Tell the federal government they’re dreaming. That’s the message on the High Court’s schools chaplains decision from the actor who, as Darryl Kerrigan in the hit film The Castle, became one of the country’s most famous High Court victors.
Actor Michael Caton’s utterances entered the vernacular from his performance as the knockabout Kerrigan, a tow truck driver and greyhound trainer who fought off an attempt by Melbourne Airport to compulsorily acquire his home in the 1997 film. The actor has been described in the media in recent days as a supporter of Ron Williams, the Queensland father who successfully challenged the federal government’s program to fund chaplains in schools, in the High Court.
Caton told Crikey that while he was not heavily involved in the case — he thought he might have signed a letter of support — he backed Williams and was delighted with the High Court result.
“I’m all for it,” he told Crikey. “I sometimes feel like David rather than Goliath. I just think that the forces of oppression are there, the conservatives, the bishops.
“It is probably a lesson to the Commonwealth to just keep their noses out of people’s private lives really.”
Caton called on the government to follow the High Court’s decision by ending the chaplains program. He laughed — almost as much as Kerrigan did at Hey Hey it’s Saturday in the film — when asked if he was seen as Australia’s go-to man on constitutional battles. “It’s true isn’t it, I cannot deny it,” he said.
Caton says his antipathy to the chaplains program stems from his Catholic upbringing. He was picked on at school for his religion, and witnessed hostility between Christian denominations in the playground.
“I think one of the main causes of dissension in the world today is religion,” he said.
Parents who want religious instruction for their children should seek it out, perhaps by enrolling in a religious school, but “don’t lay it on the rest of the people who might want to be much more neutral”.
In The Castle, the modest Kerrigan family home, built on lead-tainted land near Melbourne airport, was threatened with compulsory acquisition for an airport extension. Kerrigan launched a legal challenge that went all the way to the High Court where, with the help of QC and fishing companion Lawrence Hammill (Bud Tingwell), Kerrigan carried the day and saved his home, complete with pool room.
As for the reason Williams was successful — in real life this time — in taking on the chaplains program in the High Court? Perhaps that can be put down to the vibe of the constitution.
I know it is cool to bag out the chaplaincy program, but despite the very real issues of “church and state” and how much they should intersect or not… at the end of the day no school has to have a chaplain. Only the schools that want them, get them.
It is a voluntary system, and the state schools that have them were surveyed and found to be 97% happy with them.
And the 3% that were not happy? They can ditch them any time they want to. No school has to have one. Or they can replace them with someone who fits into the ethos of their school better.
And more and more schools are realising that here is some support money for welfare workers, under the title of “chaplains” that would not be available otherwise. If the money dries up, we can all guess that it wont be replaced by equivalent money for secular welfare workers. It will be “a saving in the next budget”.
so despite the tensions of the relationship of church and state, while it remains a system that is voluntary and only in schools that want them, … that is not such a disaster. Indeed: the schools that have them are generally very happy to have them helping in welfare areas.
And Muslims schools that want a Muslim chaplain get it, and Jewish schools that want a Rabbi chaplain get one, and secular schools that pick a local welfare worker that they know, and call her or him a chaplain, get who they want there as well.
It is not as bad a system as many make out. There are some extremists in Qld who are more fundamentalist than the others, and they have helped lead to this recent case, but no school HAS to keep any chaplain against their will.
Of all the extreme policies that Howard brought in (any he did so many!) this is not one of them. And this court case might just make it a little bit harder to have extra helpers and extra programs (even non-religious ones) in schools.
““I sometimes feel like David rather than Goliath.”
This is the same Caton who protested against the proposal to extend the public train system to Bondi Beach? The same Caton who recently paid $1.8 million for “a stunning designer home a thong’s throw from Bondi Beach”?
Hence “sometimes”.
So, because he has made money he’s not allowed to have a social conscience? I want live in a country that encourages both. Not the me, me, me of the Gina Rhinehearts but of ordinary, successful people understanding that living in free society comes with “obligations” not just “rights”
The first time I encountered diehard bigotry was at the age of 7 when I moved from one small country town with only one school to another town just up the road with a catholic school as well as the state school.
Lunch time sport was to “”go and abuse the catholics””.
I went to see what a catholic was and saw my friends from the other small town, jumped the fence and went to play with them.
I was sent to coventry in the public school until I was 10.