Having been vigorous in the 1940s to the 1960s, Australian Humanism, that is secular Humanism, has become vulnerable, yet the potential for the development of a powerful and dynamic Humanist movement in Australia is very great. The breakdown of answers to the ‘Religion’ question in the five-yearly Census clearly shows an increase in the number of respondents who ticked the ‘No Religion’ box: from 15 percent in 2001 to 18.4 percent in 2006; comprising the third largest group behind the Catholics and the Anglicans.

Settled by the British in the late 1700s under a monarch who was also the head of the Church of England, ambivalence towards the Crown and resistance to established religion have been acknowledged features of the ‘Australian psyche’. The result was the growth of a civil society that resisted the imposition of any form of religion by the state whilst continuing to adhere to a wide range of personal religious practices and traditional holidays, rituals and symbols, mainly from Christian Europe.

Despite this strongly felt unease in relation to established religion and the monarchy, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (1900), proclaimed in 1901, ensured that Australia remained loyal to God and the Crown. In the Preamble to the Constitution, we read “With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted by ….”, and further on in the body of the Act “Whereas the people of [Australia] humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established: …”.

From this it can be seen that Australia cannot be categorised constitutionally as a secular nation even though Australians are among the least religious in the world; Australia is religious in all key areas of governance. Religion permeates all major institutions of state, penetrating every corner of civil society through law, policy and practice.

Even though Australian clergy are preaching to almost empty churches and the children of religious immigrants are leaving the faith of their parents in droves, the political influence of organised religion has been growing, largely because of the protection and privileges it receives from all levels of government.

In Australia the ‘advancement of religion’ is deemed a charitable activity and benefits from privileged treatment beyond that given to any other form of community activity.

For legal purposes religion is defined as involving ‘belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle’, so supernaturalism is the essential element in obtaining access to these privileges, including exemption from nearly all taxation.

Humanist Societies, on the other hand, are not accorded charitable status because Humanism does not have a supernatural dimension. This discrimination is in stark contrast to the approach of the New Zealand Charities Act 2005 which makes: the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, or any other matters that are beneficial to the community charitable activities. For this reason the Humanist Society of New Zealand is considered as a charity by their Charities Commission.

In Australia, religious schools are not only accorded charitable status but are heavily subsidised by governments at Federal, State and Territory levels, as are hospitals, homes for the aged, employment agencies, child care centres and other community services run by religious organisations. Thus all religions are raised by law to a position of advantage and political favour that leaves the contrasting position of Humanism out in the cold. The consequent practical and material disadvantages to Humanist organisations are obvious. Although the evidence of social injustice towards the secular sector is clear, the source of the problem lies with the hidden infrastructure of our politics - as Max Wallace has brilliantly shown in his book ‘The Purple Economy’. [1]

Australians have been telling themselves for generations that one of our characteristics is that everyone is given a ‘fair go’ in this country. The mythical nature of this idea is clear, and the confidence of our members in Australian egalitarianism has reached a low ebb.

The weakness in our position was highlighted in 2005 when the Humanist Society of Queensland applied to the State Department of Education for approval to provide an educational ‘Study of Humanism’ program to the children of our members during the time set aside for religious instruction, which we oppose as indoctrination. The Queensland Education Act permits ministers of religion, or their representatives, access to public schools once a week to provide religious instruction to children whose parents have indicated their religion on pupils’ enrolment forms. The Act, however, specifically refers to religion, so Humanism, having no supernaturalist component, did not qualify and was not approved.

Currently the Humanist Society of Victoria is seeking approval to provide a Humanist Ethics program in their own government schools. We wish them success and should they succeed, we will certainly try again in Queensland. Success in our eyes, however, would require that a Humanist program – whilst publicly acknowledged as nonreligious – be allowed into schools under the same terms and conditions as religious programs.

A further example emerged during 2008 when the secular students at the University of Queensland – a government-funded State institution - requested the addition of a Humanist chaplain to join the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist chaplains already present at the Chaplaincy Centre on campus. The university rejected the request point blank and refused repeated requests to discuss the matter.

A hallmark of democracy is equality before the law and this is clearly not available for Australia’s non-religious. The key condition must be equal treatment for all, irrespective of a person’s system of belief. Its absence in Australia is in no small part due to the lack of separation of religion and state. What we have is the legacy of a colonial history deeply affected by powerful religious influences, which have been maintained and given current expression in our national institutions, symbols and texts.

Australian democracy today is too weak to deliver the rights, freedoms and liberties needed in a society as culturally pluralist and religiously diverse as ours. In general, governments across the country serve mainstream interests very well, but when public structures fail to protect the interests of minorities and the marginalised, then democracy itself has failed. What Australia lacks is a constitutional separation of church and state. Although we do not have an established religion our constitution only provides equality between religions in that they all benefit from the privileges Australian laws convey.

As Max Wallace put it in a recent Submission to government, “As a Constitutional Monarchy lacking separation, Australia could fairly be described as a soft theocracy with democratic traditions.” [2]

Examining the particular position of the nonreligious in society, Matt Cherry pointed out that the “vast majority of Humanists – people with a positive value system that makes no appeal to a supernatural realm – do not belong to Humanist groups and, indeed, would probably not describe themselves as Humanists.” [3] This is as true in Australia as elsewhere and the task for the Humanist movement must be to reach out to all non-religious to join forces in an effort to pursue our common interests – just as the religious do in pursuing theirs. The unique problem we face is that the pathways and forums open to those who ‘advance’ religion are closed to us.

In looking at examples of antipathy towards - and discrimination against - Humanists, Matt Cherry noted that there is an “exclusion of the nonreligious even among many well-meaning people” and also a “deliberate exclusion of the nonreligious that I think is connected to the widespread distrust and, even, hatred of atheists.” [4]

In order to effectively counter the cultural negativity that exists towards secular people in Australia, we need to focus our efforts on claiming our right to equal treatment with religion in areas covered by the law and in general civic life. The time has come to vigorously assert the rights of all Australians to freedom of religion or belief as laid down in the UN instruments, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Declaration on Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief. We must demand equal treatment by government and equal opportunities as citizens, refusing to be denied our human rights.

Humanists should work tirelessly to achieve separation of religion and state in all aspects of governance. We should argue that secularisation is not only a rational project; it is a moral one, because it builds the essential ethical framework for fair and just social engagement in a pluralist society.

Since Australia is one of the most culturally, racially, linguistically and philosophically diverse societies in the world, it can be argued that it is in every Australian’s interest to break free from the limitations of our colonial past in order to create a Secular Republic with a Constitution incorporating a Charter or Bill of Rights. This, I believe, should be the joint aim of all Humanists, Rationalists, Freethinkers, Atheists, Secularists, Agnostics, Sceptics, etc., living in Australia.

REFERENCES:

[1] Wallace, Max, The Purple Economy: Supernatural Charities, Tax and the State, Australian National Secular Association, 2007.

[2] Wallace, Max, Australia 2020 Summit Submission, Topic 9: The future of Australian governance. On behalf of the Australian National Secular Association, 2008.

[3] Cherry, Matt, Religious Tolerance and Non-discrimination, International Humanist News, December 2006, P.23.

[4] Cherry, Matt, Ibid, P. 23/24.

Zelda Bailey is President, Humanist Society of Queensland.