Religious lobbyists and their supporters in the West Australian parliament are pushing back against the growing calls for the state government to stop funding chaplains in public schools, with the establishment of a new friendship group in the parliament to promote “the benefits of school chaplains”.

Members of parliament have set up the Parliamentary Friends of School Chaplaincy group after the state’s public school communities last year overwhelmingly called for the Cook government to employ wellbeing officers that are “permanent, secular, professional, with direct employment by schools”, instead of outsourced religious chaplains.

The parliamentary friends group has the stated aims of: supporting and assisting in the promotion of the benefits of school chaplains in school communities; supporting chaplains in creating positive school communities; and advocating for the work of chaplains in schools.

It is similar to the friends group that was established in the federal parliament after the Albanese government made changes to the federal school chaplaincy program to provide schools with a secular option.

In August last year, delegates attending the annual conference of Western Australian Council of State School Organisations (WACSSO) – the peak body representing parents and carers of public school students – voted in support of a motion for schools to be able to directly employ secular wellbeing officers instead of having to outsource via religious third-party providers.

Previously, the public schools communities across the state voted unanimously for a motion that called on WACSSO to advocate for “clinical student social and emotional wellbeing programs” that would employ qualified people with appropriate expertise, and would do so “without bias or discrimination”.

The West Australian government contributes millions of dollars to the National Student Wellbeing Program (NSWP), which provides schools with the option of a chaplain or secular wellbeing officer through third-party labour hire providers. However, where public schools seek to appoint chaplains they have to use primarily Christian organisations, such as YouthCare and Scripture Union, that require applicants to have religious credentials.

Last year, the Cook government launched a one-year trial that allowed a school to directly hire a wellbeing support worker for the role.

The Rationalist Society of Australia wrote to the state’s education minister, Sabine Winton, in October, seeking answers about the status of the pilot, how the Department of Education planned to evaluate it, and whether it would be expanding it.

However, neither Ms Winton nor the education department have responded to those questions. 

Allowing schools to directly employ wellbeing officers through the state’s Department of Education would mean the removal of religious-based criteria previously described by the state’s equal opportunity commissioner as constituting “prima-facie religious conviction discrimination” under state laws.

In recent months, religious activists in Western Australia have also petitioned the parliament, calling on the Cook government to re-instate funding for chaplains to provide support to principals.

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