Chaplains in Australian public schools? A matter of philanthropy

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the case of chaplains in Australian public schools to construct a Foucauldian dispositif. In examining the interplay between discourse and material structures, we argue that the embedding of chaplaincy in public schooling is driven by economic rather than purely ideological discourse. We highlight the evolving social and political dynamics and the construction and regulation of knowledge and practices, demonstrating that philanthropy is central to student welfare provision in Australian public schools. Using excerpts from parliamentary debates in the Australian Federal Hansard, policy documents, case law, and Australian tax regulations, we identify significant political moments that position chaplains as critical welfare workers in public schools. This analysis underscores the subtle, often invisible power of philanthropy in sustaining and deeply embedding chaplaincy within public schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Chaplaincy
• student wellbeing
• philanthropy
• fundraising
• dispositif
• policy
• politics
• public schooling

Introduction

Many nations have a long history of ‘faith-based’ welfare provision. Before the rise of the welfare state in the post-World War era, faith-based charities – or at least philanthropists of faith – were central to the ways in which a nation provided support to the disadvantaged. While the twentieth century welfare state has been written about as the economic mechanism that saw demands for secularism in public service provision (Hasenfeld and Garrow 2012), Swain (2017) argues that throughout this period the core contribution of faith-based charities, and their easy partnership with government, continued largely unchanged. Indeed, with the roll back of the welfare state under the auspice of the Big Society, or the post-financial crisis incentivisation of social service privatisation, there has been a swap from ‘big government’ to big corporations and big charities in public service provision. As Dowling and Harvie (2014) argue, in this downsizing of the public sector many social benefit programmes are transferred to charities (or companies) that are then granted public subsidies alongside their private philanthropic work to support public service delivery.

The problem, as discussed in international literature, is the agenda these faith-based philanthropic providers might have. For instance, Minow (2003) highlights that religiously affiliated social service agencies have received funding for decades through government contracts. She observes that these organisations typically exist independently as nonprofit organisations, formally separated from places of worship or ritual, but their staff or volunteers are acting out of religious conviction and pursuing practices guided by religious teachings. Much research has focused on evangelical proselytising, and how in the post-welfare era, faith-based initiatives are an opportunity to advance evangelism in a holistic and socially acceptable way (Elisha, 2011). Rather than ‘door knocking’, community engagement is achieved through philanthropic service provision (Wier, 2014). The concern emanating from much of this research is how social service provision by faith-based providers can undermine public commitments to ensure fair and equal treatment, and to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. While such concerns are important, the outrage discourse – that is, communication that is highly emotional and polarising – associated with the ideology of faith-based providers often overshadows or distracts from the underlying economic discourse that justify the creation and maintenance of policies that favour faith-based, privatised welfare provision. In other words, emotional and ideological rhetoric can make it more difficult to see and address the practical, economic reasons behind these policies.

This paper focuses on the issue of chaplains in Australian public schools. While much research has debated the appropriateness of religious instruction in secular educational settings (Barnes, Myers, and Knight 2023; Dewsbury 1979; Fraser 2016), the argument posited in this paper is that more attention should be focused on the economic rhetoric that works to sustain chaplains in public schools. Our argument is that the government does not have a moral commitment to chaplains in public schools. Instead, their primary focus is on delivering welfare services in a manner that minimises taxpayer spending. Faith-based organisations, with their ability to raise funds through philanthropic efforts (that is, the gathering of tax deductible donations from individuals, businesses and foundations (see Twombly 2002)), as well as their extensive use of volunteers (that is, the act of individuals offering their time, skills, and efforts without financial compensation (see Bielefeld & Cleveland, 2013)), align with this model of cost-effective service provision. By leveraging these organisations, the federal government can reduce its direct expenditure on welfare services while still appearing to meet social needs. This approach allows the government to achieve its goal of efficient resource allocation without a genuine ethical or moral investment in the specific role of chaplains. We evidence this argument by highlighting that the national debate surrounding chaplains in Australian public schools – particularly discussions that influence legislation – have centred on the economics of chaplaincy funding, rather than the ideology behind chaplaincy provision.

In the following sections, we first provide context for understanding how policies are designed to incentivise or nudge faith-based organisations to participate in welfare provision (Lehr 2021). Next, we outline the role of chaplains in Australian public schools, focusing on the federal funding of this service since 2007 under the Howard government’s ‘National Schools Chaplaincy Program’ (NSCP). We also detail the recent broadening of this policy framework in 2022 to the ‘National Schools Wellbeing Program’ (NSWP) under the Albanese government. This shift is significant as it appears to address public calls for the federal government to create new tax concessions for non-faith-based organisations to place secular ‘student wellbeing officers’ in public schools. This change prompted our empirical work in this paper to better understand the power, tension and interplay between economic narratives – such as how policies work to reduce taxpayer spending (see Marginson 2013) – and ideological narratives, which encompass the moral and ethical concerns associated with welfare provision. This aim led us to adopt Foucault’s (1980) concept of the dispositif as a guiding theoretical and methodological framework. The dispositif is useful for analysing the complex and dynamic relationships that exist between policy, politics, and broader societal elements, such as laws, discourses, and practices.

