Australia: Chaplains to be Renamed as 'Christian Volunteers'

The South Australian Opposition has decried the announcement by the Liberals in Parliament that state school chaplains will no longer be able to call themselves chaplains.

|TOP|Education spokeswoman for the Australian Liberals, Vicke Chapman, made the announcement in Parliament Tuesday that the Education Department is proposing the change in title.

South Australian Opposition, however, denounced the proposals to rename state school chaplains as "Christian volunteers" was political correctness gone mad, according to ABC News.

Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said the proposed change of terms form part of the review currently underway of an agreement with the heads of Christian churches to meet new child protection guidelines relating to volunteers.

Ms. Chapman said: "The Minister has advised that this is no longer acceptable for them to be referred to as chaplains and that they will now have to be known as Christian volunteers."

|AD|She added: "Pastor or chaplain would be someone who had a qualification and the legal advice is that it is indeed passing off if someone pretends to be qualified in a way when they are not."

Meanwhile Australian churches have been voicing strong opposition to the Government's proposals to change welfare, claiming the reforms will result in an underclass of poor dependent of working poor reliant on charities, family and friends, in order to supplement low wages.

Church-based members of the Job Network, which include The Salvation Army, Catholic Welfare Australia, UnitingCare, Anglicare Australia and the St Vincent de Paul Society, voiced their opposition to the welfare changes most recently in a parliamentary inquiry earlier in the week.

"This is an agenda that passes the buck on poverty and inequality," said the St Vincent de Paul Society in CathNews.

The Society added: “It contributes to greater income inequality at a time when there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that the slide into growing inequality has been arrested.

"Furthermore, it does nothing to really enable people to participate in work, education or the community. It does not offer dignity. It takes away hope."