Response to the Australia Law Reform Commission report on Religious Educational Institutions
Media Statement
Anglican Diocese of Sydney
The ALRC deserves a fail for the report and recommendations produced.
We are deeply disappointed that the recommendations fail to understand the ethos of faith-based schooling and would, if implemented, significantly impair schools' ability to carry out their charter.
The straw argument regarding the alleged expulsion of gay students is something our schools do not practice and do not desire.
The ALRC has failed to understand that faith-based education is not simply secular education with faith as one among many fields of study, or with a thin veneer of "religion" tacked on the side. Religious belief infuses the entire curriculum. Our schools provide high quality education within a Christian worldview shaped by the Bible, by the Christian message and by the values that flow from this. Parents choose Anglican schools because of their distinct "ethos", and that ethos is inseparable from the religious and moral values that our schools seek to model and instil in their students.
We call on the government not to implement the recommendations of this report and instead to work in a bipartisan way with the opposition to develop its own proposals.
Bishop Michael Stead, Chair, Sydney Diocese Religious Freedom Reference Group
21/3/24
