Jan 9, 2013
A new political force is led by an anti-abortion pastor who hates Islam, and will be launched next month by climate sceptic Christopher Monckton. Graham Readfearn of Desmogblog reports.
Pastor Daniel Nalliah, president of the fringe political party Rise Up Australia, has what you might politely describe as some fairly interesting views on matters of science, the climate, abortion and religious tolerance.
In the pulpit-driven eyes of Melbourne’s Pastor Nalliah, humans didn’t appear on Earth until 6000 years ago, when his god put us there. That same god was also behind Australia’s most devastating bushfires, but only because laws are in place to allow abortion. Pastor Danny, as he is known, doesn’t like Islam much either. He’d also like to see school principals given the power to hit pupils with bits of wood (but only with parental consent).
Nalliah has announced who will give the keynote speech at the official launch of his Rise Up Australia political party. Step forward Christopher Monckton — climate science mangler extraordinaire, Tea Party favourite, birther and head of the Scotland branch of the UK’s new “third force” in politics, the UK Independence Party. Monckton’s three-month-long speaking tour of Australia starts at the end of this month.
Rise Up Australia has booked a room at the National Press Club in Canberra for the “launch”; papers filed at the Australian Electoral Commission show the party was registered almost a year ago, in February 2012. Nalliah also “launched” the party way back in May 2011 via YouTube. And with a certain nationalistic fervour, he launched the party again a few weeks later on the steps of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Rights Tribunal.
Why Lord Monckton? He and Nalliah are old friends. In January 2012, Nalliah and his Christian evangelical Catch the Fire Ministry hosted Monckton for a lecture as part of his nationwide speaking tour that year — one which was prefaced by a scandal surrounding Monckton’s use of Nazi swastikas.
But before introducing Lord Monckton, Pastor Danny took the time to warn the congregation against multiculturalism. “If you embrace multiculturalism then you are compelled to embrace Islamic sharia law,” he said. “That’s how they got into Britain and Europe and that’s what they want in Australia.”
While Nalliah’s party manifesto claims to advocate freedom of religion, this obviously doesn’t extend to Islam. Nalliah is currently fighting plans to build a mosque on the same street in Melbourne where his Catch the Fire Ministry is building a new HQ. He told one reporter:
“We don’t approve of Islam as a religion but we love Muslim people. Islam teaches that those who follow other religions are infidels. It is a religion that doesn’t value freedom of religion. Having those same teachings right under our noses is counter-productive to our church.”
Back in 2004, when Nalliah was campaigning for a seat in Australia’s Senate for the Family First Party, he reportedly published a “call to prayer” leaflet which encouraged followers to pull down “Satan’s strongholds”, which the leaflet said included mosques and other religious temples.
The RUA party’s manifesto also says Australian laws should be governed by Judeo-Christian values, that “socialism should be avoided” and the “free enterprise system is best”. Nalliah also wants to bring back the “disciplinary” beating of children in schools with wooden sticks.
But his views on the cause of deadly bushfires are among his most offensive. During the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, when 173 people died and hundreds were injured, Nalliah claimed the devastation was all down to God, who had removed his “conditional protection” of Victoria because of the state’s abortion laws. Recounting a dream some months before, Nalliah wrote:
“In my dream I saw fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably. With this I woke up from my dream with the interpretation as the following words came to me in a flash from the Spirit of God. That His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.”
Nalliah also runs a “Pregnancy Counselling Ministry“, which apparently “began after God placed in Pastor Daniel Nalliah’s heart the desire to do something about the millions of babies being aborted around the world each year”.
Monckton recently voiced his own virulent anti-abortion stance. In an interview posted on YouTube in November last year, the Viscount suggested UK Prime Minister David Cameron repeal the country’s “unspeakable” abortion laws which, he claimed, allowed for the “torture and murder of little children in the womb”. He described hospital staff who performed abortions as “butchers”.
When it comes to matters of science and evolution, Nalliah is firmly of the creationist bent. In an ABC Radio interview in July 2011, he said:
“The human race has lived on earth for 6000 years. If you believe in evolution, then you will disapprove of what I’m saying. We know the world existed possibly for millions of years but the fact is that humankind was created 6000 years ago and that is what the the Bible in Genesis Chapter 1 says.”
