Australian Family Party

Family Matters

Australian Character

Christmas 2024

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Christmas-2024It’s been said, ‘Our lives are not examined for medals, diplomas or degrees, but for battle scars’.

In our Newsletters this year we have covered subjects from nuclear power to the nuclear family; from Sherlock Holmes to the Sex Pistols; from the Palestinians to the Pearly Gates; from A.I. to Adoption; from Machiavelli to the Monkey’s Paw; from universities to euthanasia – and a whole lot more in between!

We’ve also discussed our Judeo/Christian heritage – Judaism focusing on what a person does, Christianity focusing on what a person believes. Or as one wag described the difference, ‘Jesus saves, but Moses invests!’

Which brings us to the turmoil in the Middle East.

Although not impacting upon Australia directly, the conflict has unexpectedly flushed out the proverbial sheep from the goats. And by goats, we mean those who are hostile to our only Western ally in the region, Israel.

Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong will be forever condemned for their betrayal of not only a strategic military ally, and a country that is our cultural and spiritual kin, but also for their betrayal of the entire Jewish community in Australia.

Israel will, of course, as it always does, emerge even stronger as a result of this attack on its people.

Israel is about to become the region’s superpower.

Decades of trying to be a good neighbour to those who wish to destroy it are over.

A new Israel-dominated Middle East, supported by the United States, will emerge.

Those Arab states that have embraced modernity – Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and others – will thrive and prosper.

Those that have not will become irrelevant.

The re-election of Donald Trump this year will change the world – from the Middle East to Europe to South-East Asia.

On the domestic front, we have covered two by-elections in South Australia – Dunstan and Black – caused by the resignations of two consecutive Liberal leaders in Steven Marshall and David Speirs.

In the Dunstan by-election, Labor candidate Cressida O’Hanlon defeated Liberal candidate Anna Finizio by just 360 votes. There was essentially no difference between Labor’s result and the Liberals’ result between the 2022 General Election and the 2024 by-election. Each dropped 3 per cent to the Greens who increased their vote by 6 per cent – from 13 per cent to 19 per cent.

Our candidate, Dr Nicole Hussey, held her own admirably amongst the field of five extremely capable women. Nicole’s speech at the Declaration of the Poll was particularly well-received.

The Black by-election was a different story entirely.

As previously reported, the much more conservative seat of Black switched quite spectacularly from the Liberal Party to Labor with a massive 13 per cent swing.

And while all the media attention was focused on the major parties, the Australian Family Party secured a very encouraging 5 per cent of the primary vote.

Our candidate, Jonathan Parkin, together with family, friends, Party members, and our new DLP partners, worked tirelessly during the by-election and the results speak for themselves.

As well as achieving a 5 per cent primary vote, we manned all the polling booths and covered all our expenses. Replicated State-wide, 5 per cent would be more than enough to secure a SA Upper House seat and be well on the way towards a Senate seat!

So, with so many highs and lows this year, how should we end the year?

I love the story of the Spanish patriot leader Navarez who, on his deathbed, was asked by the priest if he had forgiven his enemies.  “I don’t have any enemies”, said Navarez, “I shot them all.”

And Voltaire, who was asked on his deathbed if he wished to renounce the devil. To which Voltaire replied, “Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies”.

They say that everything rises and falls on leadership. It is the greatest need in the world today.

Former Western Australian MP John Hyde used to say, “Any lightweight can lead kids into a lolly shop, but it takes real leadership to lead them out.”

Australia is very poorly led at the moment.

It is often observed in business that some people don’t have 20 years’ experience as they claim, but rather, have one year’s experience repeated 20 times.

Anthony Albanese has been in parliament for nearly 30 years and yet still acts like an immature university activist. One year’s experience repeated 30 times.

Former Labor leader Bob Hawke was a strong leader who appointed competent people to run the nation’s key portfolios – Peter Walsh as Finance Minister, John Button as Industry Minister, Bill Hayden as Foreign Minister and others.

Likewise, John Howard, who appointed people of the calibre of Peter Costello, Nick Minchin, John Anderson and Peter Reith.

Compare those Ministers with the likes of Chris Bowen, Jim Chalmers and Penny Wong!

That is not good for Australia.

All this and more lie ahead in 2025.

So, what about 2025?

I would like to keep churning out these Newsletters, as I think the topics we discuss are extremely important and very few are covering them.

In response, I trust you have enjoyed receiving them as much as I have enjoyed writing them – all of which are sent out and will continue to be sent out – free of charge. This enables anyone and everyone to access them and stay informed.

If, however, you are in a position to support this important mission, please click here.

As Christmas Day approaches, I will leave you with this wonderful insight from Max Lucado:

If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been finance, God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was forgiveness, so He sent us a Saviour.

To all our members and supporters, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and thank you again for your support throughout 2024.

 

Why ‘Big Abortion’ leads inevitably to ‘Big Euthanasia’

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Guest Writer Timothy Lynch

EuthanasiaHeinrich Heine’s ominous line, “Those who burn books will in the end burn people,” is one of the most quoted in modern history. It appears in his 1821 play, Almansor.

