Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the 2021 census. It's a critically important survey of our nation which has tremendous impact on the work of parliament. I want to call out a campaign led by Humanists Australia in their effort to get Australians to tick the non-religious box. I strongly support every Australian answering the census as honestly as possible—people of faith and people of no faith—but I'm deeply troubled by the campaign's motives. In the Humanists Australia CEO's recent op-ed in the Age, she explicitly cites the reason for her campaign as to strip funding from religious schools and activities. This is spiteful, misinformed and wrong. We should be celebrating Australia's rich religious pluralism, not mocking it. At a time of rising anti-Semitism, we should be supporting Jewish institutions and schools to be safer. We should be supporting Islamic, Catholic, Christian and other faith and other educationally ideological schools, as well as government schools, and, to do so, we need to have the facts—hence, a truthful census.

While the gaps in our social safety net grow ever larger, we should not be seeking to curb the work of religious charities and aged-care homes, which are in greater need during a COVID crisis than ever. Religion brings joy and comfort to many Australians of the Islamic, Christian, Hindu, Baha'i, Sikh and Buddhist faiths and all the other faiths that give people meaning.

This opportunistic and spiteful campaign to take funding away from religious institutions is simply wrong. I encourage every Australian, on this census day 2021, to be honest—be honest in the census; tell the truth—because you will give us the real face of Australia. Do not respond to spite. Inform your answers with good conscience and tell Australia who we really are.