Historical and current religious conflicts in Australia?

Answer 1

Historically, religious conflict in Australia has consisted of tension between Catholics, mainly of Irish origin, and Protestants. While this rarely erupted into violence, the two communities tended to see themselves as different. The Catholics tended towards lower socio-economic status and voted overwhelmingly for the Australian Labor Party. Protestant political affiliations were split, but the majority voted for the conservative parties, which after World War II were the Liberal Party and the Country Party (later National Party). Many influential Protestants were members of Masonic lodges. Even the school system tended to exacerbate the sectarian differences so that many children had little chance to get to understand the other point of view, because most Catholic children attended Catholic schools and most Protestant children attended state-funded public schools. One of the key events that broke down this sectarian conflict was the split in the Australian Labor Party, which resulted in many Catholics supporting the newly-formed Democratic Labor Party and eventually drifting to the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party began to take notice of Catholics and include them and the Catholic views in its policy-making process. At the same time, the Australian Labor Party began to attract more Protestants, in order to remain an alternative government. One way or another, conflict between Catholics and Protestants came to en end in the latter part of the twentieth century.

The principal current religious dispute in Australia is between Christians and Muslims. Again, it rarely results in violence, and again it results from a lack of communication between the two sides. Really, the underlying differences are not so much about religion but ethnicity, with religion being a convenient label for immigrant communities.