In developing our dispositif we used sources including the Australian Federal Hansard (henceforth Hansard), that is, the proceedings of the Australian parliament and its committees, Australian case law (specifically Williams v. Commonwealth), and a complaint made by the Queensland Parents for Secular State Schools (QPSSS) to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). Through this empirical work we demonstrate how knowledge, social norms and material resources (particularly of parents), interact to produce changes in public school chaplaincy arrangements. Additionally, the dispositif helps reveal the underlying assumptions that sustain the power of ideological narratives, highlighting that legal approaches, focused on economic narratives – of government legislation and tax law – are crucial for political reflection and policy transformation.

Faith-based welfare provision and nudge economics

Faith-based welfare providers are a new name for an old idea which is the Christian church’s role as a provider of charity within Western societies. In this paper we conceptualise faith-based welfare providers as ‘institutions, associations and activities that lie between those of the tax-funded central state, the market and the elementary social unit of the family household’ (Szreter and Ishkanian 2012, 4). These include a diversity of charities and mutual aid organisations, lobby groups, sporting organisations, philanthropic and social networks that have differing levels of formality and access to power. These institutions are typically organised according to legislative tax requirements that allow them to collect donations and government grant monies.

In the post-World War Two Keynesian welfare state the government took on significant responsibility in providing social welfare. This was a departure from previous practices where such responsibilities often fell to private, religious organisations. However, in the rollback of the welfare state, there has been a return to the status quo. However, the new iteration of privatised welfare does have increased levels of organisational regulation. This regulation is a feature of post-neolibral managerialism, often known as authoritarian neoliberalism, that has taken on different manifestations in different states (Gallo 2022). Big Society, for instance, is the idea that ‘individual citizen-volunteers doing good in their community, organising themselves and taking responsibility for sorting out their locality’s needs’ (Szreter and Ishkanian 2012, 4) is core to the welfare of a community, rather than a government funded welfare system. Under this system, private welfare providers are incentivised to take up the government’s role in welfare provision. Additionally, policy systems are put in place to make it very difficult for an organisation, like public schools, seeking welfare provisions to access it outside of these incentivised organisations. This approach to policy development is a concept derived from welfare economics. Economic sociologists like Palumbo (2004) and economic historians like Slobodian (2018), observed that proponents of the welfare state successfully embedded economic policies within the broader policy system, beyond just Treasury and finance. This integration made welfare economics difficult to dismantle. Neoliberal actors recognised this strategy and argued that political actors aiming to implement neoliberal or marketised economic policies needed to replicate this approach. Within this framework, all social policy became economic policy.

Big Society economic policies have been promoted in various countries, including Australia. For example, under the Howard federal government (1996–2007) there were progressive movements to outsource social security processes to registered Christian charities such as Mission Australia and Lifeline. Randal-Moon (2016) refers to this as social security with a Christian twist, where Howard positioned himself as a moral political figure who understood the possibility of religion (Maddox 2005) and made strategic political moves that combined conservative family values with neoliberalism (Jones 2021, 318). The way to do this was to utilise ‘nudge economics’, a concept from behavioural economics that involves subtle policy shifts to encourage desired behaviours without restricting freedom of choice (Lehr 2021). The government is able to ‘nudge’ faith-based charity organisations to take on the provision of public services through financial incentives such as tenders, grants, tax breaks and the ‘Deductible Gift Recipient’ (DGR) status. The chaplaincy program, we argue, was such an opportunistic initiative that aligned with the Big Society economic framework developing at the time.

The most practical barrier to this blue sky ideal was that charities and volunteer organisations were already a significant part of how a community functioned, even within the welfare state. The government’s utilisation of charities to engage in the furthering of community public services did not, or refused to, acknowledge the unsustainability of the venture. For example, the Covid-19 pandemic saw two-thirds of volunteers stop volunteering across Australia, equating to over 12 million hours of unpaid labour per week (Davies, Holmes, and Lockstone-Binney 2021). Despite the instability in the Big Society concept, there are some organsiations in the state-market-family nexus that were powerful before the nudge economics policy initiative and remain powerful during the collapse in volunteering – faith-based organisations. Faith-based organisations have the ability to prop up their volunteers and workers where other organisations do not. They already have deep networks within communities through faith-based activities, such as churches, church schools, and youth groups, that can tap into funding outside of the nudge economic government grants. It is these organisations, those that have survived the rise and fall of several political and economic systems, that are of interest to us.

