The Prime Minister said at his press conference on 2 March: "A secular state means that there is no established church as the official head of state. It doesn't mean that we abandon our Judeo-Christian heritage or that we eliminate official reference to God".

Why does the Australian Government not have the same understanding of separation of church and state as that which applies under the Constitutions of truly secular countries such as the USA and France, and given that a Newspoll survey conducted in February this year found that 46% of Australian voters know that there is no separation of church and state in Australia, and that 57% of those with a view wanted the Government to introduce a new law to separate religion and government in Australia, and that 26.8% of Australian voters professed no religion at all, why should their tax dollars be syphoned off into supporting religion, and why won't the Government establish a Charities Commission, and why should businesses owned by religious institutions receive a competitive tax advantage over their rivals?

In the the State Aid or Defence of Government Schools case of 1981, Justice Sir Ronald Wilson said: "The fact is that s.116 [of the Constitution] is a denial of legislative power to the Commonwealth and no more. The provision therefore cannot answer the description of a law which guarantees within Australia the separation of church and state".

Justice Sir Ninian Stephen said s.116 "cannot readily be viewed as a repository of some broad statement of principle concerning the separation of church and state, from which may be distilled the detailed consequences of such separation".

In view of these unequivocal findings, and given that the then Treasurer, John Winston Howard, was one of the main respondents in this extremely important case and could therefore be reasonably expected to know the conclusions their Honours reached about the meaning of s.116 of the Constitution, namely that there is no constitutional separation of church and state in Australia, why did Senator Minchin tell the Senate: 'It is a fact that in Australia .. there is a separation of church and state" and why won't the Government enact legislation to correct the ruling of the High Court, if Senator Minchin, the Treasurer, the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Prime Minister all say they believe in separation of church and state?