Christianationalism
It’s beyond silly to still be having these debates. The question, is Australia a Christian nation, comes up at least as often as the query is posed in America, it seems, and just as often engenders furious back-and-forth commentary. Fred Nile’s right in that statements made by federalists at the turn of the century indicate their firm intention to maintain Christian standards of morality in the laws and constitution, but that isn’t any more definitional of Australia as a “Christian nation” than that Elizabeth II was crowned in the context of a “Christian Coronation Service”; the preservation of medieval ritual doesn’t imbue her with any spiritual authority over her subjects, or at least none that any of them would acknowledge or that she herself would attempt to exercise.

Religion is personal. It may be that if enough people take up a particular set of practices and beliefs they can form a subset of society and extract some spiritual benefit (and from my viewpoint that’s an emotional, psychological benefit, really, howsoever difficult it may be to define; so’s art), but that doesn’t translate into an entire national identity.

Admittedly, Australia is about the most Christian-looking country I’ve spent much time in, what with public holidays including Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. Some states also do Easter Tuesday (Tasmania) and “The Day After Good Friday” (South Australia [psst, that’s “Easter Saturday” for those of us who know the days of the week, everywhere but Tasmania and West Australia]), but most of the public holidays are secular: New Year’s Day, Australia Day, ANZAC Day, the Queen’s Birthday, and various Labour Days and days devoted to county fair-type events or horse races.

Insofar as other nations may be designated “Muslim” or “Hindu,” we, like most of Europe and the Americas are, technically, Christian, but in many respects no more so than you’d call some Asian nations “Buddhist.” (I wonder if any African nations have these debates? How do they categorize themselves?) Yes, Parliament, weirdly, opens daily with the Lord’s Prayer, a practice I believe should cease, but we haven’t enshrined the separation of church and state as thoroughly as was managed in the U.S. Constitution, something that could perhaps be rectified at such time as we become a republic. Our principles of governance, the laws we have enshrined and value, may come from a centuries-old tradition that grew, in no small part, from the ancient embrace of Christianity throughout Europe, but that tradition has evolved, even as Christianity has, itself breaking into a variety of sects, and the principle of secular government has a firm hold on how we perceive our civic lives. This does not devalue religion, if that’s your flavor. Remember, Jesus told us not to do as the hypocrites do, making a show of our adherence to religious rules, and to keep what our right hand does hidden from our left hand.