Contextualising chaplains in Australian public schools

The National Schools Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) began as a Howard government initiative in 2007. Importantly, chaplains did exist in public schools prior to the NSCP, but there was no federal funding to support this initiative. Instead, chaplains were funded through a variety of arrangements, including local school budgets, community contributions, grants, and sponsorships, and the internal fundraising capacity of the faith-based organisation providing the chaplain. The NSCP was said to bring a more consistent approach to funding chaplaincy services in all Australian schools, allowing them to employ a chaplain regardless of their financial resources, or ‘capacity to contribute’. However, the NSCP only provided a contribution of $20,000 to a school, while the average annual cost of employing a full-time chaplain was $55,000 (Kantar Public 2014). Essentially, this meant that all schools could potentially access a chaplain for 2 days per week with federal funding, and other schools could choose to extend this service through various funding arrangements decided between them and the service provider.

Under the NSCP, chaplains play a non-religious, non-evangelical role in schools and are legislatively prevented from engaging in religious proselytisation. Chaplains can be engaged from any religious entity, but 98 percent are Christian (Jones 2019). It’s important to note that schools cannot directly employ a chaplain. Instead, they must use a third-party service provider that has a contract with the Commonwealth Government to deliver chaplaincy services in schools. The biggest provider of chaplains is Scripture Union Queensland, known as Scripture Union Australia from 2022. Scripture Union is an organisation with ‘Deductible Gift Recipient’ (DGR) status. This means any donation over $2 made to this organisation (and all other ‘faith-based’ chaplaincy providers, like YouthCARE, ACCESS Ministries, Generate Ministries, and so on) are tax deductible. Financial information from Scripture Union highlights that in the 2020 financial year they expended $23 million in chaplaincy expenses, and that this was funded with $16 million in government contract revenue (i.e. NSCP funding) and close to $8 million in donations (leaving almost $1 million in surplus). These public donations continue to grow, with more than $12 million reported in the 2022 financial year. Without this philanthropy, the CEO of Scripture Union, Peter James, suggests that Chaplaincy services would be hampered:

While chaplaincy receives government funding, Scripture Union can only provide the number of chaplains, hours and services because of the donations made by thousands of community supporters … [this] directly translates into additional hours of wellbeing services for students in government schools. (quoted in Karp 2023, n.p.)

Thus, the NSCP is a strategy of nudge economics that has worked to expand the work of chaplaincy providers and increase schools’ access to chaplains. The rapid uptake of chaplains in Australian schools – increasing from 27 chaplains in public schools nationally in 1995 to over 3000 schools by 2018 (Jones 2019) – was considered a pragmatic response by schools desperate for additional resources (see Richards 2010). Indeed, the review of the NSCP conducted by Dandolo (2022), highlighted that a majority of stakeholders view the program as ‘necessary and valuable, but that the religious affiliation of the chaplain role was contested, with many having a strong view that funding chaplains in schools is inappropriate’ (15). Recommendations in this report included changing the name of the program and the way funding is directed to include a broader definition of a ‘Student Wellbeing Officer’ to ‘not only reduce the polarisation of community views, but also create a more-inclusive program’ (Dandolo 2022, 16). In making this recommendation, Dandolo (2022) recognised that the requirements for schools to engage a Student Wellbeing Officer through a third-party provider would likely limit access to secular pastoral care providers given current DGR status arrangements. The only provider that gave a choice between a chaplain and a student wellbeing officer was ‘Your Dream Inc’ – a registered charity with DGR status. While the Albanese government has broadened the NSCP to the National Student Wellbeing Program (NSWP), and allowed schools a choice of whether they hire a chaplain or a student wellbeing officer, the problems in service provider provision remain. In the following section we turn to our empirical contribution to further problematise chapliancy provision.

Research approach

A dispositif was utilised as a theoretico-methodological device in this paper to conceptualise the discursive (re)construction of chaplaincy in Australian schools. Foucault (1980) defines a dispositif to be ‘a thoroughly heterogenous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions – in short, the said as much as the unsaid’ (194). A dispositif is, therefore, a network or tangle of the discursive and non-discursive, and how all these elements work together and affect each other. The dispositif evades unidirectional cause and effect (Villadsen 2021), and cuts across rigid and fixed categories that we might otherwise use to understand things, like institutions (such as schools), class or culture (Raffnsøe, Gudmand-Høyer, and Thaning 2016). Instead of looking at things separately, the concept of the dispositif helps us to think about interaction. For instance, this includes ideas, knowledges and practices regarding chaplaincy and how these are created, shaped and communicated through language. Importantly, while this understanding is shaped by the past, it is also continually re-shaped and re-defined in the current moment. Understanding the many contributory components for chaplaincy in Australian schools means that we can better understand, for example, how discourse influences material reality in ways that may not be immediately obvious.

