The ACL gets down to brass tacks on election policies
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Today the Australian Christian Lobby released its now regular “party policy summary booklet”, that summarised political parties’ responses to a range of ACL questions. In truth it’s a bit of a let-down compared to the 2007 version, which neatly illustrated the ACL’s many hang-ups with a variety of questions about s-x. But it does reveal, in passing, just how much the ALP has been making policy on the run. On school funding, the ACL asked for a guarantee that any review of school funding would not reduce funding for fee-independent and Christian schools. The survey was sent out in late June, the ACL says, so evidently it’s only been since then that Labor decided to extend current funding arrangements by 12 months to 2014 regardless of the outcome of the Gonski school funding review. “Federal labor will conduct a transparent review to inform new funding arrangements for 2013 onwards,” Labor told the ACL. The ACL is still focused on controlling women’s fertility but its general emphasis on abortion has been toned down compared to three years ago. It asks whether parties will permit a conscience vote on Medicare funding for late-term abortions. Neither side is willing to go out on a limb. Labor defers to the states and territories and says it supports conscience votes on abortion issues; the Coalition says it has no plans to change current arrangements in relation to abortion. The ACL also asks what will be done to obtain more complete abortion data. Labor talks broadly about better data collection around maternal and peri-natal mortality and morbidity; the Coalition says it supports the government’s position. There’s also the standard ACL homophobia, but more subtle this time around. In 2007 parties were asked if they only supported laws relating to “unreasonable discrimination” against gays and lesbians. This time, parties were asked if they supported defining marriage as “the union of a man and a woman” and limiting surrogacy laws to only permitting surrogacy for heteros-xual couples. P-rnography’s also missing, subsumed within requests for views on a review of media laws and the classification system and internet filtering. There’s an amusing question on sharia law (Christians like having a Christianity-based legal system but not one based on any other religions) and prayer in Parliament, but several social justice issues get an airing. The ACL ask whether parties will commit to continuing Labor’s commitment to contribute 0.5% of GDP to international aid by 2015 and the UN goal of 0.7%. The Greens — who this time around decided to answer the social justice and environment questions, after rejecting the survey altogether last time — the Christian Democrats, Labor and Family First all answered positively, leaving the Coalition the odd one out with its vague talk of 0.7% as an “international aspiration.” The Coalition also strikes trouble on the homelessness question, where Labor can reel off several big-ticket commitments and the Coalition can only talk about “education and training opportunities” and its education rebate. The more amusing version of the document is the online one, which has been updated to incorporate responses from the Australian S-x Party and the Climate Sceptics. The Sceptics have the honour of being the first political party in the world to not merely deny anthropogenic global warming, but to suggest that if it is happening, it ought to be encouraged. “Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide do have the scientifically proven benefit of accelerating plant growth and therefore food production,” say the Sceptics on the ACL’s climate change question. “Therefore the best thing we can do for poor countries is emit as much carbon dioxide as possible to help increase crop yields and reduce starvation.” They also don’t like foreign aid except for emergencies. The S-x Party hasn’t got policies for many of the ACL’s questions, but where it does it swings for the fences. On euthanasia, “this topic is fundamentally flawed through a misunderstanding of the nature of ‘life’ in this context. Life is not the opposite of ‘death’. ‘Birth’ is the opposite of ‘death’. Life is something that continues through both of these natural cycles and beyond.” On collecting abortion data, “the question … is an insult to intelligence and sensitivity of the many women who reluctantly undergo this procedure each year.It assumes that women have abortions on a whim and use abortion as a form of birth control, lightly and without thought. Such a question could only have been posed by men with another agenda and we will not dignify it with a reply.” Can someone please encourage them to respond to the rest of the ACL’s questions? |
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24 Comments
Vote 1: Secular Party of Australia
Good grief! S-x has just been mentioned in this article four times! I need a good lie down.
Just who are the Australian Christian Lobby and who is behind them? I’m a Christian and I don’t remember engaging them to speak on my behalf.
It is an interesting comparison that Kevin Rudd was a strong Christian and Julia Gillard is an awoved atheist. Presumably religious issues will be met with greater hostility under a Gillard government or they simply seem less relevant.
Holy moly, it’s hard enough to put up with these lunatics when they are open and up front, this their latest in hiding the backward and hateful claptrap they spout is quite sickening. The influence these maniacs have on the structure of modern day society is quite frightening.
Request to AEC, instead of having to stray below the line to very specifically put all these religious nutbags last (which would have prevented the vile Fielding ever getting a gig), could you lump them in with the other loonies and categorize them collectively as say ‘Life’s strugglers’ above the line so that they get what they deserve, absolutely nothing.