And what of climate change, the rising trend in global temperatures and emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and other human activities? Nalliah went on to explain: “The fact is God is in charge of climate for 6000 years … we cannot change the climate.”
Monckton’s previous tours have been supported by Gina Rinehart and a mining industry association, with organisation from another fringe political group in the Climate Sceptics Party. This time, the Democratic Labor Party is reportedly helping organise the trip, alongside Monckton’s very own foundation run by Chris Dawson, a Climate Sceptics Party Senate candidate.
*This article was originally published at Desmogblog
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Will no one rid us of religions’ nit wits?
What Venise said…. don’t expect senior figures in the ALP or Libs to address this. Nalliah is bordering on “Hate Crimes”, as is Monckton, who is also clearly deranged. How did he get a visa?
Of course the reaction of these people to comments like Venise Alstergren’s will be that their freedom of expression is being infringed.
Fuck his freedom of speech, bow about my right to not have religious crackpots interfering in the political process? Isn’t there a separation of church and state enshrined somewhere in this country? As for Monckton, I would like to know how he got a visa?
These clowns believe in a very spiteful God. They are hardly different from people they would cause ‘heathens’ quaking at Zues’ thunderbolts. And why is concern for life inside the womb inversely proportional to concern for the life of those already born?
There must be many climate-conscious readers who might alternatively say —
If we fail our responsibility as custodians of God’s Creation, we are doomed to suffer His wrath.
I hope Adam Spencer interviews Christopher Monckton for ABC Radio again, the last one was priceless.
I wonder what Mr Nalliah’s views are on little childern?
My admiration for Christopher Monckton grows by leaps and bounds (as does his thinking on all the secrets of life and things more mundane it appears). He is undoubtedly a very clever fellow with whom one would not be wise to get into a debate if one thought one was, as a specialist in Antarctic ice cores let us say, going to wipe him off the floor on AGW. But “birther”??? Really? I wonder if he should be awarded the decadal Horatio Bottomley Prize? Where would his real views and the Pastor’s intersect? I think he is a Catholic and, like recent Popes, a believer in evolution over a somewhat greater period than the Bible appears to deal with. So, any serious knowledge of the real Christopher? Anyone?
ohh Nalliah, du e så mycket mer än bara en vanlig hora
o du suger så många fler än en vanlig hora
för du jobbar så mkt mer än en vanlig hora
du är väl inte så jävla jobbigt att bli knullad o suga kuk
Oh, I’m happy for Monckton to get a visa – no complaints then of bias or suppression, so no chance to be a martyr. Hopefully then, the speaking tour will be ignored and we can all go about our daily business as if nothing had happened.
Just wondering, I guess Catch the Fire Ministries qualifies as a church, so we are helping to support this nonsense via its tax-exempt status?
As climate change kicks in, there will be mounting horror around the world. We can expect to see gurus popping up, promising to relieve their followers of their guilt, their money, and the consequences of climate change.
Collectively, they will be a politically powerful force, so their voices may well drift into unison. It may pay us to learn their language rather than ridicule them.
“In my dream I saw fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably. With this I woke up from my dream with the interpretation as the following words came to me in a flash from the Spirit of God. That His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.”
To curtail this type of dream I recommend Danny never consume curries for the evening meal, restrict them to lunchtime. Play it safe.
As for humans only being on the planet for 6,000 years, that supports my theory that Aboriginal rock paintings were done by woolly mammoths.
Monckton is no more hysterical than warmist nutjob Ben Cubby. As for Islam itself, “What is needed from the supporters of this very confident faith is more self-criticism and less self-pity and self-righteousness” ~ Hitchens
Religion and denier stupid. Its a match made in (as my son once called it) Kevin.
If Nalliah believes this crap he’s a crackpot, if he doesn’t, he’s a con-man, (I’m in the con-man group) either way he needs to be exposed as quickly as possible. All fanatics have the potential for serious trouble!(maybe Today Tonight could be usefull for a change?)