A dispositif was constructed in this work by undertaking an analysis of historical material dating back to 2006, including sources from the Hansard, governmental policy and reports, case law, and ATO proceedings. In using these sources, we better understand how types of knowledge and plays of power are constituted and transformed relationally regarding chaplaincy. The Hansard provides insights into the regimes of truth and rationalisations that intersect with institutions and practices to constitute the manifestation of chaplaincy. Our initial search of the Hansard began with identifying any reference to the ‘National Schools Chaplaincy Program’ and the ‘National Student Wellbeing Program’ between 1 January 2006 and 30 June 2023. This search returned 32 references to debates about the NSCP and 15 references to debates about the NSWP. We read these excerpts and inductively analysed them to identify the heterogeneous elements (i.e. the institutions, practices, technologies and individuals) that make up chaplaincy, and how the discursive (i.e. the speeches and spoken text) and non-discursive (i.e. the budgets, policies and organisational structures) formed relations with the material conditions to (re)construct chaplaincy in Australian schools.

In examining these documents, we identified three key economic rhetorics connected to chaplaincy in public schools: (1) the need to provide (cheap) student counselling through federal funding of the NSCP; (2) the pivotal disrupture of Williams v. Commonwealth and the High Court ruling that the federal funding of the NSCP was illegal on Constitutional terms; and (3) the complaint made to the ATO by the QPSSS about the potential illegality of how one provider was using their DGR status to fundraise for chaplaincy provision. Within each of these we trace the way ideas have evolved in relation to NSCP/NSWP policy over time. By doing this work, we note key moments and the rise of new material practices. Indeed, by partially mapping the contemporary Australian dispositif of chaplaincy, we have made clear that chaplaincy is not a fixed or static thing, instead, it is always changing and evolving in its discursive and non-discursive forms, or the way it’s understood and talked about and therefore, adapted to meet different circumstances and evolving contexts.

The dispositif of chaplains in Australian schools

From proselytizing to (cheap) pseudo counseling

The common assumption is that the NSCP is debated on ideological terms, with public discourse engaged in concerns of proselytizing. Indeed, some of the academic research on chaplains has furthered this claim by suggesting the program is not religiously neutral (Patrick 2014). Further, Fagg (2023) has recently argued that chaplains are able to negotiate the ban on proselytising through dialogical evangelism: ‘Rather than suppressing any discussion of religious belief or contravening the ban through unwanted preaching, they discuss faith with young people when the conversation is led by young people’ (12). Yet, very few references in the Hansard respond to concerns of proselytizing. For instance, Senator Collins (Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations, VIC, ALP) brings up the issues of proselytising in defense of the expansion of the NSCP under the Gillard government,

I want to deal with criticism of the program, as there have been critics who claim that chaplains are proselytising in schools. That is not what the program is about and, indeed, chaplains operate under strict guidelines that preclude such proselytising. The reality is that Christian agencies and organisations have a long and proud history of providing much-needed support services across a range of community settings … Why shouldn’t schools have the support of a chaplain to provide pastoral care and help where it is most needed?¹

Similarly, in 2011 Mr Garrett (Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) spoke to the guidelines of the NSCP that ‘make it very clear that is not the purpose of the chaplain to proselytise a particular position, dogma or faith but, rather, to provide pastoral support to students’.² Here, in the early days of the program – or at least its renewal under a new government – we see the emergence of a welfare discourse that connects chaplains with pastoral care.

Pastoral care is understood broadly, with multiple parliamentarians discussing how chaplains might facilitate breakfast programs, school events and attend camps; but increasingly,

deal with a wide range of issues, often and most frequently with behavioural management and social relationship issues, including anything from anger, peer relationships, loneliness and bullying … They deal with grief and loss, mental health, school authority issues, alcohol and drug use, physical and emotional abuse and neglect, self-harm and suicide.³

More than basic ‘pastoral care’, chaplains are seen to perform a psychological function in schools. Indeed, this is discursively captured by an address of Ms Rea (Member for Bonner (QLD), ALP),

[S]chool chaplains play a very vital role, which is effectively a counselling role … If we acknowledge that the role that chaplains are playing is primarily an important and significant one because of the counselling that they do, then I believe the government should look through its budget processes at ways in which it can provide a broader service that may not necessarily just be faith based. There could be other forms of counselling and other opportunities for a school community to provide that support to its students.⁴

Similarly in this same ‘adjournment’, ALP Member for Fowler (NSW), Mrs Irwin observed ‘there is a crying need for a boost to school counselling services and family support measures … to address the needs of disadvantaged schools’. These excerpts by Ms Marino, Ms Rae and Mrs Irwin, show chaplaincy became aligned with psychological discourse and practices, the modern way of re-conceptualising age-old ecclesiastical exercises within secular ideals. This link is a crucial element in the construction of the dispositif as it illustrates how specific roles and narratives are strategically developed and deployed within the broader framework of welfare provision. The integration of chaplains into the welfare discourse involves aligning their responsibilities with the broader goals of pastoral care and psychology; the dominant knowledge-power system prefiguring what ‘care’ looks like in contemporary society. This legitimises their presence in public schools.