While it has become a leitmotif of Holocaust remembrance – the sentence is engraved at Berlin’s Opernplatz commemorating the Nazi book burning of 1933 – Heine was actually describing the burning of Korans by Christians in late 15th-century Granada.

There is a certain irony in the contemporary Islamist zeal to burn books that offend the Prophet. Heine, a German Jew, was warning all of us that absolutist positions have murderous consequences.

The British House of Commons has missed the irony. In 1967, its MPs gave us abortion on demand; last week, it did the same with euthanasia. The move from withdrawing the right to life from the youngest to the oldest was not linear. But, as in Australia, it was perhaps inevitable.

Pressuring your old granny to shuffle off this mortal coil now has the veneer of choice. It is a chosen “death with dignity” that drives the voluntary assisted dying camp. There is dignity in abortion, too, we are often told. But dignity invites exploitation, and choices are subject to pressure. Abortion may have been safe (save for its target) and legal. It has not become rare. What will stop euthanasia being subject to the same forces?

Big Abortion will find its companion in Big Euthanasia. Scientists will devise more efficient (and thus “more dignified”) death pods. Medical insurers will offer discounts to check out early. Parties of the left will seek to clothe reproductive rights and assisted dying in the same moral superiority. All the time we will be asked to celebrate the primacy of choice.

The US offers some lessons here. Unlike Britain, Europe and nearly all of Australia, Americans have not embraced VAD; it is legal in only 10 states. But at abortion they are world leaders. Since the US Supreme Court removed most protections of unborn children (in Roe v Wade, 1973), more than 60 million have been aborted – an average of more than a million a year. There were more abortions last year, the year after Roe was repealed, than in the year before it. Blue states such as New York and California have the most liberal abortion regimes in the world.

Democrats celebrated the procedure at their convention in Chicago this year. It was the one issue on which Kamala Harris spoke with fluency and conviction (if not electoral gain).

Two in every five abortions in the US are of a child of colour. African-American women comprise less than 8 per cent of the US population but in 2021 accounted for 42 per cent of all terminations.

The Democratic Party has been complicit in reducing its own voter base; non-Hispanic black women are its most reliable constituency and the demographic most depleted by abortion. If there is such a thing as structural racism and white supremacy, abortion might be their greatest exemplar.

Economic disadvantage (say liberals) and family breakdown (say conservatives) are cited as the causes of this disparity. Ideology aside, it is hard to ignore the ubiquity of a reproductive right that its original framers claimed would be used hardly at all.

Sound familiar? Euthanasia will be safe, legal and rare. Most British MPs pushed this line last week. We heard similar from our legislators when assisted dying was legalised in every Australian state between 2017 and last year. Only the territories have held out; the ACT will offer the procedure from next year. Access to assisted suicide, they all said, would absolutely not become a tool of population control or of political economy: “We would never put National Health Service/Medicare budgets before the right to life.” But the expansion of legal abortion since the early 1970s suggests otherwise.

An entire industry inevitably will develop around the right to die, as it has the right to abort. Euthanasia, like abortion, will be offered for more reasons rather than fewer. Bone cancer (one of the worst ways to die) is now grounds for the state to assist in your suicide. Will severe depression or gender dysphoria eventually trigger this assistance too? History suggests they will. My best friend of 50 years has clubfoot. Aborting him for this would have appalled some pro-choice activists in 1967. But this is now a routine reason to terminate a pregnancy. Why should we suppose euthanasia is immune to the same slippage?

Families across Britain, as we have seen in Europe and increasingly in Australia, will start to think about assisted dying as one of the several options that getting old presents. Just as abortion is now euphemised and celebrated as healthcare, assisted dying will become part of elder care.

Covid was not an advert for state government protection of care home residents. Are we confident they would hold the line when more permissive assisted dying policies are proposed?

A loving family will, of course, want to end the suffering of a loved one. My mum and dad are 85 and 86. There are few days when I do not contemplate how they will die and the role the NHS will play. Passage of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in England may offer us some sort of additional option. But what about the families animated by greed or laziness?

Vested interests, as with the abortion industry, will make access to assisted dying easier and imbue it with moral virtue: “Your dying will help fight climate change.” The pressure on an ailing relative to “let go” will increase. The weakest and most vulnerable members of any society (after children in the womb) will be afforded, across time, fewer and fewer protections. All the while we will be told of the golden age of dignity and choice now upon us.

You start by aborting babies, you end by gassing grandma.

Timothy J. Lynch is professor of American politics at the University of Melbourne.

This article first appeared in The Australian on 5 December, 2024.

Breaking the Adoption Taboo

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adoptionOver 40,000 Australian children are currently in government-sponsored care. Approximately 30,000 have been there for more than two years. Fewer than 200 were adopted.

