Push to help religious leaders understand Aussie law

The NSW government is trying to help ethnic communities better understand how their beliefs meld with Australian law.

One of the reports, from the New South Wales Community Relations Commission, speaks specifically to newly-arrived religious leaders.

"It is not fair for someone who is trained to be a religious leader, who is a religious scholar overseas, to be brought into Australia and to be confronted with a situation where that person has to give advice which has legal implications in the Australian sense," NSW's Community Relations Stepan Kerkyasharian says.

Many Sydney's community leaders received the report "My Religion, Our Country', at the meeting today.

The NSW Community Relations Commission points out that the document is not about Muslim Sharia law, despite the current debate over whether Sharia law could operate as part of, or in in parallel with, Australian law.

Stepan Kerkyasharian concedes readers could take parts of the reports as a commentary on Sharia.