In fact, the discursive framing of chaplains as pastoral care workers with a counselling role led to an important material practice. The Gillard government introduced minimum training requirements for chaplains, including a Certificate IV in Youth Work and a Certificate IV in Pastoral Care, or equivalent. As Mr Garrett (Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) stated in the reading of ‘Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Bill’ in the House of Representatives in 2012 to maintain ongoing funding for the NSCP,

All existing chaplains who do not meet any new minimum qualification requirements will be required to complete two units … effectively in mental health. These minimum provider standards are very important as they ensure increased national consistency … [and] greater quality assurance that services provided under the program are delivered appropriately.⁵

The purpose of this change seemingly strengthened chaplaincy’s neutral ties with psychology, but it also underscored the ability to maintain existing structures of student welfare service provisioning in schools. Thus, despite Ms Rae and Mrs Irwin calling for a review of funding mechanisms in support of the expansion of non-faith-based counselling services in schools, the government was able to ensure that the chaplains came with greater ‘quality assurance’. However, there was a second legislative amendment made by the Gillard government to expand the definition of ‘worker’ under the NSCP with schools receiving funding to choose a chaplain or a student welfare worker. However, as had been previously discussed in November 2011 in Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Committee, there were problems in the reality of schools choosing a student welfare worker given the existing contracts in place between the federal government and faith-based service providers, like Scripture Union. In sum, this movement from provision of a chaplain under the Howard government to a quality-assured pastoral care worker (that is still fundamentally a chaplain provided by a faith-based organisation) under the Gillard government, exemplifies the centrality of economic discourse within the dispositif of chaplains. Rather than pay for psychologists in public schools, the government was able to set minimum standards for chaplaincy services, thereby reducing additional taxpayer costs associated with enhancing welfare provision whilst maintaining a semblance of quality.

Williams v. Commonwealth and school fundraising support for chaplains

Williams v. Commonwealth was a landmark case involving the interpretation of the Australian Constitution. The case, formally known as ‘Williams v. Commonwealth (No 1)’ and ‘Williams v. Commonwealth (No 2)’ are two separate but related decisions by the High Court in 2012 and 2014, and are collectively referred to as the Williams case. In this case, the central issue was the legality of funding for the NSCP. The plaintiff – Mr Ron Williams – a father of students at Darling Heights State School objected to the appointment of a chaplain at this school, arguing that it exceeded the constitutional powers of the Commonwealth. This objection was not one based on ideology, but on the misappropriation of federal funds through the contractual arrangement between the Commonwealth, and in this specific case, Scripture Union Queensland. The High Court ruled that this provision of chaplaincy services was invalid under section 61 of the Constitution and that the Commonwealth did not have executive power to enter into funding agreements (i.e. contracts with Scripture Union Queensland) or make payments under them, and payments were therefore invalid.

As discussed in the House of Representatives, this decision put the federal funding of a further ‘416 programs in jeopardy’ and the government moved quickly to introduce a ‘sunset clause … [to provide] sufficient time to provide a proper legislative basis for them’.⁶ The emergency amendment to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 to ‘empower the Commonwealth … to make, vary or administer arrangements under which public money is or may become payable … including payments or grants of financial assistance, including payments for the purposes of particular programs … [without] judicial review’ worked to validate contracts and payments made under the NSCP, and as a result, Commonwealth funding for the NSCP continued as it had done prior to the Williams case.

The Williams case was another significant event in constructing the dispositif sustaining faith-based service provision in public schools. This case identified the ‘surface’ or the visible elements that constitute and sustain these services, such as policy funding mechanisms and political practices. While it may not be explicitly acknowledged, fiscal discourse and economic structures and practices predispose the way power flows regarding institutions of faith and their influence in schools. Foucault would agree that economic factors are integral to the operation and influence of power, and through the Williams case we see the mechanisms by which faith-based organisations gain their influence within the educational sector, and equally, the way this influence can be ruptured. This highlighted how a dispositif can be challenged and transformed through legal intervention, and while the Williams case didn’t ultimately change the outcome of how the federal government funds the NSCP, it did lead to a reinvigoration of debate about chaplaincy funding arrangements.

