The Catholic Weekly 24 May 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 3 24, May, 2020 Looking for a new Job? www.catholicjobsonline.com.au Bill to keep faith free NSWMLCMark Latham launches bid to give religious faith equal rights in discrimination law CATHOLIC LEADERS have welcomed proposed new leg- islation aimed at protecting people of faith against unjust discrimination and allowing churches and faith-based or- ganisations to operate ac- cording to their central tenets. e private member’s bill by Mark Latham MLC is an amendment to NSW anti-dis- crimination laws and would make discrimination on the ground of a person’s religious beliefs or activities unlawful. Currently it is illegal to dis- criminate against a person in NSW on the basis of age, sex, race or disability, but not re-  Marilyn Rodrigues ligious belief. is is despite a recommendation to address that gap in the law by the Rud- dock Religious Freedom Re- view report in 2018. Addressing parliament on 13 May, Mr Latham said that despite Australia being one of the “most tolerant nations on earth” there are concerted attempts to rede ne the Bible as hate speech; he cited the examples of Israel Foleau and Margaret Court. “Religious discrimination is real, it is unacceptable and it needs to be outlawed,” Mr Latham said. Bishop Richard Umbers, member of the Australian Bishops’ Commission for life, family and public engage- ment, said that it is “funda- mentally just and necessary” to freely express and live one’s own religious beliefs. “Holding a religious be- lief should never be used by others as a form of manipu- lation,” he said. “I welcome the intention of this bill and the protections it seeks to ensure.” Professor Michael Quinlan, dean of the Univer- sity of Notre Dame Austral- ia’s School of Law in Sydney, said that the bill “should not be controversial” and should attract bi-partisan support as it contains “sound principals” re ecting the international recognition of this fundamen- tal human right. “Amending the Anti-Dis- crimination Act 1977 (NSW) to include religious beliefs in the characteristics protected from discrimination by that Act is an obvious step which ought to have been taken long ago,” he said. Dr Kevin Donnelly, senior research fellow at ACU, said that as the Commonwealth government has accepted in principle the Ruddock Review’s major recommen- dations it is “critical that the NSW Government legislates as quickly as possible to pro- tect the rights of people of faith and no faith”. “Religious freedom is an in- herent right the must be guar- anteed and protected.” Dr Donnelly said “as has ... religious belief should never be used by others as a formof manipulation. I wel- come the uintention of this bill.” Mark Latham Students back - and loving it TEARS, FEARS and cheers have been experienced by stu- dents and parents alike during the past eight weeks and while it’s been a challenging time for many, Sydney Catholic School principals say their returning school community is much stronger because of it. From Zoom meetings in- volving 180 students to viral videos receiving more than 115,000 views, sta have be- come creative in order to stay connected. From kindergarten to Year 12, 70,000 students are return- ing to classrooms faced with new technologies discovered during remote learning. Miranda’s Our Lady Star of the Sea Primary School hit the headlines with its dance vide- os made by sta to help keep students engaged in a fun and creative way. Principal Rosemary Andre said they had “developed skills and ideas during the pandem- ic that they never would have thought of if the lockdown didn’t happen”. “Re ecting on the experi- ence all I can say is as teachers we can now be more exible and creative in the way we de- liver lessons going forward. ere are so many amazing programs we utilised during remote learning which we can now implement in the class- room,” she said. “Since the students have re- turned, we have found they are more independent and their technology skills have grown immensely, particularly in our kindy andYear 1 classes, ... they have just slipped straight back in. “ ere have been funny lockdown stories as well. One of our Year 3 students said they had missed school because their mum was taking the teacher thing too seriously and evenmade her call her ‘Mrs’.” Auburn’s Trinity Catholic College also faced its share of challenges particularly with the pressures on Year 12’s quickly heading towards the HSC, however they also imple- mented new strategies for their senior students. Principal Daniel Delmage said socialisation was one of the key issues it needed to ad- dress and introduced Zoom catch ups for all 180 Year 12 students. “We quickly realised that the students were missing been argued by Archbishop Fisher OP the need to protect religious freedom is especial- ly urgent as we are now living in an increasingly secular age where there is a campaign to marginalise Christians and to banish them from the public square. “Extreme secular critics argue faith-based schools should not be funded by government, that religious bodies and organisations like hospitals and aged care fa- cilities must not be allowed to discriminate and religious beliefs and convictions have no place in deciding public policy. MONICA DOUMIT P11 Students from Our Lady Star of the Sea in Miranda, top, were delighted to be back this week. Year 12 students at Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, returned last week. PHOTOS:TOP:A FOK,ABOVE: G PORTELLI  Debbie Cramsie their school, their friends and their teachers so knew we had to nd ways of ensuring they were all connected,” he said. “We hosted Zoom meet- ings with all 180 Year 12’s, we contacted parents regularly to check in on their wellbeing and progress while sharing messages of encouragement on Facebook and ensuring that every absence from a lesson was accounted for on a daily basis, period by period.” NEWS