I totally agree with the sentiments expressed in this article. Australians from all ethnic and faith communities need to get out of their ghettoes.

Superb article, congratulations.
And if parents were also smart enough to see through the expensive marketing of many private religious schools, they'd then go on to send their kids to public comprehensive state high schools, and watch them outperform the more expensively educated kids from private schools and the more exclusively educated kids from selective schools by the end of their first year of uni.
Yes, yes I know more private/selective kids get in in the first place, hardly surprising when you think they've got all the brightest and richest kids in the first place. The question we should be asking is why such schools with such excellent material actually don't perform better?
Perhaps Dennis has hit on one of the reasons study after study has shown comprehensive public school kids do better at uni than their private/selective school counterparts. They have greater breadth of thinking, they haven't been schooled in a narrow moral and religious context, where almost everyone they go to school with thinks like them, worships like them and comes from the same socio-economic background as them.

apart from private independent religious schools from jewish and christian traditions, some focus also has to be placed on jewish schools. after all, some jewish communities actively agitate on the same middle eastern conflicts as muslims. further, there is some evidence that extremist jews opposed to the withdrawal of israeli troops from gaza are active in australia. some of these groups have extremely hostile attitudes not just to muslims but also to christians and even secular jews.

Agreed in principle, Dennis. But our Government continues to pump funds into private schools at the expense of state education. And in its dealings with the most vulnerable groups in our society (e.g. solo mothers and persons with disabilities to be punished by Workfare changes; low-paid workers and asylum-seekers), it consistently fails to adopt the ethic of 'flourishing' that your idea requires and promotes. Rather, its policies both internationally and nationally foster fear, greed, envy, closed-mindedness and gross consumerism. So, your proposal first requires that we re-fund our withering state education systems, and then pray (to any god you choose) that we re-find some of the values that make an Australian value-system worth sharing.
Cheers,
Anna.

An excellent suggestion. Public school expecations and standards would rise, and hopefully all people would be forced to see that their way is not the only way to live.

I agree that parents should be encouraged to send their children to public primary schools, but I do not believe they should be forced. That would erode the very democratic freedoms you seek to assert.

We must understand, that at the end of the day, parents have the right to raise their children with exposure to whichever religion they so choose, including where they are educated.

Also, I do not believe that selective schools fit into the same category as exclusive religious private schools. I went to a selective school in Melbourne and was there surrounded by so many different ethnicities, races, religious groups, and even socioeconomic backgrounds. My friends did share similar academic objectives, but the (outside) similarities ended there.