The first question that must be asked is, ‘Why are so many children cycled in and out of government care?’ And the second is, ‘Why are there so few adoptions in Australia?’

Compared with similar countries Australia has very low rates of adoption.

It seems the chief barriers to increasing the rate of adoptions in Australia are state and territory government child protection authorities. In South Australia, for example, the inquest into the death of toddler Chloe Valentine revealed the abject squalor of the environment the child was forced to endure – an environment that authorities were well aware of.

An anti-adoption culture appears to be ingrained in state and territory child protection authorities.

Jeremy Sammut, Deputy Opinion Editor at the Australian Financial Review and a former Senior Researcher at the Centre for Independent Studies, has written extensively on this issue.* He summarises the situation as follows:

“Australia’s child-protection system keeps applying the same, flawed strategies which basically means children are harmed by the very system that’s meant to protect them. It puts an over-emphasis on family preservation prolonging the time children are kept with highly dysfunctional families. When, as a last resort, they are finally removed they are churned through unstable foster care and returned to their families where the reunification is likely to break down. For many children, they spend almost all of their childhood and adolescence in care and never get a permanent and safe family for life. Many of these children could have, should have, been adopted.” 

19th Century English philosopher and parliamentarian John Stuart Mill was one of the first to declare that “Children have independent rights as future citizens. If parents fail in their obligations to fulfil those rights, then the State should step in”.

Regrettably, the rights of abusive parents seem to outweigh the rights of abused children.

It has been 50 years since the introduction of the single mother’s pension by the Whitlam Government. This policy helped end the practice of forced adoption, as the provision of taxpayer-funded income support gave women who became pregnant out of wedlock the option of keeping their children.

The unintended consequence, however, is that welfare for single mothers has led to the very social problems forced adoptions were designed to prevent – the inability of many single mothers to properly care for their children.

The right to welfare became a pathway to welfare dependency which has contributed significantly to the scale of the child protection crisis confronting Australia today.

In South Australia last month, a bill was introduced into the parliament requiring that women who choose to terminate a pregnancy after 28 weeks not euthanize the child and induce it stillborn, but induce it and deliver it alive.

After 28 weeks, with proper care, babies are viable outside the womb.

The bill did not prevent women from terminating their pregnancies, it only insisted that if a woman decided to terminate her pregnancy after 28 weeks, the baby must be born alive, not euthanized and be born dead.

Presumably, as the woman was planning to abort the child, giving the child to a loving couple to adopt would not be opposed. This would have given rise to a significant number of new adoptions.

The bill was defeated 10 votes to 9 in South Australia’s Upper House.

As a woman’s ‘right to choose’ a termination was not being compromised, why anyone would oppose saving the life of the child when it was going to be aborted anyway is beyond me.

In 2019, the Federal Government’s House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs Report, ‘Breaking barriers: a national adoption framework for Australian children’, stated that the best interests of children should be at the centre of child protection systems.

Five years later, little has changed.

For children who are unable to live with their biological parents, adoption has been internationally proven as the best way to provide a safe, stable and loving family life.

While it has been argued that adoption robs children of their identity, modern, ‘open adoption’ models which are specifically designed to maintain children’s connections to their cultural heritages and birth families disprove such claims.

It has also been claimed that adoption will steal children all over again. Again, NSW adoption reforms disprove such claims.

The perception that adoption is a socially unacceptable and illegitimate practice based on past practices such as forced adoptions and indigenous experiences must end. There can be no meaningful change or end to the cycle of intergenerational dysfunction until that taboo is broken.

Black By-election

We still need a few more volunteers to assist for a couple of hours each day from Monday 11th November – Saturday 16th November.

If you live in Adelaide’s southern suburbs and are available to help, please send me a message here and click ‘Federal Director’.

Thank you.

*Dr Jeremy Sammut is the author of several research papers and the book, ‘The Madness of Australian Child Protection: Why Adoption will Rescue Australia’s Underclass Children’.

The Grapes of Wrath

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grapes-of-wrath“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on
Glory, glory, hallelujah …”

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave
But his soul goes marching on
Glory, glory, hallelujah …”

Many have noticed the similarity between the tunes of Julia Ward Howe’s epic ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ and the well-known campfire ditty, ‘John Brown’s Body’, and would be forgiven for assuming that the ditty was based on the hymn.

It was, in fact, the other way around.

During the American Civil War, Julia Howe, a poet, heard Union troops singing ‘John Brown’s Body’ – named after the famous slave abolitionist, John Brown. A preacher who was with Howe at the time suggested she write new lyrics to the tune.

She agreed and took her inspiration for the new lyrics from the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, “The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath”. (Revelation 14:19)

As we try to make sense of what is happening in the world, it is only natural to be apprehensive about what lies ahead. Are we in the end times as prophesied in the Bible? Is World War III imminent? Are we approaching Armageddon?

We get anxious. We want to avoid trials and difficulties.

