The secular party supports adults rights to wear what they like but does not support the FORCED wearing of garments. I suspect this FORCED garment wearing doesn't happen much in Aus anyway.

The secular party is against forced marriage. This is a common practice in some religious/cultural groups. It is against the law in this country and that law should be enforced. They are also against the marriage of people under - 18 for the same reason.

They support LGBTI marriage.

If religious law/doctrine contravenes Australian law, then it is forbidden. The secular party are not against people practicing their own beliefs in the privacy of their own lives provided they don't contravene Australian law.

The secular party supports adults rights to wear what they like but does not support the FORCED wearing of garments. I suspect this FORCED garment wearing doesn't happen much in Aus anyway.

The secular party is against forced marriage. This is a common practice in some religious/cultural groups. It is against the law in this country and that law should be enforced. They are also against the marriage of people under - 18 for the same reason.

They support LGBTI marriage.

If religious law/doctrine contravenes Australian law, then it is forbidden. The secular party are not against people practicing their own beliefs in the privacy of their own lives provided they don't contravene Australian law.

The Secular Party believes that the religious indoctrination of children in schools violates the rights of the child. The requirement, whether by parents or schools, that children wear religious attire, is a form of indoctrination. The Secular Party therefore opposes this practice. It is the policy of the Secular Party that all forms of religious attire be prohibited in all schools.

Wouldn't banning all forms of religious attire constitute violating the rights of the child? What if the child simply chooses to wear a religious garment, without pressure from their schools or parents? Wouldn't it also be curtailing of freedoms and oppression to force to children to wear only clothing that is state approved?

A vote for the secular party is akin to not voting at all, or flushing your vote down the toilet, or casting a vote for thin air.

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2 March 2015, 3.23pm AEDT
We are all suspects now thanks to Australia’s data retention plans

Australia’s Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence & Security (PJCIS) last week endorsed the data retention bill, which means we’re all suspects now.

The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 provides for mandatory retention by internet service providers (ISPs), phone companies and other entities of telecommunications metadata -– data that in aggregate provides a picture of our lives.

The data will be accessible by a wide range of law enforcement and other bodies, potentially extending from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to your local council, the unrestrained Independent Commission Against Corruption Website (ICAC) and even the RSPCA.

Access will be without warrant. The Bill privileges bureaucratic convenience –- and political opportunism or cowardice –- over what is effective and proportionate in the prevention and prosecution of crime.

PJCIS endorsement -– presumably to be followed by enactment hot on the heels of the New South Wales state election -– is an epochal event.

It comes after a decade in which the Australian Law Council, industry, academics, civil society advocates and concerned individuals have cogently criticised proposals for retention.

Each time the Opposition of the day has expressed disquiet and a range of parliamentary committees (as late as 2014) have condemned the particular proposal as going a step too far.

This time, it seems, things are different, as the government wraps itself in the flag and the Opposition ensures that it’s seen to be tough on national security. The arguments haven’t changed, but a lone man with a gun in Sydney gained headlines with a terrorist flag. On that basis civil liberties disappear, and will presumably continue to erode.

What does the report say?

The 362 page report is interesting for what it doesn’t say. It disregards a range of authoritative overseas national security reports, such as this high level report to the White House, demonstrating that retention is ineffective.

It also disregards warnings by analysts regarding population-scale data retention: storing data about every communication is an invitation for hacking and misuse.

It disregards the very substantial body of law in Europe, where courts have recurrently said that treating everyone as a suspect is profoundly disproportionate to the needs of law enforcement and national security. (Contrary to claims by the AFP, law enforcement in Europe hasn’t collapsed when the courts have accordingly struck down retention law.)

The report does note some concerns, albeit particular recommendations can be disregarded or obfuscated by the Government. The PJCIS recommends establishment of data breach reporting –- alerting consumers when their data goes AWOL.

Given the history of data breaches involving leading phone companies and other entities such as Sony we might wonder whether breach is inevitable. The government is urged to address business criticisms by making “a substantial contribution to the upfront capital costs” facing ISPs and telcos.

The PJCIS urges the government to amend the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill in order “to make clear that service providers are not required to keep web-browsing histories”.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), AFP and a slew of other agencies thus won’t have warrantless access to a record of every mouse-click.

The committee also calls for restricted access regarding civil litigation, although questions remain about criminalisation of intellectual property infringements in “the war against piracy”.

But who will watch the watchers?

The PJCIS notes substantive concerns by the media about freedom of expression. It appears to assume that governments will never misuse powers to track journalists and their sources.

We should, it seems, believe our watchers and disregard incidents we hear such as those in NSW where the highest executives of the police force appear to be bugging each other and where ICAC is accused of misusing its powers.

The report calls for supervision by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, meaningless unless that body is properly funded. It does not address evisceration of the Office of the Information Commissioner (whose current head is currently working from home after withdrawal of the agency’s funding last year).

Presumably we are to trust a watchdog that is toothless and has been very reluctant to bite the hand that under-feeds it.

Suspicion and complicity

It is easy to blame Attorney-General George Brandis for this over-reaching national security legislation. But we should be looking at ourselves –- as a society -– and at our representatives. The silence of Bill Shorten – who appears to have forgotten that the duty of an Opposition is to oppose – is lamentable.

Liberal democracies should be confident about their values, sufficiently confident to accept that dangers -– or purported dangers -– don’t necessitate creeping abandonment of civil liberties.

The government currently has strong powers to access metadata and communications content under warrant. Mandatory retention with warrantless access is an unprecedented and unnecessary step deserving robust condemnation by the PJCIS.

Failure to do so places the onus on all Australians at the next election.

