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Tasmania’s Parliament is moving to treat ordinary Christian parenting and pastoral care as a problem to be regulated, and in the Greens’ bill, as a crime.

Over the past couple of weeks, it has become apparent that many of the members who represent us in the Tasmanian Parliament do not seem to believe in the values that have made Tasmania and Australia great places to live and work. Those values, derived from our Christian heritage, are freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of belief.

Instead, a worrying trend of anti-Christian authoritarianism seems to have found a happy home in the hearts and minds of many of our representatives. We cannot let this stand.

Two Bills, One Troubling Direction

Even if you strongly disagree with me about human sexuality, the existence of God, the value of faith or any number of other things, you ought to agree (if you believe in the Australian way of life and the liberal democratic values that have made us a free and prosperous nation) that people have a right to organise themselves among other like-minded individuals, raise their children according to their values, and express their beliefs freely and openly.

Two deeply concerning issues have shown that our Tasmanian Parliament is losing its mooring as a place built on liberal democratic freedom. The Greens’ Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026, and the recent Inquiry into Discrimination and Bullying in Tasmanian Schools. Both set up Christians as some kind of bogeyman.

In the case of the Greens’ bill, ordinary parenting, prayer and pastoral care risk being treated as a path to criminal liability, even the stigma of a child-abuse finding. The bullying inquiry majority treated faith as an afterthought, gave little weight to evidence from Christian and Catholic schools, and recommended that contested gender policies be pressed onto every sector, including schools parents choose because of their beliefs.

An Attack on Liberal Democratic Principles

Both are an attack on Christians’ ability to practice their faith freely and raise their children according to their own values. Worse, both are an attack on the fundamental liberal democratic principles on which this country was built. I guess one should not be too surprised that a move away from Christian values in a secular society leads to less freedom, but it is a worry nonetheless.

I am so concerned about this that I have written to my Franklin and Pembroke members over the last two weeks. So far, only two, who I would already describe as on the side of freedom and faith, have replied. They are equally concerned. The rest of my local members are yet to get back to me.

I include both letters (sent a week apart) below to help you think through the issues and understand more about my concerns with this Parliament.

The question for the Tasmanian Liberal Government and Premier Jeremy Rockliff is pretty clear. Do they actually believe in their foundational liberal democratic values and in the value of faith and freedom? Or has the Tasmanian Liberal Party become deeply illiberal, like it would seem many other members of the Tasmanian Parliament already are?

I will keep you updated as I hopefully hear back from our servants in the Parliament of Tasmania. If you’d like to write to your local MP, check out this great resource from Freedom for Faith: https://contactyourmp.org.au

Let’s hope Tasmania remains a place of diversity, difference and freedom, not a monoculture of forced belief.

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Letter 1 — Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026

Dear representatives of Pembroke and Franklin,

I write as the Anglican Rector of Lindisfarne Anglican Church, a father of two girls, a local community leader, and Chaplain to multiple community organisations. Earlier this year, I also led the City of Clarence’s response to the National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Bondi terror attack. These roles reflect a life of service, values that both our community and successive governments have consistently affirmed.

I am writing about the Tasmanian Greens’ draft Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026.

Several years ago, I discovered that my local primary school in Lindisfarne had filled its office and entrance with rainbow flags, Minus18 materials, and posters promoting adult sexual and gender ideology to young children. I documented this experience in a series of posts called “The Dark Side of the Rainbow” on my Substack, Faithful Fatherhood. I raised measured concerns as a parent. I asked simply that faith be treated with the same respect as other identities, and that primary-school children not be exposed to contested adult ideas about sexuality and gender.

The response from the school and the system made clear that parental rights and ordinary Christian concerns were secondary. In the end, my family was effectively forced out of the state education system in order to protect our daughters. The Tasmanian Ombudsman reviewed my case and identified serious failures in how those concerns were handled.

That experience already showed how quickly institutions can treat ordinary parental and religious guidance as suspect. The Greens’ Bill now threatens to turn that cultural pressure into criminal law.

As currently drafted, a single conversation or prayer, even one requested by an adult, or a loving conversation between a parent and their own child, can be treated as a “conversion practice.” Consent is irrelevant. Where a child is involved, the Bill states that injury need not be proved, and the conduct can be classified in law as child abuse. The supposed protections for religious teaching, prayer and parental discussion are circular: they apply only where the conduct is “not part of a conversion practice.” In practice, they offer no reliable protection.

I ask you directly: how can you support or vote for legislation that risks sending someone like me to jail simply for living out the faith that underpins the service the community and the government value in me? The same faith that motivates my work as a rector, a father, a local leader and a chaplain would, under this draft, become a potential pathway to an indictable offence and the stigma of a “child abuse” finding.

I fully support protecting people from coercive, abusive or genuinely harmful practices. That is not in dispute. This draft goes far beyond that. It threatens parental rights, religious freedom, and the ordinary pastoral care that churches have offered for generations, without requiring proof of harm.

I have made all these concerns known to our congregation. Our church is full of citizens from all walks of life and many ethnic backgrounds who seek to love and serve their neighbours and their nation. They do not appreciate that Parliament is considering a bill that will make them child-abusing criminals simply for living out their faith.

