An extended interview can be found at PM's homepage

[3.4M MP3]

Barney Zwartz reports in the Age about the launch of atheist bus ads in Melbourne.

ATHEISTS have begun an advertising campaign on Melbourne buses, proclaiming ''Atheism - celebrate reason'', the first time they have entered the fray in such a public way.

The signs are on the backs of 24 buses until March 29, when the number will rise to 40 and the advertisements will be included on the sides as well, according to Atheist Foundation of Australia president David Nicholls.

''This is the first time we have advertised in public in such a big way - it's a very significant move forward for atheists,'' Mr Nicholls said.

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MEDIA RELEASE

The Freethought University Alliance, a coalition of atheist, humanist, secular and skeptic campus groups from universities across Australia, will be launched at The Rise of Atheism, 2010 Global Atheist Convention.

The Alliance will connect student leaders and help them work together and grow as a collective student movement dedicated to furthering science, reason and secular values in Australian society. The Alliance will provide students with useful advice, resources and networking opportunities, and also support students planning to start new aligned groups on university campuses.

The 2010 Global Atheist Convention is pleased to be sponsoring the launch event of the Freethought University Alliance, to be held at 12:30PM on Friday 12 March 2010 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Special guest PZ Myers, famous atheist and science blogger, will be a guest speaker at the event, which is open exclusively to university students and includes a free lunch.

To register, send an email to jason@umss.org with your name, university and student number.

Places are strictly limited and are filling fast.

http://ausfreethought.org

The Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA) has questioned a decision by the Victorian Government to reject an application for funding for the Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne next March.

The application was made in June 2009 through the Premier’s Department. It was then passed like a ball of flaming brimstone to the Convention and Visitors Bureau and, from there, to the Victorian Multicultural Commission where it has remained, smouldering, for months.

The AFA was advised that the basic criteria for funding was over one thousand ticket sales, including purchases from interstate and overseas. That goal was accomplished in October.

Also in October, the Atheist Foundation received a letter of rejection from the Premier’s Department. But, when AFA President, David Nicholls, questioned the decision he was told the letter had been sent in error, because the application was now being handled elsewhere.

This week, the Convention & Visitors Bureau advised that it was rejecting the AFA’s application because the Convention was already ‘secured’. This was a surprise to the AFA, who believed their application was being handled through the Multicultural Commission and had never been told that securing a venue would disqualify the Convention from funding. In fact, the venue was secured months ago prompting no comment from any government department until now.

"One has to ask," says Nicholls, "how you can confirm 1,000 ticket sales before having a venue secured."

"And," Nicholls continues, "if our application didn’t meet the government criteria, why did they hold on to our application for five months without once mentioning that fact?"

The Global Atheist Convention is a major international event, involving an impressive line-up of world-class speakers. The Convention has been promoted world-wide and will be the largest gathering of freethinkers in Australia’s history. At least 2,000 people are expected to attend the event, bringing considerable publicity and revenue to Victoria. While applications were made to federal, state and municipal authorities with careful attention to meeting funding criteria, not one application has yet been approved.

Conversely, The Parliament of the World’s Religions which is hosting 5,000 people at the same venue (the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre) has attracted $4.5 million in government support – 16 times the amount requested by the AFA.

"The atheist community is large, well-educated and well-connected," said Nicholls. "It’s not going to take long for word to get out internationally that Victoria does not welcome non-theists."

Still, Nicholls is hopeful the situation can be resolved.

"Either this is an ideological and bigoted decision on the part of the Brumby government or a serious bureaucratic bungle. We’re very hopeful that it’s the latter and that Mr Brumby will step in quickly and put things right."

Contact:

David Nicholls
President
Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc
Private Mail Bag 6
Maitland SA 5573

Email: info@atheistfoundation.org.au
Phone: (08) 8835 2269
International +61 8 8835 2269

Web: http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au

Forum: http://atheistfoundation.org.au/forums/

Convention: http://www.atheistconvention.org.au

A major and sustained Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA) last week caused a major disruption, took down both the AFA and Global Atheist Convention websites and forced the organisation to move its online operations to another server.

The attack came in the wake of the Atheist Foundation’s announcement that in the first three weeks after the official launch, 1,000 tickets have been sold for The Rise of Atheism Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne next March. The Convention will be the largest gathering of atheists and other freethinkers in Australia’s history.

With a stellar line-up of international and local speakers including Richard Dawkins, Peter Singer, PZ Myers and Catherine Deveny, the event was already attracting world-wide attention.

As news of the attack broke online in The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and a number of other major newspapers, the publicity generated spread news of the Global Atheist Convention broadly.

“Thanks to the AFA technical team, we were able to get our Convention website up quickly to take advantage of the huge wave of interest generated by the news reports,” says Nicholls.

Ironically, while the attack was almost certainly aimed at silencing the Atheist Foundation’s call for a more secular Australia, the resulting publicity has only highlighted the importance of freedom of speech and rational debate.

“We don’t know who launched the attack on our websites – and they certainly succeeded in taking us out of action temporarily – but ultimately, the result has been positive. There’s been overwhelming support for the Foundation and the Convention on internet forums, and we’ve had a sharp spike in ticket sales” says Nicholls.

On a humorous note, a group of Facebook atheists has called for non-believers and advocates for freedom of speech to respond to the attacks on the AFA’s websites by participating in a global co-ordinated minute of prayer on 8 November. The aim is to inundate God with so many useless requests that it will cause him to go offline as a result of their DDOS ('Divine' Denial of Service) assault.

Contact:

David Nicholls
President
Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc
Private Mail Bag 6
Maitland SA 5573
Australia

Phone:
Australia – (08) 8835-2269
International - +61 8 8835-2269

Continued discussion and commentary is occuring around the web, but here are some comments that have been published in The Age that you may find an interesting read.

Published Thursday 8/10
Money

THE Parliament of World Religions will receive $4.5 million from the taxpayer. Will the Atheist Foundation get its proportional $500,000? Somehow, I don’t think so.

Tony Dear, Forest Hill [Vic.]

Published Friday 9/10

'Worthless' causes

IT WAS a refreshing change to read "For Heavens Sake" by Geoff Lacey (Letters, 7/10). A sense of humour is a seemingly miraculous change from the outrage proffered as just cause for exemption from equal opportunity legislation and taxation obligations.

To answer Geoff's question (Why a conference?), I refer to a fraction of the documented concerns of most Australians. Religious groups file no income tax returns unless they agree and are exempt from GST, fringe benefits tax (of more than $15,000 per employee), stamp duty, payroll tax, land tax and rate payment. With the Roman Catholic Church being Australia's largest property owner, this is indeed only just.

Except for Israel and Hungary, Australia is the only nation in which religious groups have no obligation to pay any tax on commercial businesses or pay capital gains tax on the sale of assets. When religious groups begin providing financial services, they are free from regulation and compliance rules that are imposed on banks under the Banking Act. Once exempted, their operation is free from review by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

I empathise with Geoff's confusion: Australia is the land of The Great Fair Go, thus clearly doesn't need an atheist convention. Yet human rights, democratic freedom and basic tolerance for all will always find a voice - no matter how "worthless" he finds these quaint ideals. Oh, sorry, "atheist causes".

Paul Gallagher, Hawthorn East [Vic.]