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The takeover of the Calvary Catholic Hospital Canberra by the Labor-Greens Government in the ACT should send a shudder through every religious and privately run health and educational institution in the country.

The snatch-and-grab operation by the ACT Government, which was rammed through the ACT Legislative Assembly last month, is unprecedented in Australia.

As former Vice Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University Greg Craven said:

“The attempt by the ACT Government to compulsorily acquire the Calvary Hospital in Canberra is an attack not only on religious freedom but the rule of law. Unchecked, it will provide a bitter precedent into the future.

“This is not just about religion. Any person or corporation could have their business confiscated under a tailor-made acquisition scheme. But if you are a faith or values-based service organisation – Muslim, Christian or Jewish – be very afraid indeed.”

The ACT Government denies its motivations in taking over Canberra’s second hospital are sectarian, but all evidence points to the contrary.

Calvary Hospital does not perform abortions, nor actively engage in euthanasia (though it does perform an extraordinary service to the people of the ACT in palliative care), and an ACT parliamentary committee condemned the hospital for not providing “reproductive health services”.

The new hospital will be renamed and all vestiges of the decades of service expunged in the name of better organisation and efficiencies through a new hospital on the site, which will cost $1 billion.

Yet ACT Health has one of the worst performance records in the country.

The takeover pushed by the Greens should dispel any semblance of doubt that the Greens are predominantly concerned about environment issues. They are not.

The beginnings of the Calvary Hospital reach back to Sir William McMahon when he was Treasurer, when he signed off on a special arrangement between the federal government and the then proponents of a Catholic hospital in Canberra, which would give the hospital federal funding support in perpetuity.

Even back then, there was sectarian opposition to the special deal from the federal bureaucracy.

However, McMahon, who was not Catholic but had an affinity for the works of the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary, who also ran the Lewisham Hospital in his electorate and who were to run Calvary Canberra, ignored the objections of the public servants.

In other words, from the start, Calvary Hospital Canberra was very much a federal responsibility – not an ideological plaything of the far-left Labor-Greens parties who have a stranglehold on the ACT.

In 2010, then ACT Chief Minister but now Federal Finance Minister Katie Gallagher said the proposed takeover of Calvary instigated by the Greens should not proceed.

Now Senator Gallagher sensibly said: “Compulsory acquisition could also be a disaster that would cause a lot of conflict and would put the system into disarray.”

Now in a position to do something about that disaster, Senator Gallagher is embroiled in other controversies, and will be reluctant to turn against her former comrades in the ACT Assembly.

The Federal Opposition is seeking to hold a Senate inquiry into the takeover, but the Albanese Government is running away from the decision. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is a Catholic, has effectively endorsed the decision.

As Professor Craven wrote: “The truly terrifying thing is just how far the Calvary example can be stretched. Today, from the Greens to the Reds through the fluffy Soft Pinks, there is a menacing intolerance of religion. Schools should not reflect faith and hospitals should not follow conscience.

“The logical implication is that there should be no religious schools or hospitals. Once achieved, religions sundered from their missions of service would wither into irrelevant flocks of marginalised believers.”

The truth is that, if the Prime Minister had picked up the phone to Chief Minister Andrew Barr, the ACT Labor Party would have caved immediately.