The religiosity of the US is a bit off-putting to most Australians. The growing impact of Christian Nationalist authoritarians is as puzzling to us as it would have been for the US Founding Fathers who wrote the wrote the Constitution.

The First Amendment of the Constitution, ratified in 1791, in one of the 10 the amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. It states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or, prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

From an Australian viewpoint – just after our annual pagan version of Christmas – it is apparent that local religious groups are still trying to influence politics in many ways similar to those practised by the US groups.

In the past the DLP and Bob Santamaria effectively kept Labor from power through the influence of the Catholic Church and the power of preferences. Although it has to be admitted that the ALP contributed to the problem and perpetuated it by the activities of apparatchiks in unions and the Victorian branch of the party.

Today the churches are no longer as powerful as they were in the past and according to the Census Christians are less than 45% of the population. Moreover, various religious groups have added to the problem by their cover ups of shocking abuses by priests and other clerics of young children.

Yet despite all this governments continue to favour religious groups – from subsidising religious schools through billions of dollars in funding to public avowals of religious support. Cabinet Ministers are not averse to this either. The Rationalist Society of Australia recently highlighted the Australian Attorney General Michelle Rowland, told a Christian prayer breakfast that “the principles that Jesus lived by” underpin her role.

Now a coalition of eight Australian non-religious, ex-religious and pro-secular groups is raising concerns about discriminatory and unfair treatment against non-religious Australians in breach of Australia’s international human rights commitments.

In July this year, the coalition made a joint submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) (Fourth Cycle) into Australia’s human rights.

The coalition is also seeking answers from the Albanese government on how it will address ongoing discrimination against non-religious Australians in government institutions and programs.

In a letter to the Attorney-General, Michelle Rowland, the Rationalist Society of Australia and seven other organisations detailed a number of examples of discriminatory and unfair treatment against non-religious people in breach of Australia’s international human rights commitments.

The other supporting organisations to the joint letter were Humanists Australia, Atheist Foundation of Australia, Recovering From Religion Australia, National Secular Lobby, Sydney Atheists, Fairness in Religions in Schools NSW, and Queensland Parents for Secular State Schools.

The letter informed Ms Rowland that the organisations had, earlier this year, detailed the discriminatory and unfair treatment of non-religious Australians in a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) (Fourth Cycle) into Australia’s human rights.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protect the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and provide for equal treatment of religion and belief.

The letter also noted that Australia is a member of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, which advocates for “freedom of religion or belief for all, including the right of individuals to hold any belief, to change it or to hold none”.

The submission detailed a number of examples of discriminatory and unfair treatment against non-religious people, on the grounds of religion and belief, in Australian government institutions and programs. These examples included:

• the imposition of acts of religious worship as part of formal proceedings in federal and state parliaments, and in local government meetings
• the lack of non-religious frontline wellbeing support for the Australian Defence Force’s majority non-religious workforce;
• the use of an inherently biased and coercive Census religion question that assumes all respondents have a religion;
• the state-sponsored disruption of public school students’ formal academic learning time by poorly-attended religious instruction programs;
• the government funding of religious chaplains in government schools based on religious criteria for their employment;
• the advantages and benefits afforded to religious charities for ‘advancing religion’ in the nation’s charities system, while the same opportunities are denied to groups with non-religious worldviews;
• the imposition of religion in military commemorations; and,
• exclusive opportunities afforded to religious organisations to form and be part of ‘faith advisory committees’ to governments.

The Albanese Government has been marked by reluctance to take on difficult issues – from ending tax rorts to effective action on climate change – and has avoided offending various groups with vested interests in these issues.

Currently it is reeling from the Bondi attacks and the partisan attacks mounted against it. To its credit it has refused to order a Royal Commission into Bondi – a decision recently applauded by eminent KC, Robert Richter.(Age 31/12) Richter who said: “If there is to be a Royal Commission – and I don’t think we need one – it will go on for years and its definitions will be argued about endlessly.

“The tragedy at Bondi was the result of a stuff up by ASIO in not reflagging the man for overseas travel or anything of the kind red-flagging his father. It was a complete stuff-up by a combination of ASIO, the federal police, NSW police and border control.

“We don’t need a Royal Commission for that,” he said.

Declaration of interest: The author is a Rationalist Society of Australia member.