A committee of religious clerics appointed by the New South Wales government has been demanding that state schools ask for the religious identity of children as part of the enrolment process, documents reveal.

In 2024, the controversial NSW Faith Affairs Council requested that the state’s Department of Education add an optional religious identity question to the Online Enrolment System and a mandatory question about the preference for the scripture program – Special Religious Education (SRE).

Documents obtained by the Rationalist Society of Australia (RSA) under freedom of information laws show that the Department of Education told the 19-member faith advisory committee that it had legal advice that both proposals could not happen.

The agendas and minutes of Faith Affairs Council meetings detail a pattern of the committee seeking to leverage its privileged access to government decision-makers and bureaucracy to influence education policies in favour of religious interests.

In November 2024, the Faith Affairs Council decided to request that the department “share the legal advice they have been given regarding the Online Enrolment System and questions of Religious Identity and SRE/SEE preference, so that we can better understand the decisions made and work together on appropriate solutions”.

Currently, the enrolment form does not include the religious identity question, but does advise that schools offering SRE or Special Education in Ethics (SEE) will provide parents and guardians with a participation letter to complete.

A Catholic media report suggests that the NSW government removed the religious identity question from the enrolment form in 2017.

The documents show that the Faith Affairs Council has also sought to hold “semi-annual meetings” with the NSW minister for education and secretary of the Department of Education.

Since the Minns government established the Faith Affairs Council in 2023 – and excluded non-religious voices – the RSA has revealed that the committee has used its privileged position to pursue the narrow interests of religious groups.

In opposition, NSW Labor pledged that the faith advisory body would be a “solutions warehouse” and promised religious groups it would allow them to advise on issues including “objections to euthanasia/voluntary assisted dying, and religious discrimination” and “additional funding for chaplaincy”.

As the RSA revealed earlier this month, the Faith Affairs Council has, on several occasions, discussed requesting state and federal governments for taxpayers’ dollars and tax concessions for faith-based activities. It has also sought to influence government policy on wide-ranging policy areas.

The committee established its Education Working Group to “work with the NSW Department of Education on a range of issues that affect people of faith in NSW public schools”.

In 2024, the RSA discovered that the committee’s Education Working Group’s work was to include: “ensuring that the [public school] enrolment form includes an optional question on religious identity”; and “ensuring the enrolment form includes options for SRE, so that parents have choice in faith education for their child”.

The Minns government has ignored pleas from parents and carers to follow Victoria’s lead and move the scripture program to outside normal learning time so as to stop it disrupting the learning of non-participating students.

The Faith Affairs Council has turned down several requests from the RSA for it to advocate for the fundamental right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and address issues negatively impacting on the rights of non-religious people.

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Si Gladman is Executive Director of the Rationalist Society of Australia. He also hosts ‘The Secular Agenda’ podcast.

Image: MChe Lee on Unsplash.