UK Bishop N.T. (Tom) Wright asks, “Do you know what the most frequent command in the Bible is? What instruction is given, again and again, by God, by angels, by Jesus, by prophets and by the apostles? Is it ‘be good’? ‘Is it be holy’? Is it ‘don’t sin’? No, the most frequent command in the Bible is, ‘Don’t be afraid’.”

We learn from birds and aeroplanes that headwinds lift us higher.

Our Catholic friends call it ‘the divine mystery of suffering’.

During personal trials, it is often our family and friends who are more distressed at what is happening to us than we are.

Such as when John the Baptist was in prison and the disciples went to see him. When he saw how distressed they were, and that being locked up in prison he was helpless to comfort them, he came up with an idea. He told them to go to Jesus and ask Him if He was the Messiah or should they look for another!

Some think that John the Baptist was having doubts, but I don’t think so. Remember, this is the same John who when he was still in his mother’s womb jumped when Jesus, also still in the womb, came into the room. It was John, who when he saw Jesus coming to be baptised said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, and then witnessed the heavens opening and the spirit descend upon Jesus. It wasn’t John who was doubting, it was his supporters! But he knew that if they spent some time with Jesus, it would take away their doubts.

Hosea the prophet says the riches of life are found in the desert. With great trials come great blessings.

Elijah the prophet lived by a stream in the Kerith Ravine – until it dried up and he had to depend on God for his sustenance. His faith endured and prepared him for what was to come.

Life’s trials are sent to make us, not break us.

Jesus chose Peter to become the leader of his new church.

It was Peter who preached the first gospel message at Pentecost establishing the Christian church. Yet it was also Peter, who on the night before Jesus was crucified, denied three times that he even knew Jesus.

Jesus did not choose the disciple closest to him – John the Divine – who wrote both the magnificent Gospel according to John and the Book of Revelation.

Nor did he choose the brilliant intellectual and academic, Paul, who wrote most of New Testament theology.

No, to head up the church, he chose Peter, the one who had failed him.

The Old Testament’s Saul became King of Israel without going through suffering. His character never developed, and he became an envious, shallow man.

David, on the other hand, spent years in suffering and heartache. When he finally became King, God said David was ‘a man after my own heart’.

We should not resent or despise failure or suffering. They develop character like no other.

It is the grit that forms the pearl.

Suffering, difficulties, trials are the grit that leads to the pearl.

Our lives will be an inspiration to those who watch us face the trials that come our way.

What we lose in the flames, we find in the ashes.

Thank you for your support.

A.I. – The New Celestial City

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celestial cityIn the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, there is a vivid description of The New Jerusalem – The Holy City – referred to in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as ‘The Celestial City’, the ultimate heavenly home of believers.

The walls of this heavenly city are made of glass and precious stones. The streets, the Bible says, are paved with gold.

Glass, precious stones, gold.

The entrance to the city, however – the gates – are made of pearls, hence the well-known phrase ‘The Pearly Gates’.

This is significant, as pearls are the only substance on the list which are made from a living thing.

As we know, a pearl is made when an irritant invades and wounds an oyster.

In Matthew’s gospel, in the parable of ‘the pearl of great price’, a merchant sells all he has to possess this pearl, and once he has found it, he stops looking.

The Bible teaches that this pearl – entry into the kingdom of heaven – is through Jesus Christ who paid for our redemption with his blood and is ‘of inestimable value’.

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed,” says the prophet, Isaiah.

That is some irritant, some wound.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) – the science of making machines that can think, speak and act like humans – is being trumpeted as the new Celestial City on earth.

‘We are on the cusp of an extraordinary renaissance of human possibility and abundance,’ says Transformative Technology Lab’s Nichol Bradford.

‘Young people today will inherit and build their own technologies that could eliminate poverty, inequality, hunger, illness, and even death.’

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have identified four key potential features of AI: immortality, ease, gratification and dominance.

Immortality in the form of indefinite lifespans; ease in the form of freedom from the need to work; gratification in the form of pleasure and entertainment provided by machines; and dominance, the power to protect oneself or rule over others.

In this utopian future, AI would be harnessed for the benefit of humanity to ‘seamlessly integrate into various aspects of human life, significantly boosting productivity, innovation, economic growth, overall well-being, human flourishing and to accelerate medical and scientific advancements.’

‘AI has the potential to transform every aspect of human society,’ the researchers say.

AI technology would also be used to solve complex problems such as climate change, disease, poverty, and would elevate humanity to new heights.

Oh, and the streets will be paved with gold …

The Spectator records an insightful anecdote featuring Neil D. Lawrence, author of The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI.

It recounts how Lawrence was describing his work in AI to a receptionist at London’s Natural History Museum.

‘So, it’s like fire, then,’ the receptionist responded.

Yes it is, and like fire, people get burned.

As French philosopher Paul Virilio once put it: ‘The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.’

To further complicate things, an added dimension will be the inhabiting of this new world by millions of robots shaped like humans.

Since time immemorial, humans have been projecting human-like characteristics on to non-human objects – think Pinocchio, Thomas the Tank Engine, the clock and the teapot in Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit.