For a couple of centuries Australia has been involuntarily and unconsciously embracing a foreign “Canon” law which includes “compurgation” (where priest judges priest) and has consequently “institutionalised” the abuse of children for generation after generation.
This not what the Diggers fought and fell for.
This Anti-Islam crap, this very convenient demonisation of Sharia law, is a very timely smokescreen for the nefarious activities of a poisonous viper which has been far more closely held to the breast of Australia and which, over the years, has reduced the population to an almost insensate stupor of immoral indifference, from which it has only just lately and grogilly awoken, to the horror of the spectacle of abused and unavenged children.
Expect more of these insidious and un-Christian side shows as the Royal Commission gets underway.
As the “Evil” try to avoid the “Light”.
A tag-team show of politico-religious dementoids pretending to be Christian, and betrayed by their actions (as predicted).
Build a fire out of their fake piety and burn them right out of the body politic, starting with Abbott in 2013.
Hey Sultano of Nullity, what was all that? More information please.
sorry Mr. McColl, i don’t think the moderator will let it through. Ms Alstergren maybe able to explain it to you. cheers!
@Hugh(Charlie) try google translate and let it detect the language (it is Swedish and not moderator friendly at all).
are they playing canned applause in the background to make it sound like they are giving a speach to a crowd instead of the camera man?
Something that frustrates me about Australia is how huge sections of Australia seem to be OK with criticising Australia and putting foreign countries such as the UK and also the US on a pedastal.
I find it more frustrating that more often than not, the people guilty of this are those who have hardly been out of the country aside from superficial holidays.
We are a multicultural society, and a very good one, more successful I’d say than the UK and the USA and France – though different would also be a suitable word.
Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are terrible leaders, but this guy is just a joke, normally I applaud out of the box thinking but ultimately i would like to ask this person to leave Australia, and never come back, and to take his idiot friends with him.
It frustrates me when clowns like him and Jamie Oliver assume Australia is a mini britain in the sun. We are in fact culturally more like the south of france than London.
With that in mind, I will take this one note out of Moncton’s book and stand and ask him, to take his crappy culture, crappy ideas, and crappy racism and go back to his own country.
Also could the moderators permaban SultanofAustralisTerraNullius or at least ask him/her why he’s in australia if he likes it, and what is so bad about homosexuality anyway?
I wonder if Christopher Monckton is able to say “I told you so” as he is wont to do when possible over the fact that the saintly EU keepers of the environmental conscience and leader in Rudd-like delusions of influencing the world by their example have so mucked up their emissions trading that the EU is now using more coal for its electricity production than in past years. Why? Partly because of Germany going non-nuclear, a little bit because the great Danish wind farmers need to import electricity when the wind isn’t blowing hard enough, but mostly because the US switch to shale bed gas has made US coal so cheap that the Europeans are buying it and using it as much as possible. They have been slow to follow the US in the new means of gas production and still have long term expensive gas contracts with those other saintly environmentalists, the Russians. And of course their emissions trading permits are ridiculously cheap thanks for reasons which should surprise no one past political and economic adolescence.
While I agree with most of what you say HughG, you need to take that back about south of France. I have fond memories of sitting on the beaches of France, Spain and Italy eating wonderful foods with wine or beers. Theres not one beach in this country where thats possible (unless you bring your own in a remote area). I think we’re more british than we’d like to believe.
Even if a knowledge of Britain actually still exists in amnesiac Australia what would actually be wrong with being more British than we’d actually like to believe?
If you want multi-cultural, how about the King of Norway inviting a boatload of Scottish (not English) children across the North Sea for the summer holidays every year, in remembrance of the Maid of Norway, a member of the Norwegian Royal family and heir to the throne of Scotland who died before taking that throne.
The Chinese have have an old saying, “if you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going”.
So embrace your total multi-cultural heritage and do not be deceived into believing that the eminently multicultural British part is disposable and without value.
There is a certain resentful minority religious migrant community that has long harboured a desire to extinguish this nation’s British heritage in order the nation be, somehow, more “authentically” Australian.
