Just to clear things up, seeing how this is about Aussie schools, which I am currently in:
1. RE = Religious Education, an optional choice of class in years 7-12 in which you can spend one period every 2 weeks in a Religious class of your choice (provided there's enough students in the school of that faith to support the class), those that opt not to do RE get a free period (yay!), but some teachers (that supervise juniors in this free period) try to make RE sound like a better choice by forcing you to do pointless busywork in Non-RE time, because as we all know; some teachers suck.
2. RE is legal in public schools in Australia because we do not have a separation of Church and State, we have a State Religion and the only reason it's not mandatory is the Multiculturalism Policy (look it up on Wikipedia, it's awesome!).
3. In Australia evolution is taught freely in Science classrooms, but in the interest of quieting nutters who want equal time for creationism, we found a way to put all creation stories into the curriculum in a fair way:
At a certain point in year 9 when evolution is first introduced the Teacher gives a short talk on how there are many non-scientific theories of creation, then said teacher is required to issue a homework assignment in which each student is to choose a different theory of religious creation, research it and then state what that theory is in a short talk to the class; now bear in mind that every student MUST do a different one (lazy dude gets Xtianity) and it can be ANY creation story. I myself did the pastafarian creation story. This assignment counts nothing towards your final mark, it just has to be done. It's awesome because it has the effect of making all other theories besides the scientific ones sound even stupider.
4. On that note Various is a douche because Australian curriculum (as described above) is actually very open about discussing evolution and marks in Science classes are never based on getting the "right" result, but rather having the best methodology, so you won't be marked down for being a creationist.
5. I think it would be great if they introduced a humanism class into the RE slotted time as an alternative to the Non-RE free period.
6. Australia despite not having a separation of Church and State has way less religious interference in State affairs (except for that daily prayer in parliament, which some senators of other faiths want removed as a violation of multiculturalism, but it stays because parliament has better things to worry about). Which I guess is because of the way that multiculturalism is drilled into us in primary school.
7. Again this guy is a Wanker who has no idea what is actually taught in Australian schools.
