General Religious Education (GRE) is part of the curriculum in all NSW schools (Yr3?) and teaches about all major faiths, and involves visits to places of worseship.

Children have a right to see that humanity yearns about different Gods, and some yearn to pray, follow 'commandments', and so forth.

Parents have a right to see that their children don't learn about God, how to pray, the commandments and so forth, as these are separate to most rational human interaction.

Secular driven ethics classes need healthy competition from philosophy. Good philosophy. Good philosophy includes God and our best understanding of God comes from knowledge of Christ. Ethics done without the ten commandments and the teachings of Christ will be a case of the blind leding the blind. God ethics can partially occur through being in touch with the natural law and human naturehowever, if left unaided by Divine Revelation, is in danger of succumbing to the anti-Christian ethos out there in the Australian community.

All Catholic priests learn philosophy ( how to think straight) before doing Scripture and theology subjects. This is good and this is how it always should be.

The truths and infallibility of Scripture can only be brought out by adherence to an infallible interpreter, ie the Catholic Church.
Protestants learn Scripture before philosophy/ethics and end up with a continual reinventing of the wheel through pitting/weighing/focusin on different biblical passages and ultimately still ( subconsciously or consciously) give adherence to man made philosophies ( like the anti Christian secularists) by adhering in the case of the former to Calvin, Knox, Zwingli,Huss or Luther.
The point being is that to do ethics ( philosophy) needs to be done from the very very best eg Aquinas, the Church Fathers, the Greeks. Now the Catholic Church has already sifted a lot from these greats, not in order to supplant Scripture but to get people thinking straight and according to the best in human nature so as to avoid as far as possible illogical and unreasonable modes of thinking or projecting upon God's Written Word( the Scriptures).
Message here for both the Protestants as well as the secularists who operate out of the same box ( subconsciously yet philosophically).
Poor philosophy results in poor biblical understanding and misinterpretation, to say nothing for ethics.

Philosophy is the study of knowledge and ideas to discerne truth, logic and ethics.

Philosophy is distinguished by a systematic approach and reliance on reasoned argument - sound deductive argument and strong (cogent) inductive argument.

It is thus grounded in critical analysis and logic itself, and these differentiate it from other ways of addressing ideas and knowledge (other ways such as mysticism or mythology).

It is contextual, in terms of the subject(s) and history, and changes in history over time.

“…: they learn cultural and moral values through, for example, history, english and drama, civics instruction and even sport.”

But whose cultural and moral values do they learn? The values of individual teachers and text-book writers totally unknown to the students or their parents.

Surely anything outside the three R’s and those subjects needed for students to gain employment should be left to parents. Australian law should be taught, but the moral and ethical opinions of people in a democracy vary widely, and these should dealt with by parents and family; anything else is state brainwashing.

Even as a non-religionist, I agree with Archbishop Jensen. Whereas religion is apolitical, it beggars belief that The James Ethics Centre is not riddled with politics. There is enough political brainwashing going on now in English and the ‘interpretation’ of history by text writers.

The best solution to concerns about religion and any other non-core subjects taught in schools is to get rid of anything not pertaining to education for work; anything else can be taken up informally as people grow older and want to stretch their minds. The state should not be teaching religion or any other subject best left to parents

The State should not teach religion however, the State should allow parents ( who are the primary educators of their children) the opportunity to have religion classes at school according to their professed religion.
It is a human right to have religion taught to our children and the State schools should do as they are told, by us, their masters. The State is our civil servant ( or meant to be). Let us assert that right by telling them so.

Parents should not be the primary educators: society and the community should ensure education is relevant, current and worldly; yet some parents are not capable of that

The State should allow parents the opportunity to not have religion classes at school ...

"The State should not teach religion" - agreed. There should not be a state religion