Jennifer and Jacques talk about the Religous Discrimination Bill being presented to Federal Parliament. This Bill would expand the powers of religious insititutions to discriminate - not just on the basis of faith affiliation, but on aspects of identity and lifestyle deemed by the institution to be incompatible with their particular brand of faith. 

Jacques and Jennifer look at the particular instance of schools and their power to hire and fire on the basis of things like gender, and sexuality. They place this in the context of the inequitable funding arrangments for education in Australia, wherein private religious schools take the lions share of funding from the public purse, to the detriment of public schools. This makes the push by these private schools to be able to discriminate even more outrageous, pointing to a certain sense of elite entitlement.

Refs:

Stop all government funding for private schools. (Why and how we could do it), by David Zyngier

https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=5056

OECD lays bare Australia’s public education investment inequity, by Australian Education Union

http://www.aeufederal.org.au/news-media/media-releases/2020/september/090920

The instrumentation of public subsidies for private schools: Different regulatory models with concurrent equity implications

Adrián Zancajo, Antoni Verger, Clara Fontdevila (June 17, 2021)

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14749041211023339  

NO AUKUS,  NO Nuclear Submarines, NO War  - National Days of Actions around the country

9 - 11 December 

Melbourne Rally Saturday 11 December 1.00pm on the steps of State Library

Speakers at Saturday 11th December rally include, Jenny Ground (Medical Association for Prevention of War), Scott Ludlum (former Greens Senator), Colin Long (Just Transition Organiser, representing Victorian Trades Hall Council), and other peace and community organisations' representatives.