Australia has been a secular country since federation.
The Constitution of 1901 prohibits the Commonwealth government from interfering with the free exercise of any religion. But how far can freedom of religion go in a country where Christians have been the majority since European settlement, whilst 30 per cent of the population has no religious belief? For tens of thousands of years, Australias religion has been based on the spiritual traditions of the Dreaming practised by its first inhabitants. The focus shifted towards Christianity following the arrival of European settlers in the late eighteenth century.
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