Sally Rugg

I believe the draft legislation defines religion as both the presence and absence of religious beliefs and practices. This is probably to get around a constitutional challenge but it means anyone including atheists can make use of the laws.

No that’s not right, the legislation privileges belief over non-belief (and protected status like disability, gender ID etc)

Actually, the High Court’s 1981 Defence of Government Schools Case went a long way to defining legitimate religious groups. “Administrators and Judges must resist the temptation to hold that groups or institutions are not religious because ... (1 -see next)

...claimed religious beliefs or practices seem absurd, fraudulent, evil or novel; or because the group or institution is new, the number of adherents small, the leaders hypocrites, or because they seek to obtain the financial and other privileges which come ...[2-see next]

Serious question - does anyone have a link to the legal criteria for “a religion” in Oz?

The High Court had a decent stab at it in 1983 when the Scientologists sued Victoria, but even then they noted there’s no entirely satisfactory definition that, say, includes Theravada Buddhism but excludes revolutionary Marxism. https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/775012EF0058A77DCA25697E00184BDC?opendocument …

But they do maintain a list of accepted religious organisations as part of the Marriage Act... not sure what the criteria is. They have added and kicked off some over the years.