Secular Party of Australia
political party in Australia
The Secular Party of Australia is a minor Australian political party, founded in January 2006 and registered as a federal political party in 2010. It aims to promote secular humanist ethical principles and the separation of church and state in Australia.
In early 2022 it merged with other parties to become the Fusion Party, however continues to exist as its own entity.
History
The Secular Party was founded in January 2006 after discussions in late 2005, and registered as a federal political party in 2010.
In 2005, the Secular Party took out a series of advertisements airing in prime time, spoken by party founder and then vice-president John Goldbaum. The campaign often used the slogan "Don't Let the Church Govern Australia", attacking the policies of the Howard government concerning abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage.
In 2007 the party merged with the similar Freedom From Religion Party. The phrase "Freedom From Religion" was appended as a subheading to the main party name on the website and in marketing materials. This subheading has since been changed to "Challenging Religious Privilege".
The party contested the 2007 Federal Australian election by fielding candidates for each Australian state's representation in the Senate under the campaign slogan "Don't Let The Church Govern Australia - Keep Religion Out of Politics".
“Secular Party of Australia” enters the record as political party in Australia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Secular, Party and Australia can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Secular Party of Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.