SPEL NEWS Jan 18, 2012:
Peter Garrett's pledged NSCP minimum qualifications a colossal con job.
The definitive exposé of a national disgrace: Julia Gillard's born-again National School Chaplaincy Program. This 15 minute movie is a tortuous, terrifying journey through garbled, gobbledygook guidelines craftily concocted by Peter Garrett's spinners and weavers of weasel words.
Monday August 22, 2011
Message from Ron Williams
The case was heard in Canberra August 9 to 11, 2011.
All available documents and transcripts can be found here:
http://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases/case-s307/2010
Mr. Ron Williams expected his children to enjoy a public education in a secular state school
His family experience, since 2006, has shown that the federally-funded National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) has intervened, creating a non-secular pro-Christian culture in the state schools his children attended.
Prior to launching the federally-funded NSCP in 2006, Prime Minister John Howard said:
Students need the guidance of chaplains, rather than just counsellors. Yes, I am calling them chaplains because that has a particular connotation in our language, and as you know I'm not ever overwhelmed by political correctness. To call a chaplain a counsellor is to bow to political correctness. Chaplain has a particular connotation, people understand it, they know exactly what I'm talking about ABC News 29 October, 2006 (LINK)Being subject to individual State and Territory education policies, since its introduction, the NSCP applies varying degrees of religiosity across Australian state schools. NSCP federally-funded state school chaplains within Queensland conduct Christian prayers on all-school assembly and at significant school ceremonies while holding lunchtime prayer/Bible ‘clubs’, activities and study sessions. Chaplains enjoy ‘access all areas’, wandering in and out of classrooms, work as de facto teacher aides and freely engage with students in the playground, on school excursions, school camps and sport. Chaplains co-ordinate, oversee and conduct Religious Instruction classes and on-campus church-designed and run programs including Hillsong 'Shine' for girls, and 'Strength' for boys which ‘connect’ children with evangelistic off-campus clubs, programs and intensive ‘Jesus’ boot camps. Correspondence from hundreds of concerned parents in every Australian State and Territory reveals that occurrences of the federally-funded National School Chaplaincy Programme being blatantly utilised as a Christian evangelic ministry are the norm within the nation's state schools.
During his keynote address at the Australian Christian Lobby annual conference in November 2009, then Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered high praise to the NSCP and school chaplaincy in general while claiming responsibility for the introduction of Scripture Union provided state school chaplaincy in Queensland during the early 1990s when working within the Goss government. During his speech, Kevin Rudd pledged an ‘investment’ of $42m to extend the NSCP to 2011.
After years of correspondence and meetings with then federal Education Minister Julia Gillard, state education and DEEWR executives as well as personal meetings with two Education Ministers and their Directors General, in 2009, a frustrated Mr. Williams sought advice regarding a possible High Court challenge to the constitutional legality of the Commonwealth providing treasury funds to the National School Chaplaincy Programme. In February 2010, Horowitz & Bilinsky accepted the case. Consequently, Horowitz & Bilinsky appointed Bret Walker SC, Gerald Ng Barrister to the case. The case is now proceeding.
Ironically, in August 2010, the newly appointed Labor Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard, while endorsing and awarding high praise to the NSCP, pledged a further $222m toward extending the programme to at least 1000 more Australian schools. This sum was to represent almost one third of Labor's 2010 pre-election four-year schools policy education pitch of $704m. At the time, when questioned regarding the Christian faith-based nature of the National School Chaplaincy Programme being maintained, Julia Gillard was adamant that the NSCP would continue as a 'chaplaincy' programme "with everything that that implies", thus echoing John Howard's sentiments of 2006.
This matter concerns more people than the Williams family from Queensland. It concerns all Australians, of all faiths and none, who support the secular ‘wall of separation’ concept concerning church and state. This ‘wall of separation’ is required to safeguard our multicultural, multi-faith and non-faith liberal democracy that has become the hallmark of the civilised 21st century nation Australia rightfully claims to be. Mr. Williams recently said that since the announcement of his High Court challenge, moral and monetary support from appalled parents and concerned citizens Australia-wide has been as overwhelming as it has been heart-warming.
Please secure a stake in your nation's secular future by donating as much as you feel comfortably able to.
Thank you.