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Australia: Conflict Not Competition chapter 2 Australia: Conflict Not Competition Alan Nixon 2.1 Introduction The atheist bus campaigns began in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2008. It utilised advertisements on the sides of hundreds of London buses, reading “There’s Probably no God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life.”1 The cam- paign was originally proposed by comedian Ariane Sherine. She was inspired when she saw buses proclaiming doom on those who do not believe in a form of Christianity, and thought a counter campaign was due. It was supported by the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins, a biologist and ‘New Atheist’. After this point similar campaigns were proposed around the world, with varying levels of success in terms of public, government and corporate acceptance.2 This chapter analyses the events around the Australian atheist bus cam- paign run by the Australian Foundation for Atheists (afa Table 2.1).3 They are one of Australia’s most well-known atheist groups and are responsible for both this campaign and the Global Atheist Conventions (2010; 2012) that brought many popular New Atheist speakers to Australia. Australia’s ‘secular neutrality’ will be discussed in light of the refusals of free speech by state regulated and owned advertising companies. Adding to this will be Gary Bouma’s (2012) idea that atheists have been experiencing conflict, not fair competition, in Australia. The religiously shy culture of Australia, combined with limited protections for religion/free speech and the ambiguity of Australia’s secularism, has allowed atheists to have their freedom of speech and rights curtailed in the name of secular neutrality. 1 A. Sherine, 2008, “Atheists – gimme five: Since when is it OK to spread the fear of God from the side of a bus? Let’s get together and distribute reassurance,” The Guardian, http://www .theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/20/transport.religion (accessed February 1, 2014). 2 Skeptic’s Dictionary, 2013, Atheist bus (& billboard) campaign, http://www.skepdic.com/athe istbus.html (accessed February 1, 2014). 3 Atheist Foundation of Australia, http://atheistfoundation.org.au/ (accessed February 1, 2014). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/97890043�853�_003 <UN> Australia: Conflict Not Competition 25 2.2 Conflict Not Competition Gary Bouma, a Professor of Sociology and an Anglican Minister, has recently expressed that atheists are experiencing conflict rather than competition in Australia. He argues that this is because atheists are not being given the same voice or support that religions have received from public sources. As Bouma relays it: Competitors respect each other and vie for the rewards – in this case, state recognition, popular support, and influence on policy decisions. However, in conflict, one group seeks the elimination of the other; or a coalition of groups seeks to eliminate one group […] Under fair competition, they too [the atheists] would have been awarded an appropriate level of state funding for their conferences in Melbourne, parallel with that given to the Parliament of the World’s Reli- gions held in 2009. But, no, religious groups opposed that and won. New Atheists sought to offer a secular form of ethics education in the time allocated for “religious instruction” in Victorian state schools. Again, the answer was no. What the New Atheists are experiencing is conflict, the attempt to drive them out, to eliminate the competition.4 As mentioned by Bouma, there have been a number of cases where atheists have been denied support due to lobbying by opposition groups. Chaplains have replaced secular councillors in state run schools against parental pro- tests and have had funding expanded with each new government.5 The latest additions to the chaplains program also stipulated that nonreligious council- lors could not be hired, in a further blow to the nonreligious.6 Ethics classes, intended to be an alternative to Special Religious Education classes for the nonreligious, were fought and denied on a number of fronts by religious and 4 G. Bouma, 2012, “A battle beyond belief,” redresstheology.com, https://reddresstheology. com/2012/04/12/a-battle-beyond-belief-by-gary-bouma/ (accessed February 1, 2014). 5 aap, 2014, “School chaplains get $243m over 4 years,” aap, http://www.sbs.com.au/news/ article/2014/05/13/school-chaplains-get-243m-over-4-years (accessed June 13, 2014). 6 E. Borello, 2014, “Budget 2014: Funding for secular counsellors cut in school chaplaincy program,” abc News, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-15/cut-to-secular-advisors -program-in-federal-budget/5455176 (accessed June 13, 2014). <UN>.
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