The pursuit of ''choice'' by our politicians since the 1970s has widened the gap between the wealthy and the rest, and also hammered in religious wedges. Now about 40 per cent of Australian secondary students attend private schools, including new low-fee Christian schools scattered around the country, with significant government subsidies. Meanwhile, conservative Christianity is increasingly being served up in public schools in the form of school chaplains and other programs designed to support ''traditional values''.

Ironically this new emphasis on religion in Australian schools took off just when church attendance and religious adherence were collapsing. The end of Australian secular education does not parallel any desecularisation of Australia's population - quite the reverse. Since the late 1970s, the religiosity of Australia's school systems and of Australia's population has run in pretty much opposite directions.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson.

This seeming paradox has a ready explanation. Handing over ever-larger parts of Australia's schools to religious private operators, and of welfare and values education in public schools to religious enthusiasts and volunteers, reflects the broader pattern of ''outsourcing'' public services to private providers. Beginning with the Jobs Network that replaced the Commonwealth Employment Service during the Howard government's first term, religious agencies have proved successful players in the market for contracts for what were previously government services. This was not necessarily because the services or the clients who used them were inherently religious.

As long-standing providers on the margins of the public system, religious agencies have the experience and infrastructure ready to expand when the need arises. They are also used to working with volunteers, and their paid employees often share elements of a volunteer ethos, including typically being among the most under-unionised in the workforce, meaning religious organisations can undercut public services on price. Conveniently for cost-cutting governments, religious organisations are able to draw on their employees' motivations of love and service - and perhaps evangelical zeal - to compensate for anything missing in the way of salary and conditions.