So I gather Bernard that you would prefer to live with laws based on Sharia as opposed to Christian views. Perhaps mother Brittan should of sent those pesky muslims on boats in 1788 as opposed to christians, then you may of had your koran based laws of hate and control. You clearly have no respect for your mother, sister and partner (or perhaps your gay) and have raised your Misogynist head again. I know, perhaps we should bury your up to your head and stone you to death since you tend to favor the muslim way.
Bernard (para 3 But it does reveal, in passing, just how much the ALP has been making policy on the run)……so Abbott and the Coalition have not. Good grief man are you worn out or something. Many many on these blogs have repeatedly given the thumbs down to the MSM bias in their reporting….this week you have been guilty of same.
haha Start parliment with a prayer? Is this some sort of sick joke?? So much for separation of church and state.
One thing entirely lacking in the ACL online survey is any mention at all of Australia’s overseas wars - or the desperate state of the Palestinian Christians for that matter.
Ex-SAS Commander Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the ACL, would seem to belong to a very war-oriented brand of Christianity - putting him largely at odds with authentic Christian leaders of our times.
Here’s an extract from an ABC radio interview in September 2003:
PETA DONALD: But Jim Wallace believes it was a mistake for church leaders to take the high moral ground and oppose the war in Iraq. He thinks Alexander Downer had a point when he attacked religious leaders last week.
PETA DONALD: Weren’t they though providing moral guidance on one of the great moral issues of our time?
JIM WALLACE: Well, I think Downer would probably say that they stepped beyond that. And I think that certainly to provide a moral viewpoint of it was quite right. I’ve got no problem with that. I would expect that to be done.
But I think it was the strength with which they came out with their opinions which gave a view, or gave the opinion that they knew, you know, more about the facts than perhaps they did.
PETA DONALD: And despite the troubles in Iraq now, Brigadier Wallace is standing by his original support for the war.
JIM WALLACE: It’s easy to be revisionist. But I think you’ve got to look at the facts as they were put before us at the time, and on the basis of the facts, which was what the decision, that was the basis on which the decision was made, I would still say it was the right decision…
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Lorna - read Bernard’s article. He doesn’t anywhere state a preference for sharia law. He merely (and IMHO quite rightly) pointed out that the ACL is quite happy to have laws follow *its* religion but no-one else’s.
The point is the classic one of separation of church and state, a principle which the ACL apparently would like to remove.
Malcolm said:
But surely he implied it. Fairly obviously, if you aren’t a god-bothering Christian, the only alternative is to be a god-bothering Muslim and to favour sharia law. You can’t argue with Lorna’s logic.
{/sarcasm; /poe’s law}
Very funny Lorna, to reply as a lunatic after an article derided the sort of rubbish they spread very witty.
LORNA: “”So I gather Bernard that you would prefer to live with laws based on Sharia as opposed to Christian views. Perhaps mother Brittan should of sent those pesky muslims on boats in 1788 as opposed to christians, then you may of had your koran based laws of hate and control. You clearly have no respect for your mother, sister and partner (or perhaps your gay) and have raised your Misogynist head again. I know, perhaps we should bury your up to your head and stone you to death since you tend to favor the muslim way.”“
I can’t work out if this appallingly unfunny comment is an atrocious attempt at irony, written by a member of the afore-mentioned Australian Christian Lobby, written by someone who is stoned or has just drunk four bottles of Maotai.
Why is it, I wonder, why Christians are so full of hatred, and possessed of values which are the antithesis of everything that Christ apparently believed in?
I wonder whose ID you used to get past the moderator? I mean, being Christian and Cheap, you wouldn’t have taken out a subscription just to write a sicko comment like that.
BTW, with your profound knowledge of Australian history. Ahem! Doubtless you are aware of the Australian Constitution? You know, the bit which says Australian citizens are able to choose what they wish to believe in.
I’ll bet you just love Stevie Weavie Fielding.
“Why is it, I wonder, why Christians are so full of hatred, and possessed of values which are the antithesis of everything that Christ apparently believed in?”
Why do you think these loonies represent MOST Christians .. they are just organised, noisy and well funded (by whom?)
The ACL openly admit their desire for theocratic rule in their Vision Statement, it is on their website for all and sundry to see.
You cannot trust these people as they believe themselves morally justified in crushing liberty, it is a common theme throughout all the issues they analyse: screw rights and freedom, ‘think of the children’ x10, rinse and repeat.
It is remarkable that despite representing a minority view, the ACL has itself utterly convinced that they are the moral majority on every single issue they campaign, such sanctimonious bullsh!t is nauseating.
This vocal minority has been sh!tting all over liberty for many years now and they are becoming desperate (because they know they are losing influence, Generation Y has sniffed out their BS a mile away).