Numerous experiments have been undertaken with children interacting with human-like robots; and while some might question the wisdom and ethics of leaving a child alone with a robot companion, they argue that the behaviour of parents who are emotionally immature or obsessively distracted by their own wireless devices, can also contribute to a child’s feelings of isolation or insecurity.

‘The presence of a robot, especially one that appears to give the child its undivided attention, could mitigate negative effects of problematic adult behaviour on children’s emotional well-being.’

‘Are emotional attachments to robots more detrimental to children than some attachments to people?’ the researchers ask.

Our own 3-part series A Digital Dark Age warns of the dangers of government control over information and communication.

The new Celestial City will, in essence, be a machine, inhabited by machines.

Built by tech designers and software engineers guided by social media behemoths, these new masters of the digital universe are not driven by moral codes.

The brave new world of technology and science that lies ahead of us may be built with server racks and circuit boards as big as the Bible’s Celestial City, but to ensure this Utopia does not become Dystopia, the entrance, the gates to this new celestial city, need to be made of pearls.

Thank you for your support.

The New Green Alliance

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hamasIn William Jacob’s 1902 short story, The Monkey’s Paw, former Army officer Sgt Major Morris gives a mummified monkey’s paw he had brought back from India to his old friend Mr White.

Morris tells White that an old Sufi holy man had placed a spell on the paw, so that it would grant three wishes to anyone who held the paw. Awful consequences, however, would also accompany the wishes as punishment for tampering with fate.

Throughout India, the belief that ‘Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened’ is very strong. It is unwise, they say, to interfere with your destiny.

This belief was also evident in the biblical story of Hezekiah.

Hezekiah was a righteous king and was much loved by God. But when Hezekiah was told by the prophet Isaiah that he was going to die, he pleaded with Isaiah to ask God to spare him.

God granted Hezekiah his wish and he lived for another 15 years.

During those 15 years, however, Hezekiah had a son – Manasseh.

After Hezekiah died, Manasseh became king and was the most evil king ever to rule over Israel, worshipping idols and shedding much innocent blood. Manasseh’s wickedness eventually led to the destruction of the nation.

Manasseh, of course, would never have been born had Hezekiah accepted God’s will for his life. His tampering with fate led to much suffering.

But back to the monkey’s paw story.

Mr White grasped the paw, and his first wish was for two hundred pounds to pay off the mortgage on his house.

The following day, there was a knock on the door and standing on the doorstep were two men from the factory where Mr White’s son Herbert worked. They had arrived to tell Mr White that their son had been killed in a machine accident. The men said that the accident was not the company’s fault, but as a gesture of goodwill, the company would like to give Mr White a sum of money.

When asked how much the sum was, the men replied, “two hundred pounds”.

Be careful what you wish for.

Which takes us to strange new alliances, such as ‘Queers for Palestine’ – two groups which one would have thought would have nothing in common – uniting in their hatred of all things Jewish or Christian.

And the new Green Alliance forged between The Greens and radical Islamists.

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ indeed.

thorpe-youngFormer Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe, for example, was first out of the blocks wearing her green Hamas headband in solidarity. Likewise, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is happy to show her support for the Palestinian cause.

There are 22 Arab-speaking countries in the Middle East and 50 Muslim-majority countries around the world. None of them are prepared to take Palestinian refugees.

But Australia will. Which begs the question: what do these Arab countries know that the Greens and Anthony Albanese don’t?

Free speech, freedom of association, Western civilization and, yes, even democracy – the new Green Alliance sets out to dismantle all that our Judeo-Christian heritage holds dear.

This Greens’ pitch for votes then compels Labor to respond by promoting its own anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian credentials to shore up those of its seats which have high Muslim populations.

By teaming up with Hamas sympathizers to win votes, the Greens have grasped the monkey’s paw with both hands.

Should their wish ever be granted, then like Mr White, they will pay a heavy price.

As we know from history, the first ones the revolutionaries eliminate once they achieve power are those who helped them.

The Greens, having sown the wind, will reap the whirlwind.

Thank you for your support.

Olympic Dam’s Gold Medal Performance

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olympic-damIt is exactly 50 years since Western Mining first discovered the massive gold, silver, copper and uranium ore body at the aptly-named Olympic Dam in South Australia. A golden anniversary indeed!

But discovering the ore was just the beginning.

The fight to allow uranium mining at Olympic Dam was brutal.

The ruling Labor Party, under then South Australian Premier Don Dunstan, was vehemently opposed to uranium mining and particularly opposed to uranium mining at Olympic Dam.

One of the key opponents of Olympic Dam, calling it a ‘a mirage in the desert’, was one Mike Rann, an anti-uranium campaigner from New Zealand who had come to South Australia to work for Dunstan. Rann eventually became Premier of South Australia in 2002.

