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The Abbott Government

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overhang said:
That is what professional secular counselors are for
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Usually Arts Degree graduates with a parchment that reads Psychology, on $100k a year to regurgitate departmental policy procedural answers. That's a lot of money for a trained risk averse parrot.



overhang said:
I wonder if your opinion would be different if Muslim clerics were used in most public schools.
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What's your point? You want to get rid of the ones who are already there? What kid in his/her residual right mind is going to seek counsel from some tribal native who has such a sheep like mentality even the way they dress is governed by some supreme commander in a far off desert; anyone who wears a uniform is going to willingly take orders from someone.

The dilemma is we never know if modern Muslim is subverting our customs and teaching young minds how to hate whitey and cut off people's heads. It's like asking the Catholic clergy to behave....ain't gonna happen.
 
Tink said:
Overhang, from what I have been told, the counsellors are still there, they work together.
I think there is a lot of misinformation being spread.

It has nothing to do with religion.
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Tink I don't believe that is the case, I've already heard a secular councilor on the radio who has been told they will lose their job if this passes as they will no longer receive funding for their position. But if you're correct than what a complete waste of tax players money that is (250 million), so students already have access to a professional counselor then there would be no tax payer requirement for a religious worker. The tax payer see's no benefit from that, if students are so concerned about seeing a religious worker than they can go to church after hours.
 
Tisme said:
Usually Arts Degree graduates with a parchment that reads Psychology, on $100k a year to regurgitate departmental policy procedural answers. That's a lot of money for a trained risk averse parrot.
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As opposed to someone who bases their faith and advice from a fictional book written 1500 years ago? No thanks.




My point was that Think is quite an outspoken Christian on this forum and would her mind change if her children, grand kids etc were to receive counseling from a member of a different faith. That is what she expects members of other faiths or non faiths to be ok with regarding this policy and I find it difficult she would like a Muslim cleric association with her children or family. I notice you point straight to the extremist side of Muslims, do parents want there children also associating with possible kiddy fiddlers from the Catholic church?
 
Tink said:
You know what, Syd, I get sick and tired of you lefties whinging and howling.

Yes, I agree with it, rant on....
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So what comforting words will you give to the secular counsellors losing their jobs to Chaplains?

I'd urge you to understand the policy before sprouting your factually incorrect working together. Funding is ONLY for religious based chaplaincy. Funding WILL be cut to hose schools who would prefer to have a non religious counsellor.
 
Tink said:
A lot of whinging going on here, a voice from the other side, I agree with Tony.

Good on him .
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Tink, I agree with you. The Chaplain at my granddaughter's school has been a wonderful support to both the girls and religion is not pushed on to the kids. It gives kids who are struggling a means of support other than the over burdened guidance officer.
 

Sails it's great to hear your grandchildren have had a positive experience with the chaplaincy program. But why do you think its a good policy to remove funding for non-secular chaplains? In an age when the church and state are supposed to be kept separate this is a shift backwards, but should we really be surprised from the PM that reintroduced knights and dames. One term Tony.
 
Tink said:
It has nothing to do with religion.
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No? Then why are only religiously trained chaplains eligible for the funding?
Anyone so trained will have at the core of their interactions belief in a god and I just don't believe that in counselling a vulnerable teenager that will not come through. Do these chaplains even have any qualifications in counselling?

The government says the chaplains will not be permitted to proselytize: how is that going to be policed?

Years ago I was discussing a medical issue with a GP. He said "it will help if you believe in the power of prayer".
That's not what you see a doctor for.

Tisme said:
Usually Arts Degree graduates with a parchment that reads Psychology, on $100k a year to regurgitate departmental policy procedural answers. That's a lot of money for a trained risk averse parrot.
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There are some excellent psychologists who most definitely do not fit your caustic description.
 

Having had a discussion with Tisme on another forum about chaplains, he believes that as school psychologist/counsellors are effectively public servants, that they take the public service route of least resistance by writing a report and submitting it to the principal and then consider their job to be done.

Chaplains could probably act outside these boundaries and work on a more personal level with the students than the formal level that the psychologists are constrained by.

I can see his point on this, but I don't believe that religion qualifies a person for this task more than anyone else in the wider community with similar experiences, and that also does not discount the fact that psychologists do important work. Psychologists & chaplains work at different levels, one shouldn't replace another.
 
