- Register to vote now for the 14th September 2013 Election and make your democratic right count!
- Please email in with relevant news reports, media releases and policy statements to add to this page.
- Secular Party of Australia website
RU486, the PBS and the ACL
2 May 2013, Secular Party Media Release
That the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) and DLP senator John Madigan are outraged at the prospect of including RU486 in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme comes as no surprise to Secular Party of Australia Treasurer, Rosemary Sceats. Ms Sceats was responding to a comment from the ACL that “people with a philosophical or conscientious objection to abortion, which is a great many Australians, would then be forced to pay for something which they believe is wrong”.
Geert Wilders has the right to be heard
Media Release: Posted by Secular on February 22, 2013
Numerous venues refused to host the talks by visiting Dutch MP Geert Wilders, and his Perth talk had to be cancelled. “Whatever anyone thinks of his views, Wilders should be given the opportunity to speak,” said Dr John Perkins, President of the Secular Party of Australia. “The right to free speech is vital for a liberal democracy, and this is true even when some find the message offensive. If we are intimidated into silence by fear of recrimination, our basic freedoms are eroded.”
Dr Perkins said that the Secular Party is opposed to Wilders’s more extreme proposals regarding Muslim immigration and his uncritical support for Israel. He questions the consistency of opposing the concept of an Islamic state while supporting a Jewish state. “Secular states are best,” he said.
Religions are not charities by definition
20 December 2011
Submission to Treasury on the definition of charity
According to Australia’s antiquated legal definition of charity, anything and everything that religious organisations do is deemed charitable and therefore qualifies for tax concessions. This ranges from their commercial operations to their “prayerful intervention”. Yet there are other aspects to the current definition of charity, such as relieving poverty, that would be sufficient to encompass the genuinely charitable activities of religious bodies.
Disclaimer: we have links on our website that we think will be of interest to our members but we do not necessarily endorse the views and opinions expressed on those linked web-pages.
BACK TO TOP
