Why we don’t need compulsory public education – a reply to Dennis Altman
Published by Online Opinion , August 5, 2005 . Dennis Altman asserts that part of our response to global terrorism should compulsory public education for all primary school students in Australia. He implies that independent schools, and particularly independent schools of a religious denomination contribute to the “balkinsation” of Australian society. Altman attributes the reasonably coherent and harmonious nature of Australian society to a considered indifference toward religion by the majority of Australians. Altman’s arguments are seriously flawed in a number a ways. Firstly, it is not a devotion to religion which makes for a division of society. It is the relative importance one places on the religious law and the law of the land. If the law of the land in seen as paramount, to be obeyed wherever one lives, then people of all religions can live peaceably side by side. It is only when one’s religious beliefs are taken to be superior to political law and to have precedence over it