It's about history.
It used to be the micks got taught in their own school system while the Anglicans and Presbyterians got taught in the public school system. Initially it was expected that the local Anglican and similar Christian churches would act as chaplains to the school however as Australia has become more diverse and less religious this has resulted in the system changing and you can only expect it will change further.

Unfortunately for the Anglicans, this has led to them being removed as the dominant religion in Australia and as a result also led to Christian knowledge in pubic schools not really being taught. Logically this means the end of teaching of Christianity in these schools. If parents want a Christian education at school, then they will need to go private or Catholic.

I sympathise with Tony and Tink but Australia has changed.
I don't think a psychologist will serve the same purpose so the chaplaincy program should just be removed as long as there are enough parents who want to end it. In some country towns, with a less diverse population, I am sure that many of the parents would want it retained.
 
overhang said:
I notice you point straight to the extremist side of Muslims, do parents want there children also associating with possible kiddy fiddlers from the Catholic church?
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How do you know it's extreme ? I understand the coalition of the willing will include Saudi Arabia, where they routinely chop people's heads off...

Catholic fiddler = Hell NO!!
 
It baffles me that there is any support for this ludicrous ideologically based injection of doctrine into the secular school system. It is however reassuring to see the vast majority see it for what it is.
School based support workers, counsellors. social workers, psychologists deal with a wide range of complex social, psychological, personal, familial and educational issues. They absolutely need to be grounded in evidence based understanding of these issues and how to respond to them. To achieve this takes years of academic study and practice supervision. This is not a skill base that is achieved by a Cert IV chaplaincy course ( or other) underpinned by archaic doctrine and dangerous biasses.
As others have said the ultimate result of this will be the displacement of appropriately skilled people for those who are, simply, not. There is a place, perhaps, for the chaplains to offer doctrinal support to religious children/families - on request. But other than that - thier interventions will probably be prosletising, judgemental and unhelpful.

I write this on the safe assumption that 99.9% of the 'chaplains' will be christian chaplains.

As a secular tax payer...not happy.
 

Agree.
It's a very dangerous slippery slope Abbott is putting us on.

Even if chaplains are more qualified than trained counsellor/psychologist, the separation of Church and State is one of the cornerstone of a modern, inclusive democracy. We're a multicultural, multi-faith society living under the rule of law... and I think that has serve our people and our country well; to now put chaplains into state institutions, while I don't think religious leaders of other faith would complain, doing so won't serve all our kids any better than keeping it secular.

I'm not sure what advice a chaplain would give to kids that got pregnant - Christianity and I believe most religion would be against abortion, not saying that that's what ought to be done but in some situation it might be an option; What about the use of condoms; or homosexuality.

If the counsellor is religious, and with this program the gov't is effectively encouraging religion as part of counselling... I don't think we can expect a religious advisor to be secular when it comes to issues like birth controls or sexuality, just to name a couple.

But i think there will be more High Court challenges and hopefully Abbott won't be around for term two.

-------

I hope Abbott and his gov't is not on some messianic mission... Today's headlines seems like we're telling the US and the world our jets are all fired up ready to go bomb some Arabs.

Is it just me or do we sound like we're rushing the Americans into this war?

ISIS controls a vast area over at least two countries - bigger than Britain I heard; they're well armed and well funded... and we seem to think we could fly over and with combo of smart and carpet bombing raids, they'll surrender and disappear.

God help us...
 
+1. Exactly.


luutzu said:
Even if chaplains are more qualified than trained counsellor/psychologist,
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More qualified? In what way do you think chaplains could be better trained and more qualified to counsel teenagers than the sort of professional lindsayf has described above?
Happy for someone to correct me, but I don't think the average chaplain is necessarily a holder of formal psychotherapeutic qualifications.
The points raised above re how would such a person counsel a kid who is pregnant etc are very well made.
 

I was saying that even if it can be argued that chaplains are more qualified. Not saying that they are.
Bad English.
 
sails said:
Based on experience with both chaplains and psychologists, I think that sums it up in a nutshell.
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Yet that is what Abbott is proposing.

For a leader of a party that was out defending the right to be a bigot, how can they then turn around and FORCE schools to either go without a counsellor or get a faith based chaplain?

I definitely think some articles in national and regional newspapers needs to occur showing just how many people are at risk of losing their jobs.
 

And of course all chaplains will be Christian of one kind or another.

Imagine a Rabbi or a Muslim or a Buddhist monk... we'd be outraged and cries of Muslims or Jewish takeovers.
 
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