RELIGION AND POLITICS IN AUSTRALIA Lecture 7 (6 August 2007) RELIGIOUS DIMENSION OF EDUCATION AND WELFARE POLITICS 1. Public and Private/Religious Service Provision • In a secular state should service provision be public, private or mixed? • Education, health and social services are all mixed and govt.funded in Australia and churches have always played a major role. 2. Education, Religion and the State • Schools often central to religious communities’ identity. Critics argue separate education fragments societies. Australian government funding principles stress wider context of ‘promoting a socially cohesive society”. • Government has broad responsibility for quality of education. Demands on schools have grown spectacularly. • Opinion on funding of private/church schools in secular society range from no funding on principle to 100% funding on basis of needs/rights. • School curriculum is site for religious politics, including science, social sciences and values teaching and sex education, and hidden curriculum such as co-ed or single sex schools, discipline and uniforms. • Regulation of private schools covers curriculum, public examinations and university entrance as well as teacher registration. • Autonomy of church schools in employment of teachers is a matter of dispute with anti-discrimination authorities about sexuality issues. 3. Welfare Services, Religion and the State (Mendes in RB) • Traditionally not such a core issue for churches or for secularists. • But church agencies have long history of provision through charities/volunteers. 19th c. Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul. Brotherhood of St Laurence (1930). Wesley Mission, Anglicare, Uniting Care and Centacare. So do non-church welfare agencies, like Smith Family. • Churches as advocates as well as providers (including battle with Coalition over GST in 1990s). • Church roles in mainstream NGOs (ACOSS) and profession of social work . • New developments: Job Network (Mendes, 135-136). Private agencies, including faith-based agencies, replaced government provision after privatization of CES. Critics raised issues relating to staffing and clients. Churches raised issues of co-option in government frameworks and principles. 4. History of Education, Religion and Politics (Hogan in RB) • State support for separate denominational schools in first half of 19th c. • Then two systems: secular education and Catholic parochial education systems plus some elite church schools. “Free, compulsory and secular” has never been entirely free nor secular. • No funding for private schools, including church schools. Catholics “believed that the state was trying to deprive them of their rights to educate their children in the faith” (Hogan). The wider community saw
Catholic ‘obstructionism’ undermining a strong system of public education for all. This remains an issue. • Catholic system was failing in 1960s/70s. Menzies (Liberal) introduced state aid, beyond some bursaries for students at state level. DOGS response was political, electoral and legal challenge in 60-80s. • Identification of Labor with public education meant a divisive issue for internal Labor discussion post-Split. Public supported state aid (68/22). • Catholic schools staffed once cheaply mainly by religious teachers. Now tiny number of religious teachers so fees rise. • Whitlam (Labor) attempted to resolve standoff on needs basis, 197275. Many poor Catholic schools rejected this from religious solidarity and commitment to rights not needs. Labor and private schools have had an ambiguous relationship since then and it has flared in 1983 (Hawke) and 2004 (Latham) federal elections. 5. Religion and School Education Today • Distribution of students is about 69% public and 31% private (growing). • Total funding is about 78% government and 22% private. • Commonwealth tops up funding by the states (constitutional responsibility). Government schools are funded about $12.6 billion by states and $1.7 billion by the Commonwealth. Private schools funded $1.2 billion by states and $2.9 billion by Commonwealth. • The private sector includes established elite Christian schools, some elite Catholic schools, Islamic and Jewish schools and new low-fee Christian schools, as well as non-religious private schools (community, Steiner (?), Montessori, alternative). Most Catholic schools are systemic, represented by church agencies and negotiate block funding to control redistribution. • Recent growth of the private sector, including Islamic and new Christian schools, has reflected social and philosophical changes and government encouragement. 45 new private schools in Sydney, 1990-2003. 6. Politics of Education, Welfare and Religion Today • Howard government’s school policies have several elements. Private school funding has been expanded on grounds of parental choice, privatization and markets. Labor’s ERI system based on relative school resources replaced by SES system based on estimated wealth and educational standards of parents (ACT ranks high). Controls eased over establishment of new private schools. Catholic schools exempt from SES system, 2005-08. Guarantee that no private school would suffer from joining SES scheme: “funding maintained”. • 2004 federal election Labor proposed redistribution of funding from elite private schools to poorer private schools. Media and political response targeted Labor’s ‘hit list’, almost all of which were Protestant schools. Catholic and Anglican archbishops of Sydney and Melbourne took government’s side on religious and ‘class’ war. Labor now has new policy. • Church criticism of government welfare policies has included philosophical and operational issues of policies like Work Choices, Indigenous welfare and Job Network. Church agencies committed to participation in government programs as a way of funding necessary services. 2004 election campaigns.