Peter Costello, the human rights industry, and the right of cults to get cash in the paw while hiring whomever they like to teach kids

(Above: hmm, you'd almost suspect the public school at Gol Gol of making a political point if they only knew how to spell Labor).

It was one of the larger disgraces of the Howard Costello years that the Exclusive Brethren could somehow contrive federal funding for their cult schools.

Even the scientology school around the corner - the Athena - has managed to dip its paw in the taxpayer trough - and is quite happy to admit that the teachers have completed six months training in L. Ron Hubbard teaching techniques rather than holding formal qualifications (and back in 2003, this would cost you $1500 the term).

The principal, Clare Holbrook, says that no religion, including Scientology, is taught. But the school does base its teachings on Hubbard's philosophy of education, centred around the theory that children, like adults, need to "learn how to learn".

Values are inculcated through a Scientologist booklet, The Way to Happiness, whose principles would not look out of place alongside the commandments of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions. (Scientology class suits shy Hindu).

Oh well that makes it okay. Scientology is just another variant on Judeo-Christian Islamic religions. Give them more cash in the paw at once.

 

If you're interested in how many different kinds of private schools get taxpayer funding, from conventional mainstream expensive private schools through Seventh Day Adventist schools to the Catholic system, go here. It's amazing how much money is pouring into the private sector, and what odd and eccentric schools are now picking up a slice of the action, and in the chart, it's all laid out for the years 2003-08, along with other handy data.

Of course in recent times, it seems to have occurred to Christians that, using the argument that what's fair to the goose is good for the gander, there's been a flurry of Islamic schools which have been putting out their hand for a slice of that cash in the paw.

Well if you can fund schools based on cults, why not schools based on any religion? Come on down schools of the flying spaghetti monster.

So why am I not surprised to read the insufferable Costello yet again stumping up to defend Christian schools, and typically starting off with this bloated piece of complacency in The legal threat to Christian schools:

What happens when equal rights between men and women are so widely accepted mainstream Australia hardly thinks about it? Surely it is time to acknowledge that anti-discrimination statutes have done their job?

Only a man could write that. But wait there's more:

Not according to the Victorian Government. It harbours the view that discrimination has got sophisticated – so hard to find under current law – that we must widen the law to catch more of it.

Its Attorney-General has his sights set on men-only clubs (apparently it is OK to have female-only clubs and it is OK for men-only rules at gay venues). The Government has also put religion on notice it will come under closer scrutiny.

Well actually Peter, how about we get rid of men only clubs and female only clubs, and men only rules at gay venues, instead of rabbiting on about how crime in the streets is the indiscriminate behavior of real concern:

I am actually more worried about indiscriminate behaviour: things like the indiscriminate bashing of innocent people on city streets. Putting an end to that would be a real advance for their human rights. But it’s also hard, so let’s get back to some easier targets.

Yeah, I guess like letting the hounds loose on unionists is an easier target too. But I keed, I keed, that's all just a warm up for an impassioned plea for religious schools:

At present, discrimination statutes don’t apply to religious bodies and their schools on the grounds of freedom of religion. So a parliamentary committee has recommended options to extend the power of the state over the province of religion. One proposed change is to restrict the freedom of religious schools to choose their employees on the basis of their religious faith.

Yep, so Scientology schools can go on employing scientologists, Catholic schools hiring Catholic teachers (getting harder to find these days), the Exclusive Brethren making sure their believers carry on teaching the cult, Islamics teaching the Islamic faith and so on and on.

The churches want to continue current practice. But a host of community organisations want to change it. The Federation of Community Legal Services told the parliamentary review the current law should change, saying: "To allow religious organisations a broad exemption for conscience encourages prejudice."

Think about the moral vanity of that statement. According to these lawyers, a religious conscience leads to prejudice. How did the church arouse public conscience over slavery? How did Florence become a haven for the arts and letters to flourish? How did civilisation develop over the past couple of millennia without the Community Legal Services to guide it?

Think of the incredible stupidity of that statement. How on earth did the Commonwealth government end up funding schools celebrating the cult of scientology? And does Costello really think that a religious conscience doesn't lead to prejudice? The kind of prejudice that sees abortion law reform in Victoria as the real cause of last summer's horrendous bushfires?

A leading discrimination law expert, Professor Margaret Thornton, wants to narrow the exemption for religious freedom of schools on the grounds that: "If private schools receive money from the state they should be subject to the law of the land." Of course they should be.

The question is whether the law should require them to employ people who are indifferent or hostile to their religion in their schools. At present it doesn’t. Changing that law will affect not only the schools who employ the staff.

