Disappointing Spin

I shouldn't be surprised. This is what politicians do... they spin anything to suit their own agenda.

Today the Greens party took it upon themselves to re-write the High Court ruling on chaplaincy and make it an issue about the validity of the Chaplaincy program claiming it "a great victory for secular public education" and "The offensive misuse of public money to push religion onto innocent public school children has come to an end"

The particular Greens MP making these misguided statements is John Kaye.  He has used his position to publicly attack Scripture Union saying "By offering an additional pair of helping hands to over-stretched public schools, the National School Chaplaincy Program was a Trojan horse for groups like the Scripture Union" which is very contrary to the opinion of over 98% of school principals (who were overwhelmingly in support of chaplaincy) when surveyed about their school chaplains!

Mr Kaye has called for the funds to be redirected to 'Welfare Workers'... but seems to have missed the point that the ruling was all about the fact that the government was NOT able to directly fund these programs.

In fact, when you look at this ruling - it is actually IN FAVOUR of chaplaincy.   Where did he ever get "chaplains now gone..." from anyway??

So.. just to help you and your colleagues out there Mr Kaye... I'll summarise:
1) The High Court ruled that the case did not impact on the freedom of religion and unanimously dismissed the charge that school chaplains' religious position breached the Constitution.
(This means that Chaplains can stay in schools)

2) The High Court ruled that the way the Federal Government funded the program was unconstitutional (6-1 ruling with numerous and varying reason given)
(this means that the Federal Government needs to find a different way to fund such programs)


Happy to help anytime Mr Kaye
http://johnkaye.org.au/school-chaplains-gone-now-for-qualified-welfare-workers