I respectfully request a meeting so I can explain these concerns in person and hear how you intend to approach this Bill. I would also invite you to attend our church one Sunday at 10 a.m. to explain to our parishioners why you value their contribution to society and do not intend to make them criminals.

Thank you for your service to Tasmania. I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Bowditch

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Letter 2 — Inquiry into Discrimination and Bullying in Tasmanian Schools

Dear representatives of Pembroke and Franklin,

I am writing as a parent whose family was directly affected by the issues this inquiry was established to examine. I lodged Submission No. 8 with the Inquiry into Discrimination and Bullying in Tasmanian Schools, and in June 2025, I also submitted to the Commonwealth Anti-Bullying Rapid Review. Both drew on our experience in our local government school and on the Tasmanian Ombudsman’s review of our case.

This sits alongside the concerns I wrote to you about last week on the Greens’ Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026. Both involve the same question: whether Tasmania will protect children from real harm without using the law to suppress lawful parental guidance, pastoral care and the teaching of Christian belief. I have not yet had a reply from most members.

I supported an inquiry that would treat bullying and discrimination seriously for every student. I am now deeply concerned about both the process and the outcome.

What happened to my family

At Lindisfarne North, we encountered messaging that welcomed “all sexualities, genders, identities, cultures” while omitting faith. A teacher instructed my daughter not to share classroom experiences with her parents. After we left, the school sent automated absence notices, and I was blocked from the school Facebook page without notice or a clear appeal process.

The Ombudsman identified administrative shortcomings in DECYP’s complaint handling: delays, lack of policy clarity (including social-media terms of use), and inadequate attention to religious diversity in inclusive-language guidelines. These were not abstract disagreements. They eroded trust, left us feeling our Christian identity was unwelcome in a government school, and contributed to our decision that we could not keep our daughter there safely and in good conscience. That is a form of exclusion. An anti-bullying inquiry should have been able to name it.

Process

The Committee received nearly 300 submissions, including mine and substantial evidence from Christian and Catholic schools describing zero-tolerance anti-bullying policies, pastoral care, and environments parents choose because of shared values. The majority report gives that evidence far less weight than contested claims about faith-based schools and gender identity.

Amendments that would have given equal recognition to freedom of religion and belief, parental responsibility, institutional autonomy, and the lawful character of faith-based schools were rejected. Cautious language on contested allegations about Catholic Education Tasmania was also rejected. The Committee is not a court, yet it made findings on legally unresolved conflicts between Tasmanian and Commonwealth law.

The majority treated one set of contested beliefs about sex and gender as requiring stronger legal and policy protection, while treating religious conviction and parental choice as secondary. That is not a balanced inquiry into bullying.

Outcome

I support every student being safe from bullying, harassment and unlawful discrimination. I do not support using an anti-bullying inquiry to lock contested gender ideology into law, regulation and funding conditions that reach into non-government schools.

Recommendations that all schools implement preferred-name policies, that government press the non-government sector for consistent facilities and policies for gender-diverse students, and that the Anti-Discrimination Act be reviewed without a corresponding strengthening of religious-freedom protections, go well beyond protecting children from harm. They risk requiring faith-based schools to operate contrary to the beliefs for which parents choose them.

The report does not adequately address the inverse problem I raised: government schools whose “inclusive” practices and complaint processes can themselves marginalise Christian families. Inclusive-language guidelines that name sexuality and gender but treat faith as an afterthought, opaque social-media blocking, and slow or privacy-constrained complaint handling are real sources of distress and disengagement. The Ombudsman pointed to the need to review those guidelines. The majority report did not treat that gap as central.

The joint dissenting statement by Michael Ferguson MP and Mark Shelton MP is the part of the report that matches both the evidence and the principles a liberal democracy should apply: protect students from bullying without imposing uniform beliefs; balance anti-discrimination with freedom of religion, association and parental responsibility; allow faith-based schools to remain genuinely faith-based; treat contested evidence fairly; and consult the communities that would be regulated before changing the rules.

Parents are already voting with enrolments. That choice should be respected, not treated as a problem for the state to manage.

What I ask

• Read Submission No. 8 and the Ombudsman’s letter alongside the majority findings.
• Support the approach in the Ferguson and Shelton dissenting statement rather than recommendations that extend contested gender policies across all sectors.
• Insist that any review of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 give equal weight to religious freedom and the ability of faith-based schools to maintain their ethos.
• Ensure DECYP’s inclusive-language and complaint-handling policies are revised so that faith is not omitted and parents are treated with procedural fairness.
• Protect genuine parental choice and pluralism instead of using “consistency” as a vehicle for ideological uniformity.

Bullying is wrong whoever the target is. A standard that only sees some identities as vulnerable, and treats religious families and faith-based schools as obstacles, will not produce safer schools. It will deepen the exclusion my family experienced.

I am happy to provide the Ombudsman outcome letter, my submissions, or to meet.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Bowditch

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Republished with thanks to Faithful Fatherhood. Image courtesy of Adobe.