In responding to the High Court decision, parliamentary debate focused on the significant philanthropic support of chaplains in schools. For instance, Mr Tudge (Member for Aston (Vic), LNP) clarified that ‘the [NSCP] funding provides about two days of a chaplain’s time to work in a particular school. Frequently, however, schools will do their own fundraising so that their school chaplain can be there full time’.⁷ Similarly, Mrs Prentice (Member for Ryan (Qld), LNP) argued using Big Society concepts, ‘support for a chaplain must come from the community … given federal funding is only $20,000 per school’. Indeed, she referenced the emergence of ‘a type of government-community partnership for local chaplains that has provided a great deal of community cohesion around the chaplaincy program’.⁸ The Hansard contains multiple references to cake stalls, sausage sizzles, ‘chap-lathons’ and other community fundraising activities required to raise the sums of money needed to keep chaplains in schools. In this way, political debate focused on school fundraising broadened the economic discourse beyond the simple allocation of government funds. By actively raising funds, schools are seen to participate in and perpetuate a narrative that assigns economic value to faith-based welfare services, reinforcing their importance and legitimacy. This dual funding model – of federal grant money and a school’s own fundraising efforts – sustains and more deeply embeds chaplaincy into a school’s structure, making it a standard and expected service and an integral part of the school community’s identity.

A QPSSS complaint to the ATO and lobbying for expanded philanthropy

Every current provider of chaplains and student wellbeing officers are registered charities or faith-based organisations that are able to fundraise under their DGR status and/or the DGR category of ‘furthering religious instruction in Australian schools’. The tensions surrounding this emerged in 2018 when a complaint was made to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) against Scripture Union by the Queensland Parents for Secular State Schools (QPSSS). QPSSS claimed that Scripture Union was breaching its tax deductibility status to collect donations to support the chaplaincy program, because chaplaincy is based on pastoral care, not religious instruction. The response from Scripture Union in 2018 was that it was meeting its obligation under taxation law and defended their DGR status by arguing that chaplaincy is ‘explicitly religious in nature’ (cited in Karp 2023). This unveiled a clear tension between the guidelines of the chaplaincy program as ‘secular’ and the need for religious organisations to philanthropically support their placement of chaplains in schools through the most relevant DGR category of furthering religious instruction. There is no information on the ATO’s decision on this complaint, citing ‘secrecy provisions in taxation legislation’. The Morrison government temporarily listed Scripture Union as a provider with DGR status from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2023 as a ‘temporary fix’. However, Scripture Union has recently revealed that this status has not been extended under the new Albanese government, and as a result ‘will no longer be able to issue tax-deductible receipts for donations made [after 1 July 2023] to support a chaplain’s in-school hours’ (cited in Karp 2023). This event adds additional complexity to the dispositif as it unveils that chaplains are supported through a tri-funding model – government grant money, school fundraising and organisational fundraising through DGR status. This tax-deductible status encourages contributions from a wide array of donors and again, reinforces the economic value and legitimacy of chaplaincy, positioning it as a worthy and socially sanctioned recipient of financial support.

This issue of DGR status for chaplaincy provision emerges in the Hansard in August 2023 in Federation Chamber – Private Members’ Business – National Student Wellbeing Program.⁹ Mr Wallace (Member for Fisher (QLD), LNP) gets to the heart of the matter, the fiscal argument,

Today I call on the Albanese government to continue investing in the National School Chaplaincy Program in the long term. I call on them to restore the DGR status to Scripture Union and all other charitable organisations providing chaplaincy services to schools … If the government were fair dinkum about the welfare of young people and the importance of chaplaincy to young people, why on earth would they have removed the DGR status … What does the government have against these religious bodies? I do not know. I call upon them to return that DGR status today.

Mr Perrett (Member for Moreton (QLD), ALP) responds by suggesting flexibility in choice between a chaplain and a wellbeing officer is important, particularly for

schools situated in lower-socioeconomic communities … [that] don’t have the luxury of a well-funded and well-resourced church group to help pay the wages of a chaplain. The more stretched a community is, the more chance they’re unable to fund a chaplain, and – let’s be honest – the kids in that school probably have more challenges. So the option to employ a qualified wellbeing officer is important for such communities.

This debate continues over the following months in a similar fashion, with multiple representations from LNP members calling on the reinstatement of DGR status for chaplaincy providers. This debate highlights that politics – and ideological commitments – influence the construction of dispositif. The Labour government is generally more aligned with secular and progressive values, and often emphasises policies that promote equity and inclusivity. By removing DGR status, the Labour government might aim to reduce the privileging of faith-based organisations over secular support services that could benefit from similar funding. This move could be framed as an effort to create a more inclusive environment in schools that respects diverse beliefs and backgrounds. It also highlights that politics play a crucial role in shaping power dynamics within the dispositif and consequently, how ideological political decisions shape the allocation of resources.