Religious indoctrination of children is one of the world's last terrible taboos. Children should only ever be exposed to evidence based practices.

Children will believe everything you tell them. We have a responsibility to ensure what we tell them is evidence based.

Children never choose what they wear. They are coerced or influenced by institutions/adults. We should replace religious studies at school with a set curriculum detailing all the major religions, their history, the atrocities committed in their name and the oppression they subject the world to. We should also ban all advertising marketed to children, as it has the same affect.

I don't expect other people to understand yet why this is so important. The world is not ready yet for childhood religious indoctrination to be exposed for what it is. Its kinda like trying to explain why homophobia is bad to people living in the 60s.

It pains me to say it, but Abbott has learned nothing about Iraq. He's taken the Islamic State's bait
Tom Switzer
Before the 2013 election, Tony Abbott became a straight-talking sceptic of western intervention. Now the neocon with a big stick has returned

A vote for the secular party is akin to not voting at all, or flushing your vote down the toilet, or casting a vote for thin air.

This doesn't sound very secular. One of the tenets of secularism is the state staying out of church affairs and vice versa. The position you are advocating is clearly anti secular by seeking to eradicate religion from schools, public space and private households, at least where children are concerned. It also masks a far more insidious agenda which is to use schools to indoctrinate impressionable children and their progeny with anti religious bile, with the aim of eventually weeding out religion out of society altogether.

This "evidence based" practice is just a euphemism for state sanctioned thought control underpinned by liberal left wing ideology.

Religious indoctrination of children is one of the world's last terrible taboos. Children should only ever be exposed to evidence based practices.

Children will believe everything you tell them. We have a responsibility to ensure what we tell them is evidence based.

Children never choose what they wear. They are coerced or influenced by institutions/adults. We should replace religious studies at school with a set curriculum detailing all the major religions, their history, the atrocities committed in their name and the oppression they subject the world to. We should also ban all advertising marketed to children, as it has the same affect.

I don't expect other people to understand yet why this is so important. The world is not ready yet for childhood religious indoctrination to be exposed for what it is. Its kinda like trying to explain why homophobia is bad to people living in the 60s.

Do you have children attending a state school? I suspect not as public schools do not promote any particular religious practice, denomination or sect.

Any general religious education is about the major forms of religious thought and expression characteristic of Australian society and other societies and is a sociological based study of various religious traditions rather than on the encouragement of a particular set of religious beliefs.

Some offer optional special religious education based on particular religious tenets or beliefs (at my daughter's school they offer Catholic and Baha'i) but this is purely optional/voluntary rather than compulsory. As such only small minority participate.

Good to know.

The Government however fund a school chaplaincy program in state schools.

Yes, but they do not provide religious education, in fact it is specifically prohibited.

They are there to assist in the support of the emotional wellbeing of students. For example, the chaplain at my daughter's school recently put together a little play for the kids to perform with an anti-bullying/pro-resilience message.

But this government has tried to ensure they are religious. I'm not sure if that actually is in place now or not.

Also I've read in NSW you have to explicitly opt out of the program rather than it being an opt in.

From WA Education Dept website:

Overview of the National School Chaplaincy Programme
The following general principles apply to the programme:
• Participation in the programme by school communities is voluntary.
• Participating in the programme by parents and students is voluntary.
• Schools must inform students and parents of the voluntary nature of the programme.

Services provided by chaplains must not include:
• providing religious education in their schools;
• attempting to convert students to a religion or set of beliefs through proselytising or evangelising;
• initiating faith discussions with a view to coercing or manipulating students to a particular view or spiritual belief;
• taking advantage of the chaplain’s privileged position to proselytise, evangelise or advocate for a particular view or spiritual belief (even though the individual school chaplain may respond to questions and in good faith express views and articulate values consistent with his or her own beliefs); etc

I understand all that. I don't understand why a chaplain has to be affiliated to a religion if they're not allowed to do those things.

Never had a problem with it so haven't given it much thought. Maybe historic, track record of providing the service, and maybe it is believed that the faith based organisations that are the service providers are doing it for more than just profit.

So what's everyone using to circumvent the governments bipartisan citizen spying program? I have my data connections sorted, but haven't done anything about calls & text yet.

Children have to be taught something. Usually its from a set curriculum that is set by a body of experts and committees. Someone has to make the curriculum whether its made by the church or the state. Teaching children about all religions is more open rather than just one, especially considering there is no evidence of one religion over another.

Evidenced based is not a euphemism for thought control. Most of the curriculum is already evidenced based. In fact, an evidenced based approach is the closest you can get to a curriculum that is NOT thought control. Being that it can be challenged and change depending on new evidence. Nothing is set in stone. Rather than indoctrination which usually is unchangeable.

I'm wrapping my house in tin foil.

https://whispersystems.org/ for calls & text.

I know of the 23,000,000 million data users in Australia I'm just a regular person and the government is not interested in my metadata. I understand someone like notor being concerned though as he is a special, important and unique person and of the 23,000,000 people in Australia they will be particularly interested in what websites he visits. I feel bad for notor having to shake up his entire life to circumvent the metadata law that lets be honest were probably brought in specifically to spy on him.

Governments of the future will use the data for their own nefarious purposes. History has a tendency of repeating itself. The removal of basic civil liberties leads to authoritarianism. It is not the role of the government to spy on its own citizens and make us pay for the "privilege."

The government is stopping almost all terrorist activity already. Only one madman on his lonesome has slipped through the net and metadata collection wouldn't have nabbed him anyway. What they should've done is locked him away when he was an alleged accomplice to his ex's murder. You should watch citizen four. Good doco. That's what we have to look forward to.