The Liberal Party, led by David Tonkin and his deputy Roger Goldsworthy, won the next election and in 1980 set about implementing their proposed ‘Olympic Dam Indenture Agreement’, building both the mine and nearby township of Roxby Downs.

Its final passage, through the SA parliament’s Upper House in 1982, came down to a single vote – Labor’s Norm Foster. A former wharf worker, Foster had sat on the select committee into Olympic Dam and did not agree with Labor’s position that uranium mining was an environmental or ethical scourge.

On the day before the final vote on the project, Foster resigned from the Labor Party and, the following day, crossed the floor of parliament to give his vote to the Tonkin government thereby clearing the way for the new mine.

For years following his actions, Foster was vilified by the ALP. However, his role in establishing one of South Australia’s most successful projects (and biggest earners!) was later acknowledged by the Labor Party and his membership restored.

Fast forward to 2024, and Australia is experiencing a similar political challenge closely related to uranium mining – nuclear energy.

The case for nuclear power has been well argued, but there are more than just economic and energy reliability reasons for embracing nuclear power. There could also be significant strategic benefits.

First, if there’s one thing we learned from the pandemic, it’s the importance of self-reliance.

Australia has for too long been dependent on overseas supply chains – fuel and energy being no exception.

Australia’s future energy needs are currently being assessed against three criteria – reliability, affordability, and emissions intensity.

Unfortunately, the laws of physics and economics do not allow all three. Two out of three yes, three out of three no.

As emissions intensity has pretty much been mandated, this leaves only reliability and affordability to choose from. Clearly, reliability has to win.

No form of renewable energy generation yet invented or discovered is reliable enough to meet Australia’s base-load demand.

Nuclear power is both reliable and emissions-free.

It is, however, expensive to build. Again, two out of three.

In addition, there is a fourth aspect worthy of consideration – regional security.

South Korea, Japan, India and Pakistan all have nuclear power. Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh and the Philippines are looking to develop it.

All have, or will have, spent nuclear fuel.

As Australia engages more with Asia, we bring a unique perspective and relationship devoid of the centuries-old enmities and history that exists between some of these countries.

We could be the Switzerland of the South.

Australia could establish an Asia–Pacific office for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  We could host conferences and bring the world’s best nuclear minds here.

We could bring together expertise on the ways in which other nations are storing their spent nuclear fuel.  We could, as the 2015 SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission heard, store that fuel in South Australia, and not have it stored within the borders of nations with fractious relations and/or unstable geology.

The countries whose spent fuel was stored here would have an interest in our security.

And as well as the multi-billion-dollar economic benefits – abolishing stamp duty, payroll tax, occupational licencing charges and many other taxes, charges and levies – with the latest technology we may even be able to extract more recycled power from the spent fuel in the future.

The more we engage with the nuclear question, the more positive the opportunities arise.

But first we must remove the regulatory obstacles and legislated bans blocking Australia’s economic and energy independence.

Thank you for your support.

Carpet Call: The Imperfect Gift of Religious Freedom

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arabian-carpetJohn Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) is a clever guy.

As Robert McCall (aka Denzil Washington) says to Miles, a troubled teenager, in the movie Equalizer 2, ‘It takes talent to make money, Miles, but it takes brains to keep it’. Regardless of one’s taste in music, there’s no doubting John Lydon had talent – and brains.

‘Imperfection is at the heart of life’, Lydon once said. ‘Imperfection is the greatest gift of all.’

‘Arabic rug makers will make their work perfect except for one tiny stitch, because nothing is perfect in the eyes of God. Only God is perfect. I think that is magnificently intelligent’.

Before the 2022 federal election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised to overhaul religious protection laws in Australia.

Under existing law, faith-based organisations are able discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity when hiring teachers or workers via an exemption from anti-discrimination laws.

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) now says that exemption should be scrapped entirely.

No legislation has yet been introduced.

Not content to wait for the Federal Government to act, activists have shifted to the old ‘State by State’ stalking horse approach – find the most amenable State, introduce the law there and then get other States to adopt it one by one. Once a few States have adopted the new law, the Federal Government is then pressured into doing the same. It’s a tried-and-tested model of creeping change.

Former SA Greens Senator and now Greens SA Upper House member Robert Simms is proposing to introduce legislation into the SA Parliament next month which would remove all exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.

There are some things people will not be dictated to or lectured about. One of those is their faith or their morals – particularly what they teach their children. They will certainly not be brow-beaten or cowed into submission by being called bigots or homophobes.

The Left talks about equality and tolerance but this religious freedom debate is not about either of those. It’s about discrimination against religious people. The Left may call for tolerance but what they really want is for everyone to agree with and endorse – even celebrate – their view of the world. They are not interested in debate or argument; they simply want the legislative power of the state to force everyone to comply.

If being free means anything, it means citizens having the right to ensure that the religious and moral education of their children conforms with their own convictions – as outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is a signatory.

It means having freedom of conscience and the freedom to believe and practice the core tenets and values of a person’s faith. It is the state’s role to protect those rights.

