AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT

SCHOOLS

 

Press Release 736

 

Asset Wealth of Catholic Church in Australia exceeds

$30 billion: Why are Taxpayers Subsidising this Parallel State?

 

DOGS have always argued that the Catholic Church in Australia never needed State Aid for its schools.

 

The church itself is a multinational corporation, adhering to mediaeval canon law. In this it differs little from any Muslim group giving priority to sharia as opposed to Australian law.

 

It enjoys enormous international wealth yet is parasitic for the continuing growth of that wealth on taxpayers of the Australian sovereign state.

Direct State Aid for private schools now exceeds 13 billion per annum of which the Catholic church enjoys the major slice. But it is taxation exemptions that are the most valuable source for its asset portfolio.

 

The Church has never had any need for taxpayer funding for its schools. They were largely independent of public funding from 1880 to 1964. The decision to fund them in the 1960s and 1970s was a political one, expressed in a grovelling need of the Lib-Lab governments for votes.

 

In 1970 DOGS NSW did research on the value of church property in NSW in a manner similar to that employed by the current Age journalists. Municipal Councils in Sydney at that time were prepared to give up their own valuation of church property.

 

 Councils have always had an interest in valuing church property. These exempted assets represent massive amounts of income foregone for both Councils and ratepayers. The DOGS research was used in a submission to a Senate enquiry into the setting up of Catholic teacher training colleges – which later became Catholic universities.

 

When DOGS issued Press releases with their investigative findings in the 1960s and 1970s, the Age editor, Edwin Graham Perkin accused Ray Nilsen, President of DOGS, of being ‘sectarian’. He said the Age would not print any DOGS material. In those days, damning facts and figures calculated by Ray Nilsen had to be revealed in printed Advertisements[1].

 

But now Ray Nilsen and the DOGS researches have been vindicated. Investigative reporters, with the assistance of local Councils,  are revealing the blatant wealth and hypocrisy of the Catholic church in The Age on Monday 12 February 2018 at https://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2018/catholic-inc-what-the-church-is-really-worth/

 

What has happened since Perkins of the Age censored the DOGS ?

The DOGS have not changed. And what said would happen has come to pass. In the last fifty years, the Catholic church together with other religious denominations have rorted the so-called ‘Needs’ system, identifying with the wealthy, the powerful and the disreputable, bringing both themselves and the Christian religion into grave disrepute.

 

Julia Gillard, in her short traumatic time as Prime minister, very courageously made at least two historic decisions and took action on them. She decided to do something about the augean stables of the Catholic church shenanigans and

 

1. Established the MySchool website which made public direct public grants made to both private and public schools.

 

1. Established a Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse of children.

 

The exposure of public funds for the ‘needy’ diverted to the ‘greedy’ by the Catholic church , not to mention their miserly treatment of vulnerable victims of sex abuse by the clergy has led to both a moral and political decline in the influence of the Catholic church in Australia.

 

What does the Age report of 12 February 2018 say?

The reporters, Ben Schneiders, Royce Millar and Chris Vedelago are prepared to say that the Catholic Church  represents a ‘parallel state’, a ‘secret state’. This imperium in imperio , manages upwards, opposing any accountability from the State or from the ACNC(Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission).

The Catholic Church in Australia, has always been shy of revealing the worth of its assets, especially when expected to pay any compensation to victims of sexual abuse. In 2014 the Melbourne Roman Catholic Trusts Corporation cried poor to the tune of just $109 million . This figure represented the ‘ historical’ cost paid for property in the eighteen and nineteenth century

But although the Catholic Church may still have many friends in high places – including political parties and the juridicary -  a small tax at the local government level has bought its secrecy and ‘historical’ accounting procedures undone. In mid-2017 the three Age journalists  noticed an old story in a suburban newspaper in which the church had complained about paying the fire services levy. If the church was paying the levy, it seemed likely that councils were valuing its property. They followed up the story to confirm that professional valuers engaged by councils now routinely valued church property.

More importantly, the Councils were prepared to provide the figures, and Edwin Perkin was no longer the Editor of the Age, frightened of being labelled ‘sectarian’ because of his Methodist connections.  

That is how the journalists got the figures of $9 billion for Victoria and $30 billion for Australia, with many assets listed and valued.

DOGS wait with interest to see how long it will take for the media to link the dots. Today there is outrage that the Catholic Church is miserly with the victims of sexual abuse.

When will Australian citizens finally realise that the only way to deal with mendacious religious men and obtain true religious freedom is to cease taxing citizens for the propagation of religious beliefs to which they do not adhere.

When will they understand that the only way to educate ALL Australian church and provide them with educational and job opportunities and the nation with prosperity is to provide State Aid to State Schools only.

 

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