Most of the anti-British bigotry in Australia comes from this group, theives in effect, out to deprive, divide and destroy.The Romans called it Divide et Vincit. I do wish they’d all just go home because these inveterate cultural xenophobes and malcontents are clearly not happy to live in an Australia that has any British heritage, religious or otherwise, with all the poverty and ignorance which would inevitably result should they succeed in their ambition. As they patially have already?
As they partially have already?
Miranda Devine is the foremost public proponent of this “culture of undying complaint”.
I really think we need another internet rating to cover Rants and Conspiracy theories on the internet and then we can safely filter them out for Small Children/Selected Older Australians. I propose we name it “BS” and set it as default on all devices. People can switch it off if they answer a questionnaire, e.g “Does the Government want to sell my house to the Chinese eco-terrorists”
The problem with hidden agendas is that, as with the notorious destroyer of The Weimar Republic, you are not supposed to be able to see them until it is too late.
Do try to pay attention Kiddies.
Talk about babes in the wood!
“The human race has lived on Earth for 6000 years”
Hahhaaaaa. The Sumerians invented glue a thousand years before that.
Two more kooks spreading the Stoopid about.
Avoid them both.
Hey Hamis, how come you can find the hidden agenda but we’re all babes in the woods? I’ve got a Phd in being really clever I’m still not getting the “vibe” man.
Hi Venise;
We got to get the ‘fruit cakes’ somehow, because they will be mouldy by next christmas.
Without being too personal about your PHD Patrick, George Bernard Shaw said of of those with narrow educational attainments:
“the specialist is, in the truest sense, an idiot”.
Suffice it to say that democracy is a fragile flower, regarded by some extremists as a weed, yet they are quite prepared to embrace democracy as a means to an end knowing that in the end they will just piss all over it.
It is quite possible for such extremists to succeed in a democracy while harbouring a hidden agenda to destroy it.
The history of inter-war Germany is not so obscure that its lessons have stopped resonating?
Though it is true that the study of such history is not encouraged in certain religious education systems.
History is written by the winners and abhored by the losers, understandable, considering that some students might get the “Vibe” and lose their faith, immortal souls etc etc. It’s a dangerous thing democracy, not for the faint-hearted.
You can see why some of those “kind shepherds” would prefer their little lambs were not troubled by it at all.
Not any clearer? A book called “Hitler’s Pope” explains a lot.
Dont knock these new parties, they keep the fruit loops in one place and out in the open where people can see what they are up to.
God offers conditional protection ? When it’s withdrawn we go up in flames ? Sounds like one of the Cray brothers.
Hmm, resurgent far right .. predictions: a minor crimewave of gutless attacks on doctors and migrants, the AFP will be ‘caught by surprise’/too busy entrapping muslims, and the happyclappy prosperity gospel megachurches will see no evil and vote for Nalliah.
Greetings and a happy New Year to the Crikey commentariat.
HOLDEN B: Fuck their freedom to express their hateful beliefs; fuck their right to play on the fears of the ignorant.
THEFAMOUSECCLES: Amen brother.
STEVE777: Exactly. These nut cases have the arrogance to believe they’re so important that their god has the time to indulge in one on one personal conversations with them!!! Oh yeah?
SUSIEQ: Precisely. We are being soaked by religious organisations/cults/churches.
Isn’t Steve Fielding a member of the Nullabor Pains congregation?
HAMIS HILL: Total agreement; esp ultimate sentence.
Moncton, not even a Lord, is a sixth-rate ranconteur, but first rate s¨hit stirrer, believed in by fifth-rate midgets.
MIKE FLANAGAN: Like yesterday’s hot cross buns they’re mouldy already.
MODERATOR: Knowing I’m about to be moderated, I wish you-and the people at Crikey-a very Happy New Year.
With Mr Abbott recently apearing on the fire front, will he take an opportunity to be critical of one of his fellow travellers and loyal lieutenant and give these bunch of lunatics a critical serve?
Or will he remain silent, seeing them as a valuable aid to muddy the water on crucial issues affecting the future of mankind?
If the Libs remain silent on these nutters, their criticism of the Greens is hyprocritical.
