ARCHIVE

NOV_10_2009
Open Letter to Joe Hockey

 

Porkies in Parliament..

 

On or about December 10, 2009 the email below was circulated
to all Australian school principals with an NSCP funded chaplain

Dear Principal,

I’m sure like us, you were pleased to hear that on 21 November 2009 the Prime Minister, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, announced that an additional amount of $42.8 million will be spent to extend the National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP). The extension will ensure that all schools currently funded under the program will be able to continue to provide valuable support in the provision of student wellbeing services until December 2011.

Unfortunately, the funding has only been made available to those schools who are currently participating in the program and as a result we are unable to accept any new applications at this time. There are no plans to change the operational aspects of the program and schools can expect to receive this funding from 1 July 2010 after reporting against the current year of funding.

2010 will be a very busy and exciting year for the Department who will be conducting a broad consultation process to ensure that the program is well targeted going forward. These consultations will consider options for possible future pastoral care initiatives following the end of the program in December 2011. This process will involve a range of stakeholders including state education departments, major service providers, representatives of independent and faith based school systems, peak representative bodies for parent and community organisations, principals and other relevant interest groups.

Our website will be regularly updated with current news on the NSCP http://www.deewr.gov.au/schoolchaplaincy/.

Please note that the Department will be closed from midday 24 December and re-open on 4 January 2010.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for making the program a success and we look forward to working with you in the New Year.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a happy and safe new year.

Yours Sincerely,

Andrew Petherbridge and the NSCP team.

Director
National School Chaplaincy Program
Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
(08) 8306 8758

 

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Current Press Release December 3, 2009
SENATE MISLED.. TAXPAYERS CONNED.. 'WOW' SAYS MEL ON SUNRISE

It would appear that the Emperor’s
major wardrobe malfunction is beginning to be noticed!

Illustration: © 2009 John Tiedemann

Maralyn Parker Daily Telegraph 2009-11-26

John Kaye, Greens MP 2009-11-26

LoonPond 2009-11-26

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MEDIA RELEASE
December 1, 2009

Rudd praises ‘quiet work’ of evangelicals:
evangelicals undermine Liberal Party and ‘national interest’

Kevin Rudd praised the ‘quiet work’ of evangelical Christian organisations at the recent Australian Christian Lobby conference, Saturday 21 November, just before announcing top-up funding of $48 million of tax-payer funds.

There is still no evidence from the controlling body, Julia Gillard’s department DEEWR, concerning the success or failure of the NSCP scheme.

Kevin Rudd was donating our ATO monies on what appears to have been a personal whim, and in reaction to some vigorous lobbying of Opposition members by the ‘quietly working’ evangelicals, many of them connected to organisations involved in employing school chaplains.

Numerous evangelical Christian groups had been running a ‘quiet work’ programme of getting their supporters to email Opposition Senators and MLAs to complain that Rudd was going to ‘stop the funding’ to the NSCP school chaplaincy scheme.

Not ever mentioned in emails to supporters, or within the broader media coverage of the scheme, was that Julie Bishop, Tony Abbott, Nick Minchin and the entire Coalition, had only ever funded the NSCP scheme for a very limited period, to mid-2010.

Far from Rudd threatening to ‘end the funding’, the Coalition had never intended it to run beyond one election cycle.

The ASL is aware that the same evangelical Christian bodies who undertook the ‘quiet work’ of lobbying for more tax funds to extend the unproven NSCP scheme, have more recently been undertaking yet more ‘quiet work’ to undermine the Liberal Party and Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership.

Today, the ‘quiet work’ Kevin Rudd so admires has paid off, with Turnbull gone, and the ETS scheme under threat in the Senate from the Minchin-Abbott-Bishop evangelical-backed climate deniers.

So the question must be asked of Mr Rudd, Ms. Julia Gillard and Senator Wong, “Are you still happy to see the ‘quiet work’ of evangelical Christian organisations working to de-stabilise both the internal machinery of political parties, and the ‘national interest’ that you insist the ETS represents?”

The question to Mr Abbott must be, “To what extent are you indebted to evangelical Christian politico-activists, and what is to be their reward for generating the tsunami of emails that helped to de-stabilise the Liberal Party, allowing you to challenge, win the leadership and sink the ETS?”