There’s no doubt that the Left is out to undermine our freedoms. They’re coming for our churches, our schools, our faith-based organisations, our farms, our mines, our cars and, most of all, our children. They’re also coming for our old people with their euthanasia packs, for our about-to-be-born babies with their grotesque abortion laws, and they’re coming to indoctrinate our primary school children. They’re also coming for Christmas Day and Australia Day and Anzac Day and Remembrance Day. These people mean business.

People and faith-based organisations – schools, hospitals, aged care providers and charities – should not have to rely on exemptions from anti-discrimination laws to function in accordance with their faith.

They should, by right, have the freedom to select people as they see fit.

Political parties grant that right to themselves because they rightly believe that the political allegiance of a job applicant matters.

In environmental groups, views about climate change are relevant; in women’s shelters, gender is very important.

Saying you can only become a member of a chess club if you play chess is not discriminating against people who don’t play chess!

In ethnic clubs and institutions, ethnicity is sensible and practical.

We accept all these differences.

And in faith-based organisations, faith matters.

Forcing faith-based schools to become indistinguishable from secular schools with respect to staffing is irrational. After all, no-one is forced to work for a faith-based organisation or send their children to a faith-based school where all the staff follow that particular faith.

Expressions of faith by a person or faith-based organisations must be declared lawful.

Statutory exemptions are totally inadequate.

Exemptions granted can just as easily be withdrawn – as is now being proposed.

The right to religious freedom must be treated as a pre-eminent right and be recognised and protected. Human Rights Commissions should have no role to play.

A Commonwealth law, by reference to its Objects clauses, must recognise religious freedom as pre-eminent and override all state and territory anti-discrimination laws.

To paraphrase John Lydon, while such a law may be imperfect, it would be a magnificent gift.

Thank you for your support.

Mind Your Language

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languageWhat you call something is very important.

Everyone knows that a suit is comprised of a jacket and a pair of pants. Two jackets are not a suit. Neither can two pairs of pants be called a suit.

This was an argument I often made during the marriage debate. Marriage, I argued, was the joining of a man and woman in a special relationship.

If two men or two women wished to be joined together, then they can call it something else, but not marriage; not a suit.

This idea of insisting that words reflect their true meaning, and that things be called what they are, is not a new idea.

As long ago as 500BC, Chinese philosopher Confucius said, ‘If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.’

Modern-day politics has become largely about controlling the language.

As US preacher Chuck Swindoll says, ‘they adopt our vocabulary but not our dictionary.’

Farmers used to drain water-logged swamp areas of their land, and no-one batted an eye.

Then swamps were renamed ‘wetlands’, and now can’t be touched.

We’ve re-named euthanasia ‘dying with dignity’; abortion is now referred to as ‘reproductive health’ or ‘planned parenthood’ or simply ‘pro-choice’.

Free speech is branded hate speech, local aboriginal tribes have become ‘First Nations’, power cuts are now called ‘load shedding’, tax increases are re-badged as ‘budget savings’ and denying one’s gender has become gender affirming.

A person on 50 per cent of the median wage is officially on the ‘poverty line’.

‘Safe schools’ and ‘respectful relationships’ are anything but – as evidenced by lessons in bestiality presented to 14-year-old schoolgirls in South Australia.

The Good Book says, ‘Woe to those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.’ – Isaiah 5:20.

Then there are the perpetual ‘straw man’ arguments – mispresenting an opponent’s position in order to quickly and easily destroy their arguments.

‘Trickle-down economics’ is a straw man argument. There is no such theory in economics. But opponents of free-market economics invented the term ‘trickle-down’ to suggest free-markets are all about favouring the rich and hoping some of their wealth will ‘trickle down’ to those lower on the socio-economic ladder.

Then there’s the ubiquitous use of the term ‘flat-earthers’ when no-one, anywhere throughout history, thought the world was flat. Not the Egyptians, not the Phoenicians, not the ancient Greeks; no-one thought the earth was flat. They weren’t silly. By standing on high ground and watching their tall ships sail over the horizon, they knew that the earth was round, they just didn’t know how big it was. Christopher Columbus left Spain and headed west for India, not to prove the world was round, but to determine its size.

Or take the phrase Terra Nullius – a term used to manipulate debate on indigenous matters.

‘Australia was founded on the basis of Terra Nullius,’ is one of those myths that survives by repetition, not historical fact.

Terra Nullius is a Latin term meaning ‘land belonging to no-one’.

Yet no-one ever said Australia was not occupied.

The term ‘terra nullius’ was not mentioned anywhere in Australia until 1977!

Regarding exploration and occupation, the book 18th Century Principles of International Law stated that, ‘All territory not in the possession of states who are members of the family of nations and subjects of International Law must be considered as technically res nullius and therefore open to occupation’. ‘Res nullius’ – land not owned by a recognised nation, is not the same as ‘terra nullius’ – land not occupied by anyone – for example, Antarctica.