‘Nalliah is currently fighting plans to build a mosque on the same street in Melbourne where his Catch the Fire Ministry is building a new HQ. He told one reporter:
“We don’t approve of Islam as a religion but we love Muslim people. Islam teaches that those who follow other religions are infidels. It is a religion that doesn’t value freedom of religion. Having those same teachings right under our noses is counter-productive to our church.”‘
So who’s not valuing freedom of religion?
@ Brefney Ruhl 9 January 2013 at 7:52 pm
Agreed (except for the bit about Britain). France, Spain, Italy and even GB (in parts) are much less rigidly intolerant than here when it comes to what you can eat and drink on beaches. As the old saw goes, in Australia everything is either banned or compulsory.
HAMIS H: There are times when I wish the Japanese in WWII, had made a greater effort to invade our tin pot nation. Instead, they perceived we had nothing of value to them.
Had we been really under attack, we would have been forced to fight as one nation-with a more than equal chance of beating them-I’m aware that our soldiers did extraordinary feats of courage in the jungles of what was then called New Guinea. However, had the Japanese rolled into Australia, they would have found a people with the ability to engage in guerilla warfare, over vast distances alien to the invaders.
Out of this may have emerged a nation proud to have stood on our hind feet. That missing pride is what has surfaced with the clueless politicians and the mentally underfed average Aussie. Because we didn’t attempt to stand up and be counted against the invaders, we have been left in a position of having to do what first the English, then the Americans, tell us to do. Namely to allow them to use our troops, for their sordid wars. All on the basis that the Yanks saved us from the Japanese at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Thanks to the havering folly of the John Winston Howards of this country, not to mention the RSL, the admiration of the Aussie soldier, slaughtered in a losing war of England’s doing, or an equally idiotic and losing war of America’s doing….Korea–if Korea was such a wonderful victory, how come North and South are still divided? Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan.
In short we are easily reduced to tears when celebrating our military failures. Failures apparently being more acceptable when instigated by foreign powers. Do our soldiers seem more heroic for having fought on the losing side? I doubt it.
Venise, as my retired RN/RAN brother pointed out to me, Australians actually fought and died and emerged victorious in the Battle of the Coral Sea, in their very own navy.
But to paraphrase that philosopher, the unexamined national life is not worth living.
So thanks for your efforts to raise awareness.
I understand that the Japanese rated the New Zealanders more capable of resisting an invasion, but that might be more related to the topography than any cultural differences between the nations of Australasia.
The malevolence directed to Australia and NZ by France and West Germany by demanding our exclusion from the European Market as the price of entry by the UK was a single-minded (and religiously motivated?) act of bastardry which seems to have passed from history without much comment despite the massive damage done to the economies of both nations.
It would be interesting to discover how the Japanese rated the quisling element in Australasia in their plans for a Greater South-East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere.
In the great and swirling depths of my paranoia I believe that the local Quislings are still deeply entrenched in Australian Politics and promoting and preying upon a general ignorance based on the tyranny of distance.
The circumstances, including the machinations of a controlled press, certainly do provide a temptation for nefarious political behaviour.
The isolation and opportunity for such political manipulation now being destroyed by the internet,just like the sun risng on a century of darkness. Blah Blah. Blah.
Venise, reply in moderation overnight.
HAMIS: Yep, we were the first nation to win against the Japanese-I hadn’t realised it was the Navy, or The Coral Sea.
During my trawling of the Japanese Imperial War Records I failed to pick up that bit about New Zealanders. Well, they’ve had the guts to be far more independent of America than our sniveling polticos have allowed us to be.
Very interesting point you’ve raised re: Quislings in Australasia during WWII. I can immediately think of several members of the Coalition of that era with strong claims to ill-fame. But, I ain’t silly enough to name them.
Long live the internet. No wonder the pollies want to censor it——all on the basis of protecting our two year old children, of course. Of course!
HAMIS: Reply in moderation. Cheers, V
Venise @#40 –
Hear, hear!
If only we could wind back the clock…
An opportunity for nation-defining gone begging…
ASGRAYASGRAY: Love your avatar!