The question for ordinary tax-paying Australians must be, “Do we elect politicians to make decisions in the openness of parliament and in the full glare of the media, or are we happy to have secretive evangelical groups undertaking ‘quiet work’ to determine what is, or is not, in Australia’s ‘national interest’?”

See Australian Christian Lobby climate denying articles:

http://www.viewpointmagazine.com.au/download/viewpoint_issue1.pdf

For further comment: Contact Hugh 0420 676 578

 

 

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MEDIA RELEASE

For release: November 23, 2009 (download PDF)

Rudd encourages school chaplains to keep
undermining secular public schooling: sends his child to private school

The Australian Secular Lobby welcomes Prime Minister Rudd's caution in not simply handing over Commonwealth Government policy making, and agreeing to the ambit log-of-claims for yet another of $300 million of scarce ATO tax-monies to be gifted to the Coalition's friends from various rightwing evangelical Christian bodies, such as the Australian Christian Lobby, Catch The Fire Ministry, and Scripture Union, to provide evangelical missionaries to ‘unchurched’ students in public schools.

However, that Mr. Rudd freely chooses to emulate John Howard and Julie Bishop's simplistic assault on Australia's secular public school system by insisting that school chaplains are the answer to so many complex educational and social issues that his Education Minister, Julia Gillard, is failing to address, is a continuing blight on the idea of secular public schools.

Since October this year, the Coalition and extremist evangelical bodies have been lobbying to squeeze $300 million from Mr. Rudd, to extend the Howard NSCP school chaplaincy plan. It seems that no one either in the ALP, or the broad media, has thought to ask the Coalition why Howard and Bishop only thought to fund the exercise until mid 2010, a political decision if ever one was.

While Mr. Rudd thinks school chaplains are needed in public schools, Julia Gillard's department has failed to seek, or provide, any evidence to show the scheme is needed.

Ms. Gillard has been advised of many breaches of her DEEWR NSCP guidelines but prefers to turn a blind eye and not respond to any concerns.

A report commissioned by the self-interested employers of state school chaplains has been conducted under the respectable banner of Edith Cowan University, but it is clear from the commentary conducted since October that only one favourable line in this 'research' has ever been read by any politician, the one that refers to 97% of school principals supporting school chaplains.

The Vice Chancellor of Edith Cowan University has been asked to endorse this 'research' as being of the highest quality that ECU could produce. To date, Professor Cox has declined to support this self-interested 'research' and appears to have distanced ECU from it.

Professor Cox is faced with a real dilemma. If he endorses the 'research', academics around the world might reasonably question the ECU Research Committee standards. If he fails to endorse it, the lone argument relied upon by Mr. Rudd, Ms. Gillard, Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Christopher Pyne, along with the Australian Christian Lobby and Scripture Union, crumbles to dust.

So long as no one in the media or politics reads the 'research' and continues to rely on the October 13 ABC news report from Mark Colvin's PM program that has been repeated daily as 'proof', the Emperor will continue to be fully clothed.
Mr. Rudd chooses to send his own child to an exclusive private Canberra school, so would not have any first-hand experience of school chaplains at work, or the work state school principals and Julia Gillard allow them to do, frequently in breach of her own guidelines, and also ethical standards, at times.

Mr. Rudd's blanket support for the ATO funded evangelical Christian assault on secular public schooling sees school chaplains evangelise and proselytise, as their employers require them to do, in secular public schools, and in breach of DEEWR and state government policies.

In Queensland, chaplains can:

Scripture Union has recently moved into its own building in Brisbane after years of renting, and now has a massive staff to pay for. Scripture Union Queensland openly and often not only describes NSCP funded State school chaplaincy as a ‘ministry’—it runs it as such.

Mr. Rudd has openly expressed his concern about aspects of Scientology: as the High Court judges pointed out in the Scientology case, the price of religious freedom brings many charlatans with it.

Mr. Rudd needs to re-examine the initial basis for school chaplains and the NSCP scheme, address the many breaches of NSCP policy, and answer to those parents and students who are not interested in having public schools regarded as 'missionfields' in which Scripture Union is given open access to recruit for their various evangelical church supporters.

The last word as to why Queensland State school children need to hear the word of Jesus via NSCP funded Scripture Union Queensland chaplains is best left to left to Scripture Union Queensland  Southern & Western Qld Regional Director Jenny Clark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QnQlecTmJs

 

Regards,

Hugh Wilson & Ron Williams

Australian Secular Lobby (ASL)

For further comment:  0420 676578