This discourse that opens economic mechanisms to secular support services has given rise to the recent lobbying of the ATO to create a DGR category to support broad pastoral care and wellbeing services in schools. The consultation document on the implementation process of this new DGR category referenced the need to compliment the federal government’s support of pastoral care services in schools through the NSWP by ‘encouraging greater private philanthropy to meet increasing demands for these services’ (Commonwealth of Australia 2022, 2). It further suggests that ‘the creation of a DGR category will provide a clear and equitable mechanism for any provider of eligible services to access deductible donations’ providing more flexibility to Australian schools about what pastoral care looks like in their community. Indeed, the report makes clear that ‘pastoral care can be provided in many different guises and may be delivered by both religious and non-religious providers’ (4). Despite this clarification – and potential for Chaplaincy providers to raise funding via this fund rather than the furthering of religious instruction – the Albanese government has yet to proceed with the establishment of this DGR category.

Summarising the dispositif

Using Foucault’s concept of dispositif allows for the analysis of the complex interplay between discourse and material structures. We have shown that the dispositif surrounding chaplains in Australian schools has adapted over time to shifting economic, social and political contexts, and the ways in which knowledge and practices are produced, regulated and disseminated. We see how significant moments, events (or ruptures) provide impetus in which dominant ideas, narratives and forms of rationalisation are constructed and maintained. For instance, the election of the Rudd/Gillard government in 2007 influenced the discourse surrounding chaplains, moving them from potential proselytizers to pseudo-psychologists with a key role to play in counselling students, especially in (disadvantaged) public schools. This discourse is created and maintained – in part – by arguing that chaplains are not adequately trained to do this work, and that they lack the necessary skills and resources to act as ‘front line’ student welfare workers. The material consequence of this is the implementation of minimum training requirements, and the expansion of policy about who can operate as a welfare worker in schools. The problem here, as highlighted above, is that the pre-exisiting contractual arrangements with chaplaincy providers made it difficult for schools to choose a secular welfare worker – and this clause was removed from the NSCP on the election of the Abbott government in 2013, and was only reinstated with the Albanese government in 2022 with the shift to the NSWP.

Foucault (1980) noted that many aspects of the dispositif operate invisibly and become normalised within society. In this case, economic policy is the hidden discourse. People are not necessarily aware of the economic mechanisms and structures (i.e. the tri-funding model) that shape chaplaincy in public schools. We tend to assume the debate surrounding chaplains is focused on ideology. In part, this is because there are numerous anecdotes of P&Cs pressuring their public school leadership team to end contracts with chaplaincy providers, in favour of secular provision of public schooling. Teacher unions and public education advocates have also campaigned for this for more than a decade (Mulheron 2018). In fact, the Williams case is often cited generically to this effect, yet in reality, this High Court challenge was in relation to funding arrangements of the NSCP. Indeed, this event spurred a ‘doubling down’ of discourse by parliamentarians on the importance of chaplains in schools through reference to the huge community effort it takes to sustain a chaplain, particularly through the role of school fundraising. This idea of ‘mutual obligation’ where chaplains are sustained by federal funding (for 2 days per week) and a school’s capacity to contribute for the remainder of the week has the effect of shaping our understanding that chaplains are wanted and valued in public schools. This mechanism intertwines economic practices with institutional norms, reinforcing the presence of chaplains in schools through government and community investment. The rushed legislative amendment of a ‘sunset clause’ allowed the NSCP to continue to function, demonstrating how legislative practices within the dispositif can adapt to sustain existing power structures. Our argument is that the ideological discourse surrounding the in/significance of chaplains is a distraction from the dominant economic discourse, which shapes and maintains the embeddedness of chaplains within the public school system.

Finally, the future of chaplaincy in Australian public schools reflects what Foucault (1980) terms the exercise of power through regulation. As Foucault would argue, power operates in pervasive (but sometimes subtle) ways. The removal of DGR status for Scripture Union, the largest chaplain provider marks a significant shift. The special DGR status granted by Morrison and revoked by Albanese suggests a broader network of elements at play. Conservative parliamentarians argue that ending DGR status for chaplaincy providers undermines welfare work in schools during a student wellbeing crisis (post-Covid-19). In contrast, Labour parliamentarians are focused on discourses of equity, and that schools actually have flexibility in welfare worker choice now. This flexibility in choice, however, comes at the expense of the tri-funding model and has two potential consequences. The first, is that if faith-based organisations cannot philanthropically support chaplains in public schools through DGR fundraising, perhaps this ‘levels the playing field’ and gives a chance for secular service providers to emerge. Under this model both secular and faith-based providers will be unable to fund additional days for a welfare worker or chaplain to be in a schools beyond the $20,000 government grant. However, the second, related consequence is that rather than creating equity across public schools in accessing their choice of welfare worker, this will be stratified by a school’s capacity to contribute through their community fundraising efforts. It is likely that a more advantaged public school will be able to fundraise additional days for their welfare worker/chaplain.

