCH CENTRE How religion declines around the world Conrad Hackett: Religious identity is fading in many countries. From 2010 to 2020,
the share of the population that was affiliated with any religion dropped at least 5 percentage points in 35 countries, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. Read the full article |
| THE AGE How Charlie Kirk’s death exposed America’s extreme divide Michael Koziol: He was unapologetically right-wing, played the game hard and
thrived on outrage. He didn’t just mix religion and politics; he cast last year’s presidential election as a “spiritual battle”, with God on Trump’s side and Democrats standing against God’s will. Read the full
article |
| SMH Charlie Kirk’s influence on Joel Jammal and Australian conservative Christian politics Alexandra Smith: Joel Jammal’s first foray into
political battle was during his university days, when the self-described Christian conservative rallied against a policy to withhold his final results until he completed mandatory sexual consent training. The then-21-year-old stared down the University of Technology Sydney and won, graduating with a degree in property economics without touching the training. His next target? A political party. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Charlie Kirk in his own words: ‘prowling Blacks’ and ‘the great replacement strategy Chris Stein and Dani Anguiano: Charlie Kirk,
the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences. If it was current and controversial in US politics, chances are that Kirk was talking about it. Read the full article |
| SMH Surely, American life just cannot go on like this Michael Koziol: The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is a shocking
tragedy and an awful, scary reflection of the extreme political violence that now afflicts the United States of America. It will reverberate across the country and around the world in ways that we cannot know in the immediate aftermath. But surely, American civic life just cannot go on like this. Read the full article |
| THE CONVERSATION Landmark report makes 54 recommendations to combat Islamophobia. Now government must act Mehmet Ozalp: Australian Muslim
communities have been calling for official recognition of Islamophobia as a serious social problem for many years. Now, for the first time, the long-awaited report from Australia’s first Islamophobia envoy has given the federal government a comprehensive set of 54 recommendations for addressing it. Read the full article |
| THE AGE The senator, the ex-PM and the lobby group: Price’s crusade to remake the Liberals Patrick Begley and Natassia Chrysanthos: The
Warlpiri-Celtic senator – who once shared a meme comparing Black Lives Matter protesters to Nazis – is more divisive than ever. Now on the backbench, she is no longer talking about the defence industry. She is free to wage her larger campaign: to remake the Liberal Party. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Science is under siege from weaponised disinformation – posing a threat to human civilisation Michael Mann and Peter Hotez: As two
scientists who lived through Australia’s black summer bushfires and the Covid-19 crisis in the United States, we have seen firsthand how science in modern societies is under siege from an even more insidious “antiscience virus” of weaponised disinformation that undermines our ability to confront these crises. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Victorian Liberal party shapes up for ‘nastiest, most toxic’ state council in years amid leaks and infighting Benita Kolovos:
Timing is everything in politics. It’s a principle worth recalling when nine-month-old messages are made public just two days before the Victorian Liberals’ annual state council meeting. The messages, taken from a WhatsApp group involving a small handful of party headquarters staff, are undeniably sexist and inappropriate. Read the full article |
| THE GUARDIAN Nuns vs the Vatican: documentary alleges sexual abuse and misconduct in the Catholic church Radheyan Simonpillai: A complicated
stain on Pope Francis’s legacy is further explored in Nuns vs the Vatican, a sensitive and unsettling documentary following women whose sexual abuse allegations were long ignored by the Catholic church, and the broader system that protects and enables predators within. Read the full article |
| ABC RADIO Trump welcomes end to ban on churches endorsing politicians In a reward for his most loyal evangelical supporters, Donald Trump has
established a task force to end a ban on churches endorsing political candidates. This prohibition began in the 1960s. It stripped churches and other religious bodies of their tax-exempt status if they meddled directly in politics. But could Trump's change backfire? Listen to the full episode |
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