Statement of belief is the ability of a person to politely and respectfully and without inciting violence, state what they believe to others, without fear that they will be dragged for a tribunal accused of having discriminated for stating they genuinely held good faith, religious belief.
That’s what statement of belief is.
The matter in relation to schools is a bit different. I think as a matter of principle, it should be the case that a school who can show that they have a belief set that is justified from the core of their religious beliefs that they are prepared to make public and that they are prepared to be upfront about with people who apply to work in a place should be able to require that people act consistently with it.
Now for many people, they’ll look at that and go ‘well, you know, that’s, that’s pretty intense. That might not be somewhere I want to work’, other people will say, ‘that’s the way I think, and that’s a way that I want to believe’, but if we look at the big picture here, what these schools do is provide education in a, in an environment in, in a school culture that is shaped by the fact of the way that really just believe is implemented across that community.
And if you take away the ability of a school to be able to lever a community that’s based on that, then you might as well just have public schools across the board, because parents and teachers and students won’t be getting anything different from the private school sector.