Logic and reason are archaic notions to the ACL. Having said that we can all comfort in the fact that the ACL & their ilk are steadily becoming irrelevant as society passes them by.
@Lorna
Such charity, such Christian love!
KEVRENOR: Perhaps I live in a distant galaxy to you. As it has been my experience that one is far more likely to encounter unchristian ethics among christians than than bad deeds in almost any other religion.
“”Why do you think these loonies represent MOST Christians .. they are just
organised, noisy and well funded (by whom?)”“
Presumably by the taxpayer. All one has to do is call oneself religious, preferably have a sick icon of a man having been tortured and hung out to dry on a cross; if you can include one of Christ’s acolytes, or the man himself, one is home and hosed! Then you start up a church school-thus exposing small children to be brain-washed into the beliefs of their parents, and our governments of all persuasions, fall over themselves to give you government funding. A nasty euphemism for taxpayers’ money.
OK?
I wonder if the churchs around Australia will have their leaders saying put Julia last on Aug 21 in their sermons on the two weekends left.
@kevrenor
>>>Why do you think these loonies represent MOST Christians .. they are just organised, noisy and well funded (by whom?)
Well said, although I suspect the people actually driving the ACL project are not ‘loonies’ in the sense of being silly. They know quite well what they’re up to - see Australia’s Holy Man likes a Good War.
It would indeed be interesting to know the primary funding sources of the ACL Ltd. Will Australia’s cash-strapped mass media will be able to assign ‘investigate journalists’ to look into the matter.
Probably not.
In the USA, significant sectors of the Christian population have fallen prey to the leadership of pro-war, pro-Israel fanatics. Over there it was done largely through ‘fundamentalist’ preachers such as Jerry Falwel and Pat Robertson. But their kind of nutty millenialism has been much less saleable in Australia.
While there may well be decent (and misled) people involved in the ACL, I view it principally as a stratagem to subvert and neuter authentic Christianity.
Mainstream Christian Churches have other priorities that are less well-reported by the Australian mass media, although they don’t go entirely unreported either:
See http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/36307/australian-churches-back-israel-boycott
Can’t argue with Lorna’s logic because it’s absent, Fran (and grammatically atrocious, what do they teach them in the christian schools?). It’s just typical hatespeech.
Lorna - In relation to muslims coming here in boats, If you read more than one book you’d know that Muslims have been coming here for centuries to trade with Australia’s first people. The difference between them and the christians that turned up in 1788 is that they came here to trade in pearl and trepang rather than to steal the land and enslave the population.
Talking about the ‘Christian vote’ is just plain ludicrous.
Why does everyone assume that all people who say they follow the Christian religion share the same narrow views? Those who like to call themselves ‘Christians’ are usually members of a fundamentalist church. Adherents of the mainstream churches are more likely to refer to themselves as just Catholics or Anglicans or whatever. If we had journalists who understood this then there’d be a lot less rubbish about the ‘Christian vote’ in the media.
Fundamentalist Christians regard the Catholic Church as evil and Catholics like Tony Abbott as the spawn of the devil, this is what their pastors teach them. They also believe the Labor Party is evil because - well, they are all Godless communists, arent they. If fundamentalist Christians bother to vote at all - and a lot of them won’t because it’s against their beliefs - then they opt a member of the ACL, or maybe someone from Australians Against Further Immigration, or an independent who goes to their local church, or whoever their pastor tells them God wants them to vote for.
These so-called Christians are a very small minority group, but they do make a lot of noise.I just wish the major parties would ignore them. Their votes aren’t worth worrying about.
I agree Diana.
The ACL is really a trick to create a myth of a united Christian Lobby, with a spokesman who gives the appearance of speaking for Christians as a whole.
The myth works as long as politicians give it energy. Usually it’s quite hard for lobbyists to get a lot of attention, but in this case the mass media has decided to give it lotsa energy. As pollies typically take their lead from the mass media, we have a perfect myth, aka an Emperor Without Clothes.
Comments such as these on blogs are, however, slowly getting across the Great Secret: the ACL may be rich, but its support base may be surprisingly narrow - and its media-hyped campaigns have little to do with most Christians or the core messages of Australia’s authentic Church leaders.
It’s clear that the ACL is gunning for the Greens in particular.
See ‘Greens laugh off anti-faith label’ at
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/05/2974775.htm
for an intelligent response from a prominent Christian candidate in the Greens.
DIANA: You may care to reflect how the Exclusive Brethren (they don’t come much nuttier than this) managed to hold John Howard to ransom over Oz water rights?
As it is these same Exclusive Brethren have a huge amount of our water rights under their control.