Religion of Australia

Religion in Australia is predominantly Christian, although it is a highly secularised society. There is no state religion, the establishment of which is prohibited by the Constitution.

At the time of European settlement, the Indigenous Australians had their own religious traditions of the Dreamtime (as Mircea Eliade put it) There is a general belief among the Australians that the world, man, and the various animals and plants were created by certain Supernatural beings who afterwards disappeared, either ascending to the sky or entering the earth (Eliade, 1973, p. 1). and ritual systems, with an emphasis on life transitions such as puberty and death (Berndt, 1974, pp. 4-5).

Historical

Prior to European settlement in 1788 there was contact with Indigenous Australians from people of various faiths. These contacts were with explorers, fishermen and survivors of the numerous shipwrecks. There has been countless artifacts retrieved from these contacts, although there is no record of this influencing the religion of Indigenous Australians.

Christianity was introduced with European settlement of Australia from 1788, denominations represented were predominantly Roman Catholic found amongst Irish convicts and Anglican among other convicts and their goalers. Other groups were also represented, for example, among the Tolpuddle martyrs were a number of Methodists.

After settlement, some Muslim sailors and prisoners came to Australia on the convict ships, Afghan cameleers settled in Australia from the 1860s onwards, from the 1870s Malay divers were recruited (with most subsequently repatriated). Islam was not a significant force in this period

During the 1800s, European settlers brought their traditional churches to Australia. These included the Church of England (now the Anglican Church), and the Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Baptist churches.

With the exception of a small but significant Lutheran population of German descent, Australian society in 1901 was predominantly Anglo-Celtic, with 40% of the population being Anglican (then Church of England), 23% Catholic, 34% other Christian and about 1% professing non-Christian religions. The first census in 1911 showed 96 percent identified themselves as Christian.

Further waves of migration helped to reshape the profile of Australia’s religious affiliations over subsequent decades. The impact of migration from Europe in the aftermath of World War II led to increases in affiliates of the Orthodox Churches, the establishment of Reformed bodies, growth in the number of Catholics (largely from Italian migration) and Jews (Holocaust survivors), and the creation of ethnic parishes among many other denominations. More recently, immigration from South-East Asia and the Middle East has expanded Buddhist and Muslim numbers considerably, and increased the ethnic diversity of existing Christian denominations.

The White Australia Policy restricted non-European immigration until post World War 2.

Recent relationships have been more difficult between adherents of Islam and the government. Some cite the attitude to what has been viewed as Islamic extremism post September 11, e.g., the Australian anti-terrorism legislation, 2004, along with the 2005 Sydney race riots as evidence of increased inter-religious stresses, although others see this more in terms of ethnicity.

Constitutional Status

Section 116 of the 1900 Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia (Australian Constitution) provides that:
The Commonwealth of Australia shall not make any law establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

In 1983, the High Court of Australia defined religion as a complex of beliefs and practices which point to a set of values and an understanding of the meaning of existence. The ABS 2001 Census Dictionary defines “No Religion” as a category of religion. Hence, agnosticism, atheism, Humanism, and rationalism (all sub-categories of “No Religion”) are - legally speaking, religions.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is able to inquire into allegations of discrimination on religious grounds, the Racial Discrimination Act, is also relevant.

HREOC’s 1998 Article 18 Freedom of religion and belief addressing the human right to freedom of religion and belief in Australia against article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stated that despite the legal protections that apply in different jurisdictions, many Australians suffer discrimination on the basis of religious belief or non-belief, including members of both mainstream and non-mainstream religions, and those of no religious persuasion.

Many non-Christian adherents have complained to HREOC that the dominance of traditional Christianity in civic life has the potential to marginalize large numbers of citizens. An example of a HREOC response to such views is the IsmaU project[1], which examines possible racial predjudice against Arabs and Muslims in Australia since the September 11 attacks in the USA, and the Bali bombings.

So far, HREOC has not examined the possibility of religious discrimination against those professing “No Religion”.

The ABS 2001 Census Dictionary statement on religious affliliation itself, however, does fail to clarify how the interests of secular Australians are served through the gathering of data on religious affiliation. Also, the failure of the ABS to provide statistics for each sub-category of “No Religion” could be seen as further marginalisation of secular Australians.