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Victoria Square

Hey Cyberjunkie,

Welcome and enjoy Wikipedia.

Be sure to check out Australian resources, like Australian Collaboration of the Week, New Australian Articles and Australian stub articles.

With regards to your edit on Victoria Square it is usual to not have a single article describing two seperate entities. I have Disambiguated the main page and created the articles Victoria Square, Birmingham and Victoria Square, Adelaide. Its that big of an issue, but thought I'd point it out to you.--ZayZayEM 02:47, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Separation of church and state

I have reverted your edits for the following reasons:

• although the cth of aus is the official title it doesnt take you directly to the australia page, but rathr has to re-direct you.
• funding of religious institutions is not a contentious policy in australia. some unions (i.e. the a.e.u. in the D.O.G.S. case) have opposed it only because they think that they will get more money if all religios institutions don't. but there is a general acceptance of gvt funding of religious institutions on a non-descrimanotary basis.
• australia is not a secularist country. france is. australia recognises religion as integral to the country and that is why australia hasnt banned muslim women from wearing a hijab to public buildings. just because there is no state religion doesnt mean you cant build the country on religious principles.
• with regard to conflicting laws. that is just wrong. see the D.O.G.S. case (i linked it in the separation article). the majority was 6 - 1 in favour of non-discrimanatory funding of religious schools. many decissions these days on less contentious issues go 5 -2 or 4- 3. there was only one dissenting judge there.
• and finally, almost all members of parliament do attend "prayers" at the start of each day. that phrase is there to demonstrate that although australia has a stable separaton, religion is still welcome.

i hope you take these into consideration before you consider editing the page again. Xtra 00:04, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Response: I respect your right to revert my edits, and will not seek to re-establish them - for the time being. With regards to your comments, I believe you have largely misinterpreted my changes, but perhaps this is more an indictment on me. Firstly, redirect or not, Commonwealth of Australia still does take you to the Australia page. Because the section, overall, was discussing the Constitution, and, at Australia’s first mention, the very establishment of the nation, the official style seemed appropriate and, in fact, obligatory.

Secondly, funding of private schools (which I attended personally) does remain a contentious policy, as evidenced in the last election where division occurred over ALP private-school funding arrangements. However, perhaps this edit was un-necessary, given that is more concerned with politics than the topic of the article.

Thirdly, I never stated that Australia was a secularist country, I wrote: “secularism is not absolute”. By and large, Australia is secular, or at least more-so than other English-speaking nations. There are several different meanings of secularism, and you seem not to understand this. The separation of church and state is both a secularist concept and principle. Therefore, those countries where church and state are separate could broadly be considered secular. By stating that secularism is not absolute, I am pretty much affirming your statement that “Australia has a stable separation, religion is still welcome”. Also, I did not write that there were “conflicting laws”, I wrote that there were contradictions still existing in the legal system. To identify them all would be too time-consuming and, frankly, boring. But some examples include: mentions of God in the Constitution; religious oaths that public servants and citizens must swear where no atheist alternative exists (and there are still a few); and, technically, Australia’s association with the Queen, who is legally required to be Anglican, and must serve as head of the Church of England – a direct contradiction of the separation of church and state.

And finally, there is no way for you to know how many Parliamentarians attend the prayer service, or whether those who do attend are actually there for the service or convenience (given Parliament usually begins straight afterwards). Thus, I changed the absolutist “almost all” to “many”, which can be interpreted as the reader wishes.

So, whilst noting your concerns, my edits were minimal, and maybe in the future, you could examine changes in more detail before you revert them. My only intentions were to make the information more accurate and informative.--Cyberjunkie 09:42, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

response to response

I am aware of many things that you presume i am not. i have studied australian constitutional law, recieving an honours grade. however, i am not going to pick at your reply.

i will reconsider my reverts and see if i can come to a comprimise, possibly reinstating some of your work. Xtra 11:28, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

what do you think of:

• Since the founding of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, religion has been separated from the government. Section 116 of the Australian Constitution forbids the government from proclaming a state religion, or even favouring one religion over another. Some Australian judges (see murphy) have even gone as far to say that the government cannot support religious schools, even if done in a non-discriminatory way. Notwithstanding this, the High Court has consistently allowed funding of religious schools and institutions. The separation between religion and state is generally more lax than in the U.S. even though the constitutional term is near identical and in fact more absolute. Added to this, the Australian Parliament still holds prayers at the start of each sitting day and has since federation. While these prayers are optional, most Members of Parliament attend them. Often it is seen as a paradox that a government based on secular values should have religion so intertwined, yet it seems to work most of the time. The freedom of government to work with religion but not interfere may be one reason why Australian politics is far less religiously oriented in nature than in places like the U.S.

Xtra 11:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I apologise if I seemed presumptuous; I did not intend to be, only to point out things you might not have considered. I am delighted that you are also interested, and learned, in the Australian Constitution: it wouldn’t be a bad thing if many more Australians were. Your “compromise” is very acceptable, save the last few sentences.

Perhaps this is to your liking:

• While attendance at the prayer service is optional, many Members of Parliament attend them. It is often seen as a paradox that a government firmly based on secular values, is still, in many ways, involved with religion. However, government has not been impaired, and respect for the freedom of, and non-interference with, religion may be one reason why Australian politics is far less religiously oriented than in other countries, like the U.S. --Cyberjunkie 12:12, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

seems ok. the last sentence might need some smoothing over though. Xtra 12:34, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hope you are not too mad but I’ve copied the design of your user page :) "My" user page... I’m a Polish-born Australian living in Adelaide and I have recently translated a number of South Australia related articles for the Polish Wiki. Keep up the good work and thanks for great contributions!--Roo72 10:03, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's perfectly okay, especially given that I myself copied it from another user. Actually, you're the third person to use the page. Good luck with your translation work.--Cyberjunkie 10:08, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Giving summaries on edits

Could you please give summaries on your edits so there's some explanation for what you're doing. I don't know if you're from a private school but I felt the reversion of my bit on private/public school funding was unwarranted. Diceman 13:55, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Diceman, and yes, I admit to being extremely lax in giving summaries of my edits - I will try to give summaries more often. In response to your concern; I did attend private schools for 90 per cent of my schooling, however, that was not the reason for my edit. (If anything, I am ardently opposed to private schooling and government's funding them [or at least religious schools]).

The reason I changed your edit was because I thought it neglected to acknowledge the State Government as the principle financier, and that education itself is a State responsibility. I do actually believe that, if the information on school-funding was expanded in general, your information about the Commonwealth contribution would be very much warranted. But since this was not the case, I changed your edit to a generic “public and private education-systems are funded jointly by it and the Commonwealth Government”.

In any case, the article concerned is “Adelaide” and as such, only a general description is required – what that entails, however, we will have to decide. I believe that a full and detailed description of the South Australian education-system, with political considerations, should be reserved for either an “Education in South Australia” or “Education in Australia” article.--Cyberjunkie 07:48, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I guess I should looked at the changes more carefully, I thought it was a straight out reversion. Diceman 11:36, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If I had of had written an edit summary, I suppose there wouldn't have been that confusion. My bad. So is it to stay as is? If so, there's a misspelling you might want to fix (should be: accessible).--Cyberjunkie 12:10, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)