Pressure is building on the Federal Government's National School Chaplaincy Program.
This month a challenge to the constitutionality of the program will be considered by the High Court. It claims that the program is contrary to s. 116 of the Australian Constitution (the framework for the interaction between church and state) and also that the program is beyond the Commonwealth's powers. Several state governments have intervened in support of this second argument
This particular program, initiated by the Howard Coalition government in 2006–2007, has been confirmed and expanded by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments. It funds schools up to $20,000 per year to establish or expand school chaplaincy services.
Currently about 2700 schools receive such funding; this means that overall 28 per cent of schools benefit, including the same percentage of government schools; 46 per cent of independent schools take part, but only 17 per cent of Catholic schools are involved. The Catholic Church is not the leading player; Evangelical Christians have led the lobbying.
The program has long attracted controversy and has recently been the subject of a government discussion paper and a community consultation as well as expert reviews and several investigations by Ombudsmen. Some academic scholars have justifiably warned that the program looks like a dangerous incursion by religion into the delicate balance between church and state.
The High Court case may well be successful on this ground if not the other. The politics is another matter.
One of the prime lobbyists for the program has been the Australian Christian Lobby. At the last two federal elections ACL has organised public leadership forums at which both the major parties have committed themselves to the continuance of the program; in evangelical church circles the question was seen as critical to establishing any political party's religious credentials.
Labor wasted no time in trying to outdo the Coalition in making clear that it was so enthusiastic about the program that it would expand it.
One argument against the program relies on the necessary separation of church and state, especially when it applies, as in this case, to staffing in supposedly secular government schools, but it is also relevant to church schools in terms of the use of public funds.
Chaplains are supposed to operate