An extended period of negotiation with the NSW State government over Covid restrictions brought faith communities together and laid the basis for the Faith Affairs Council set up by the Minns Labor government.
Monica Doumit, the Director, Public Affairs and Engagement for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, told the Notre Dame Religious Liberty conference that the former Liberal government had asked religious bodies to work together after the Covid lockdown. The lockdown of religious worship had happened swiftly at the start of the Covid response.
The Health Department had been fully engaged with Covid and did not want to deal with every religious body to negotiate a reopening of worship. The larger religious bodies came together to form a joint response; they quickly found out that they also had to engage the smaller religious groups. For example, they needed to discover the requirements for Buddhist worship.
Doumit singled out Murray Norman, a Presbyterian who had been networking with diverse groups to promote Special Religious Education – the volunteer teaching of religion in public schools – as especially valuable. He knew how to contact a wide range of groups.
The government requirement that NSW’s religious bodies come up with one comprehensive proposal for reopening worship was met. The shifting situation of lockdowns, clinical knowledge development, and virus mutations were navigated. A phased reopening but moving to fully accessible worship as soon as possible occurred.
This Covid experience and other events like the same-sex marriage postal survey led leaders to believe that a formal way of consulting the government would be helpful. Doumit emphasised that the NSW Faith Affairs Council, which became a feature of both major parties’ platforms at the last election, was not replacing the ability of individual religious groups to talk to MPs and the government.
Representatives from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jewish communities were appointed alongside representatives from the main Christian denominations.
According to Doumit, Bishop Michael Stead, Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, was the unanimous choice to chair the faith affairs council.
Besides Stead and Doumit, Christians on the Council include Kamal Weerakoon, former Presbyterian moderator; Murray Norman; Steve Bartlett, Director of Ministries for the NSW/ACT Baptist Association; and Ralph Estherby of the Australian Christian Churches.
The official Faith Affairs Council, organised by the Multicultural Affairs Department, is not the same as Faith NSW, an identity formed by Brighter Better Futures, an organisation that has lobbied for Special Religious Education (SRE). Faith NSW is also an umbrella group for religious leaders but is not an official state government body. Many key leaders belong to both groups.