And on a similar vein, that Aborigines didn’t get the vote, or were treated as ‘flora and fauna’, until 1967.

All false. All examples of the mutilation of language to influence and deceive.

US author Michael Malice writes, ‘they’re not using language to communicate, they’re using it to manipulate’.

Thank you for your support.

A Digital Dark Age – Part 3

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Governments – the world’s worst peddlers of false information

‘We will continue to be your single source of truth.
Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth’.

digital-dark-ageSo said former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.

Covid

When Covid hit in 2020, people had no reason to doubt what they were being told by their political leaders.

The pandemic, however, very quickly exposed the incompetence of many in the medical and scientific establishment, with politicians and public sector bureaucrats making up rules as they went along, and ramping up censorship.

Inquiries about whether the virus came from a lab leak, or anything negative about masks or vaccines, soon became misinformation or disinformation and was immediately censored.

Politicians, public sector bureaucrats, pharmaceutical company executives, all in cahoots with one another, blatantly lied to us. Again, the early bootleggers were amateurs compared with these people.

They were wrong on lockdowns. They were wrong on border closures. They were wrong on school closures. They were wrong on masking.

Poor people were hurt the most.

Anyone, including qualified medical professionals who said Covid vaccines were causing serious side-effects leading to large numbers of deaths, were silenced and threatened.

Academics who had been studying lockdowns were also blacklisted. Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, was one of them. ‘Censorship of scientific discussion led to policies like school closures,’ he said. ‘A generation of children were hurt.’ 

At the behest of governments, social media platforms removed any and all content which questioned the safety or efficacy of the vaccines.

In April 2021, the Coalition government had Instagram remove a post which claimed that ‘Covid-19 vaccine does not prevent Covid-19 infection or Covid-19 transmission’, a statement that clearly was accurate.

Ivermectin was prohibited from being prescribed in Australia until January 2021, by which time the vaccination rate had reached 98%. Prohibition of Ivermectin was enforced right until the very end of the vaccine roll-out.

We now know the Covid-19 vaccines were neither safe nor effective. They did not prevent infection or transmission and have been linked to blood clots, heart conditions and other ‘died suddenly’ events.

A peer-reviewed study published in January 2024, found that more deaths were caused by the mRNA vaccines than were saved by it.

As Thomas Sowell once said, “It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions into the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

Climate Change and Renewable Energy

Probably no other area of public debate has been more manipulated than climate change.

What started as ‘the greenhouse effect’, soon became ‘global warming’ which morphed into the now all-encompassing ‘climate change’.

To up the ante even more, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated recently, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived”.

Global boiling obviously hasn’t yet reached the poles, as Arctic ice is currently at its greatest extent in more than 20 years.

Renowned quantum physics scholar Dr John Clauser, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics has stated, ‘I do not believe there is a climate crisis’.

More bootleggers, in the form of renewable energy merchants, have leapt on to the climate change bandwagon with unbridled zeal and are raking in billions of dollars gaming the system, raising energy prices, impoverishing consumers, destroying jobs, and fleecing taxpayers.

Indigenous matters

Toddlers and pre-schoolers in childcare centres across Australia are being taught that Australia was stolen from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

More than 7,000 schools and daycare centres now have formal ‘acknowledgements of country’ in place, which includes children singing or reciting that the land on which they sit belongs to Indigenous people.

At SDN (formerly Sydney Day Nursery) Children’s Services in the ACT, kindy kids are taught about ‘stolen land’ as they recite an acknowledgement of country each morning.

‘The foundation for this learning begins when the children enter the centre as infants’, the organisation says on its website.

‘Now older preschoolers participate in the daily ritual of acknowledging country to build on the explicit teaching about stolen land.’

As NSW Libertarian Party MP John Ruddick said, ‘children were being indoctrinated to feel ashamed of their country’.

 5. The Bill and Religious Freedom

There is no doubt that any ‘religious exemptions’ in the Bill will not make life less hazardous for faith-based organisations.

While certain religious groups which might be advantageous to Labor’s voting base will be protected, other religious groups most likely will not.

As we have seen recently, clear examples of the crime of incitement to violence – perpetrated seemingly with impunity – will, undoubtedly, be given more latitude.

Christians, however, will not enjoy similar leniency.

The Australian Law Reform Commission has already recommended the removal of the right for Christian schools to hire staff who share their values.

And Christians will most certainly not be able to criticize the ‘trans’ movement or ‘gender affirming’ practices.

The Bible says, ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8:32)

The world, however, says truth is subjective – ‘my truth, your truth, their truth …’

There is one institution, however that has stood against all this for thousands of years – the family. The family can do a lot to help combat the lawlessness of this digital jungle and its predators. The family is the ideal place to start building relationships, learning who to trust, who not to trust, who to communicate with, and who not to communicate with.

Society has three levels of protection against harm. Level one is a person’s own conscience; level two is the family to keep its members in check; and level three is the police. More focus on level two, the family, might be our only hope for the future.

Thank you for your support.