I find it hard to imagine a Jewish school hiring a radical jihadi as a teacher, or indeed, an Islamic school hiring a militant atheist or transgender activist. Or a Catholic school hiring an outspoken pro-abortionist. Faith-based schools are, well, faith-based. Like it or not, their religious faith is at the core of their identity.
Although, for instance, Islam doesn’t forbid non-Muslims teaching Muslim students — however, “permissibility in this regard is confined to the case in which learning at the hands of a non-Muslim teacher would not be a source of misguidance for the student, leading him astray.” In other words, non-Muslim teachers are forbidden from telling their students anything contrary to the teachings of Islam.
Fair enough: I’ve no doubt Muslim parents send their kids to Islamic schools fully expecting just that. If they didn’t, they’d send them elsewhere. The same would go for Catholic and Jewish parents, no doubt.
The Albanese government appears to think otherwise.
Anthony Albanese faces a potential political bushfire involving millions of school students and their parents, courtesy of an aggressively progressive Law Reform Commission proposal.
The proposition is aimed at restricting the right of faith-based schools to employ teachers sympathetic to their beliefs and ethos.
Despite the relentless campaign by elements of the left to erase religion from public life, faith remains a very important matter to a great many Australians. More than two in three Australians still identify with a religious faith in the census. One suspects that these people will only remain silent for so long.
Scott Morrison suffered at the last election because he failed on religious anti-discrimination laws and the current Prime Minister faces a similar damaging dispute.
After the election, Labor publicly identified the need to reassure religious groups they were not automatically opposed to faith-based schools and Albanese gave credit to the Catholic Church for his education.
As former Labor minister Peter Garrett infamously put it, though, “Once we get in, we’ll change it all”.
The Law Reform Commission has proposed that faith-based schools be allowed to preference teachers who would support the school’s ethos only in a role where “religion is a genuine requirement” while in all other subjects teachers would not have to share the school’s beliefs, ethos or even have to support those beliefs.
The religious schools argue this would defeat the creation of an ethos, put a new and uncertain test into employment law, increase litigation and deter schools from hiring a candidate of the same religion in preference to other candidates.
This view is shared by all the religions.
The Australian
When you’ve got the Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims all singing from the same hymn sheet, you know you done screwed up.
Two major Christian schooling associations have pulled out of a consultation process with the Australian Law Reform Commission over new anti-discrimination laws for religious schools, claiming to have “lost faith” in the commission remaining “balanced” in tackling the issue […]
Meanwhile, the Islamic Schools Association of Australia and National Catholic Education Association have committed to providing individual submissions to the ALRC in desperate attempts to have proposed reforms – which would disallow principals from preferencing the employment of teachers with the same beliefs as the educational institution – quashed.
The double irony is that Labor stand to alienate not just religious voters but migrant voters, who increasingly make up the numbers in Australia’s churches, as well as its mosques.
Australian Association of Christian Schools executive director Vanessa Cheng, whose organisation oversees more than 100 schools, told The Australian she was “really concerned” by the ALRC’s review […]
Islamic Schools Association of Australia president Abdullah Khan said he was “happy” with past suggested reforms from the former Coalition government, but the ALRC’s review had “gone too far”.
The Australian
You’ve got to hand it to Labor: their ability to turn whatever they touch into a dumpster fire is almost impressive.