Greens accused of being anti-Christian in schools row

The Executive director of the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV), Stephen Elder, has accused the Australian Greens of being anti-Christian. Their leader, Senator Richard Di Natale, had urged the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission to review its decision not to withdraw the CECV’s charitable status.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on 21 October that Mr Elder, a former Victorian Liberal MP, said: “Richard Di Natale leads a party that’s prepared to dump on a whole raft of issues on Christian and Catholic Churches. And when his party’s policy to de-fund Catholic schools at the last Federal Election [on 2 July] is critiqued he responds like a petulant schoolboy.”

In June, Mr Elder issued a circular to the parents and carers of Victoria’s Catholic students saying the Greens’ education policies threatened Catholic school funding and the ability of schools to hire staff on religious grounds. It urged parents to “balance what’s really important to you at the ballot box”.

The commission wrote to the CECV, warning that its activities were “placing it at risk of being found to have a disqualifying purpose [affecting its] entitlement to registration as a charity”, but decided against further action.