Max misses the obvious that although many people deny, hate and ignore God they are smart enough to see the fruit of secularism. That is why they including many Labour politicians are willing to pay to send their kids to schools who aren't reaping the rotten fruit of secularism at the same rate as the State run secular schools. Despite the pc correctness from Ms Gillard she also knows that many people are comfortable with homosexuals going around their daily business but are sickened by public displays of perversion. That is why she backed down along with many of her other so called convictions on 'gay' marriage as if their really ever could be such a thing.

Oh, oh I agree with Cheryl. It was a thoughtful article. If that happens again I'll get really confused.

Well done to Max Wallace for writing it and OLO for putting it up.

I hope the Greens get enough power so that people won't dump the Greens for minor indiscretions and minor policy shadings. Labour and Liberal can Lie, Steal public money, have extra-marital affairs (gay and straight) and everybody still supports them and votes for them. If the Greens support climate change too much or not enough, or say they will or won't give Catholic schools money, people go back to Labour and Liberal. Yuck. At least they aren't business as usual.

Love Ya Cheryl but we still need to get sustainable and stabilising population is still one important step.

@Leigh. "The Greens rely for their votes on the young and on the irrational. Most people mature and become more conservative as they grow older: … ."

If you are claiming a causal connection between maturing and becoming more conservative, you leave us curious about whether you use the verb "mature" to mean getting older or getting wiser. If you mean the former, you might have evidence on your side as it does appear that conservative people represent a bigger proportion of older groups than younger. But if by maturing you mean getting wiser, then you are making the outrageous, unsupported and, I think, unsupportable claim that the wiser people get, the more conservative they become. And many would think that people making that claim have already excluded themselves from the subset of the population on whose behalf they are making the claim.

Philosophically I am opposed to the financial exemptions religious institutes enjoy. However, government funding for religious and other private schools cannot be abolished.

During the 60's governments issued the same threat, to cease funding to private schools.

Spokespeople for private schools at the time, threatened to send every child from every private school to state schools on the Monday, following funding withdrawal. The threat of funding withdrawal was hastily abandoned.

The Greens are smart enough to understand that it is cheaper to pay recurrent grants to private schools than for government schools to be inundated with thousands of children they cannot accommodate and which would cost the taxpayer much more than the recurrent grants now being issued to private schools.

Max seems to make the common mistake of assuming that being pro-abortion, pro-gay etc is some kind of secular, atheist or agnostic "position". It's not. Heaps of people who have no religious faith are anti-abortion or anti gay marriage and so on. Others are pro these things. Despite Max's view, we are a secular state. Pell and other religious leaders can have their say. It's up to us whether we take any notice. We generally don't.

Max's article is more about the Greens harvesting the far left vote. They do that already. Their problem is that not many Australians are far left. Pauline Hanson had a similar problem, albeit at the other extreme of the political spectrum. We are an overwhelmingly secular society and, thankfully, a politically moderate society as well. That's why Australia is such a great place !

Max says, "Of course, the Greens would have to declare that their secularism would not mean a reconsideration of funding for Catholic schools"... that's already a done deal due to the DOGS case where the High Court has determined they will get funding.

Too late to get that changed, which is why Xenophon's windmill tilt is doomed too... no chance of excising one set of religious fruitcakes from the rest.

As for David f, grow up man.... they have no choice but to keep that money bleeding to the faith schools, because of DOGS.

You sound like that goose Adams, resigning from the ALP because the most pious person in the ALP got dumped, his godbothering mate... fair suck of the sauce bottle!

For others here, worried about the atheist leanings of the Greens, don't fear.

I went to a Greens meeting once. It was full of Papists fiddling with beads, New Ageers eating stargazey pie, irrodologists, tarot carders, white witchesnwarlocks as well as fed up ex ALP voetrs and every now and then, a person concerned about the environment.

The Greens are already far more 'secular' than most parties, beyond the Secular Party, and as Max says, Bob Brown would be well advised to grasp the nettle and declare then to be a 'secular' party with a very distinct secular education policy.

Actually, the Greens used to declare their 'secularity' some years ago, so it's just a case of going back to the future (I hate that phrase) and picking up what every political party in a secular state should be stating openly, up front, and honestly.

I'll even consider voting for the Australian Sex Party if they stand a candidate in Qld-they say no more tax free status for religions, and the Greens next but I really do want to vote for a political party that is 'secular' above all else.