Parents who send their children to a Christian school have a reasonable expectation this means the child will get a Christian education. How could the school fulfil its obligation to the parents if it is required by law to employ non-Christian or anti-Christian teachers to provide it? If the law demands this, you might as well close down the concept of a Christian school – which may be what some of the critics intend.

Well no, I don't mind if Christians or Islamics or scientologists get on with their own schooling, however stupid I might think it is. But if they dip their paw into Commonwealth funding, then to hell with their privileges. Let them not discriminate, let them be forced to conform to secular values. 

Of course Costello likes to pretend that nobody cares and nobody much minds what's been going on for the last thirty years, a trend that intensified under the Howard Costello regime. Instead , in a way that is remarkably predictable he takes a baseball bat to the human rights industry:

The provisions applying to religion have been operating for more 30 years with no great community outrage. So why is a parliamentary committee reviewing them now? Because, we are told, they have to be assessed for compliance against the 2006 Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. This charter was introduced with the promise it would amplify rights and freedoms.

There is something so predictable about this. The human rights industry begins with grand promises and ends up intervening in non-problems. We are led to believe that the purpose of such charters is to stop arbitrary arrests, guarantee a free press and guard against dictatorship. In practice, what does it do? It complicates the life of religious schools and open lawsuits against the churches.

Of course if you ask joe public about Islamic schools, you're likely to get the confected outrage that surrounded the building of a new school on the outskirts of Sydney. Because somehow four legs are good and two legs are baad, when they all sound like sheep to me.

But back to Costello bleating about the churches and the lawyer and the human rights industry:

The churches and Christian schools will be in the firing line. As the community legal services make clear – their view is that religious conscience encourages prejudice. Once the churches and religious conscience are out of the way, lawyers will have a clear run. Lawsuits will be used to decide the great moral questions of the age.

You can see what’s in it for the lawyers. But don’t think it is a step forward for liberty.

Oh yes, a step forward for liberty, teaching scientology and creationism and Islamic fundamentalism on the taxpayers' dollar.

Fortunately there is an alternative vision of the world to the myopic, Christian dog whistling Costello, and you'll find it here, oddly enough in the tabloid Daily Terror, by Marilyn Parker in Don't take Public Schools for granted.

In South Australia public education is no longer free, there is a compulsory materials and service fee of up to $259 per year for every public school student. In Queensland public education is no longer secular. Christian prayers are said at school assemblies, there are federally funded Christian chaplains in over 80 per cent of QLD public schools and fundamentalist Christians influence the school curriculum.

Thank you John Howard and Peter Costello. Such a spiffing idea to put a chaplain in every school. Along with a flag.

The first public school opened in Kempsey in 1848 against much opposition from church leaders. And for decades the vast majority of public schools were little one-teacher schools in rural areas because the churches bitterly fought the setting up of public schools in cities and large towns.

Pulpits rang with condemnation of the Godlessness of public schools.

In the 1860s Catholic authorities at the time accused public schools of being `seed plots of future immorality, infidelity, and lawlessness’.

Such vitriolic criticism of public education led to a huge backlash and the catch-cry for free, secular and compulsory education in NSW. This resulted in the Public Instruction Act of 1880 and the withdrawal of state aid to all church schools. Churches were restricted in where they could build new schools.

Well huzzah for the Victorians (no, not those Victorians, the nineteenth century Victorians). These days, as Parker notes, church schools now get up to eighty per cent of their funding from the Commonwealth government.

After much modern lobbying from churches, policies established under the Howard government allowed churches and religious communities to return to being able to build schools wherever they wanted.

Even right next door to a public school. As is happening with huge new Islamic school about to be built on land sold off from Bass Hill high school grounds by the NSW state government last year...

... government policies have seen us return to religious bickering about who has the right to establish schools in NSW towns as happened recently at Camden when Christian churches jointly opposed the establishment of an Islamic school.

The players may be different but the game is the same.

Australian public schools and NSW public schools in particular are the melting pots where being Australian is more important than being Catholic or Islamic or any other faith. Public schools teach those wonderful public school values of acceptance of difference and tolerance of religious and cultural beliefs.

No I do not want a return to no funding for church schools. That would be an impossible political goal.

Sadly, it is an impossible goal. But it's part of the inherent stupidity in Costello's position that as he spruiks for Christians - including cult and fundmentalist Christians - so he's also spruiking for fundamentalist Islamics, scientologists and any other religious loon who can persuade the Federal Government to tickle the till their way. He might think this is all grand and right and sensible, but frankly I hope the Thetans can make him see a bit of sense.

I thought we'd got rid of this sanctimonious, smug politician, but lordy, each week he struts his stuff in the Fairfax rags. Can't Kevin Rudd find him a job, like handing out the lolly to his Christian mates?