Concluding thoughts

We began this paper with the idea that the welfare state had been dissolved in favour of the Big Society concept. Reduced state intervention through the emphasis of market mechanisms works to endorse the involvement of private actors and charities in delivering public services. The case of chaplains in Australian public schools is a key example of the ways in which civil society organisations – particularly faith-based ones with a strong emphasis on volunteerism and philanthropy – are seen as key contributors to social welfare. Indeed, this is Big Society at work, for good or bad but always dangerous (Foucault 1980), because it is an acknowledgement that private industry is more capable than government at providing essential services for schools.

The dispositif we have partially reconstructed suggests the principle of secularism in public schooling is one of ‘smoke and mirrors’ and works to distract people from the underlying and dominant discourse prefiguring relations in education systems (that is, money). While ideology is powerful, an ideological argument is a difficult one to prosecute. There are clearly differing beliefs, values and worldviews (often drawn alongside the ‘left’ and ‘right’ of politics) and emotional attachments to ideals that can hinder productive dialogue (as is evident in some excerpts of the Hansard). Ideologies work to keep policies in place. Yet, when the argument turns to law, flaws can be found by litigious people, and policies, structures and regulations can change. We suggest that both Ron Williams and the Queensland Parents for Secular State Schools are parents who might be motivated by ideology, but adopt a realist stance. We affectionately termed these parents ‘radical accountants and atheist lawyers’ when writing this paper, because they were able to turn their principled stance into a commitment to finding and exploiting funding loopholes in government policy; the economic discourse. Indeed, parents and advocates are a significant part of the dispositif that work alongside the conceptual and material to produce effects and outcomes. Parents exercise power in ways that often work to centre childrens’ rights. The acts of Williams and QPSSS show that when the state doesn’t deal effectively with the welfare needs of students, parents will try to ‘nudge’ them to. As Ball (1993) notes, policy can only ever respond to a complex configuration of elements, but that policy change can often be traced via the logics of connection between crises within the economic sphere and changes in consciousness within ideology, and that together, these lead to realignments of influence in the political.

Our final thought concerns the ongoing role of philanthropy in student welfare provision, particularly through community fundraising by schools and broader fundraising efforts by faith-based providers with DGR status. Reliance on philanthropy as a substitute for government responsibility is insufficient to meet the serious and growing needs for student welfare services in public schools. The shift to broaden the definition of welfare worker under the NSWP is perhaps an ideological move towards a ‘market-with-morals’ (Peck 2010), but student welfare governance remains marketised. It relies on private entities to provide these services, and requires schools to contribute financially. This approach raises concerns about equitable access to welfare workers in public schools, potentially exacerbating disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged schools on the basis of their capacity to contribute. Indeed, it seems useful and appropriate given current policy mechanisms that DGR status is given to any provider capable of placing allied health professionals in public schools. Our argument, framed through the construction of this dispositif, is that welfare work in schools is entrenched in an economic discourse, making access to chaplains or student wellbeing officers a matter of philanthropy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [grant number DE210100994].

Notes on contributors

Anna Hogan

Anna Hogan is an associate professor in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests focus on education policy and how issues of privatisation, commercialisation and philanthropy affect public schools and those in them. Anna is a lead editor of the Journal of Education Policy and the Australian Educational Researcher.

Naomi Barnes

Naomi Barnes is a senior lecturer in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Queensland University of Technology. She is a political sociologist of education interested in how crisis influences education politics and policy, with a specific focus on moral panics. Naomi regularly comments on how Australian teachers should respond to perceived threats to Australian nationalism, identity, and democracy.

Adam Delroy

Adam Delroy is pursuing PhD in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership at Queensland University of Technology. His research interests focus on the effects of student management systems (SMS) on pastoral care arrangements in schools.

Notes

1 https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F2010-11-16%2F0158%22.

2 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/f2b003ac-3c2a-4ce2-94a6-69827f8e1f98/&sid=0299.

3 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/b9c79f46-7f3a-4739-acb9-ec8d676c1b6b/&sid=0139.

4 https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2009-10-19%2F0208%22.

5 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/b9c79f46-7f3a-4739-acb9-ec8d676c1b6b/&sid=0131.

6 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/b9c79f46-7f3a-4739-acb9-ec8d676c1b6b/&sid=0150.

7 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/b9c79f46-7f3a-4739-acb9-ec8d676c1b6b/&sid=0150.

8 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/b9c79f46-7f3a-4739-acb9-ec8d676c1b6b/&sid=0144.

9 https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansardr/27158/toc_pdf/House%20of%20Representatives_2023_08_07.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22chamber/hansardr/27158/0423%22.