Australian Family Party

Family Matters

Australian Politics

The Eyes Have It

by

WesleyThey say to be a successful traveller, you need a good sense of humour – and no sense of smell!

And for those who know anything about travelling around Europe – and know anything about Europeans in particular – they would understand the observation that heaven is not ‘up there’ and hell not ‘down there’, but rather that these places can be found in Europe.

‘Heaven’, they say, is where the Swiss are the administrators, the French are the cooks, the Germans are the mechanics, the Italians are the lovers, and the English are the policemen.

‘Hell’, on the other hand, is where the Italians are the administrators, the French are the mechanics, the Swiss are the lovers, the English are the cooks, and the Germans are the policemen!

Vive la différence!

Speaking of Europe, it was Oxford professor John Littlewood, who first published his theory on why he believed road accidents in Europe were substantially higher than those in Britain.

Littlewood suggested that it was all connected to the observation that a significant majority of people – seventy per cent in fact – have what he calls a ‘master right eye’.

In countries such as Britain that drive on the left, that first split-second view of approaching, overtaking or sudden change in traffic will be seen by the majority of drivers with their master right eye.

In countries that drive on the right, however, that split-second picture of traffic conditions is first seen by the left eye, which is the master eye in only thirty per cent of people.

Littlewood says that the same comparisons can be made with other countries which drive on the left – Japan, Australia, New Zealand – and comparable countries which drive on the right – the United States and Canada.

Littlewood says that the ancient Romans intuitively understood this and as a result drove on the left.

Driving on the right, he says, is Napoleonic – the result of the French Revolution – and like so many other things that derived from that great convulsion, they can be fatal.

On that score, much has been written about why England did not suffer the same catastrophic consequences that befell France in the late 1700s, when social conditions – Charles Dickens and all that – were very similar.

Why was there no English version of the French Revolution?

London and Paris – A Tale of Two Cities?

Many contend that it was the influence of the evangelist John Wesley (1703 – 1791), who was the principal leader of the revival movement known as Methodism.

For more than 50 years, Wesley travelled the length and breadth of England preaching the gospel and exhorting people to ‘… love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself’.

John Wesley did the preaching, and his brother Charles Wesley wrote the hymns:

‘O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing’ … ‘And Can It Be That I Should Gain’ …. and hundreds more beside.

Others, however, put the difference between the two countries down to that other great English religion – cricket!

Cricket?

Yes, cricket.

It’s been said that ‘If you understand cricket, you understand life’.

By the late 1700s cricket had become a well-established sport throughout England with villagers – rich and poor alike – playing on the many village greens across the land.

The rich and the poor knew each other!

In France, the rich lived in Versailles, the poor lived in Paris.

They didn’t know each other.

It’s a lot harder to execute someone you go to church with, sing hymns with, and play cricket with!

In France, there were no such inhibitions. The banality of evil ….

We don’t know whether John Wesley played cricket during his travels, but it would be a fair bet that he did.

In the English-style village in which I live in the Adelaide Hills – Houghton – this year marks the 150-year anniversary of the laying of the village church’s foundation stone. Throughout that time – including through two World Wars, the Great Depression, devastating bush fires and other cataclysmic events – Houghton Church and its members have been a source of comfort and care to the local residents. It has also been an important connection point for community events including its annual Christmas Carols on the Green and Pancake Tuesday, as well as being an active participant in Anzac Day and Remembrance Day services. And of course, weddings, Christenings and funerals held at the church provide a service to the community during life’s ever-present milestones.

Houghton Village once had a hotel called the Travellers Rest. It is no longer there, but the ground on which it once stood now forms part of the Village Green where community events take place and many a traveller stops and rests.

In the words of another great hymn:

‘His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me …’

The eyes have it.

Thank you for your support.

On Your Marx …

by

MarxMarx or Schumpeter?

Socialism or free markets?

It’s a debate that has raged for more than a hundred years.

Socialists contend that although socialism may not have worked out all that well in practice (an understatement if ever there was one), it is still the kindest and fairest form of society, and if ever it were truly tried, it would result in a more prosperous and just world.

Or, as former US Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz put it recently, ‘One person’s socialism is just another person’s neighbourliness!’

Free markets, they say, are the exact opposite of this. They are rapacious and predatory.

So, who is right, and who is wrong?

Although the arguments I use below have been put forward in one form or another many times, I am indebted to US commentator Ben Shapiro for crystalizing a number of the key points referred to in this debate.

First, free markets are economic systems by which individuals are free to exchange the products and services of their labour with others.

Socialism is about government planning – politicians and public sector bureaucrats deciding the value, and hence the price, of everything.

The fundamental difference between these two systems goes to the heart of our understanding of what it means to be human.

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote, ‘Two principles stand above all others: the fundamental human right to do as we please with our own property – whether it be our human capital or our life savings – and, as a corollary of this, a belief in the inherent moral superiority of an economy based on freedom of contract rather than collective coercion.’

Similarly, philosopher John Locke said, ‘Every man has property in his own person, and nobody has any right to it but himself. The labour of his body, the work of his hands, are properly his. Whatsoever he removes out of the state of nature … and has mixed his labour with it, and joined it to something that is his own, thereby makes it his property.’

Hence, the essential element of free markets is individual liberty – no-one possessing a veto over another person’s right to decide what they can and cannot do with their labour.

This freedom of exchange, they argue, leads to a robust system of supply and demand in which sellers and buyers agree on prices.

And because the preferences of human beings are fluid, the price of a product or service can only be determined in a free market, as it is only the buyer who can determine what the price of a product or service should be. Further, that price can change over time as individuals decide what their priorities are at a particular time.

US philosopher Thomas Sowell says, ‘The free market is nothing more than an option for each individual to choose among numerous existing institutions or to fashion new arrangements suited to his or her own situation and taste.’

‘Free markets reward hard work. They reward people who are willing to give up something that is guaranteed in favour of something that is not guaranteed. Accordingly, because entrepreneurs and innovators take risks, they ought to reap the reward.’

Aristotle suggested that individuals are equal in their rights, but not in their qualities.

Each ought to have the same rights to take advantage of their own natural abilities.

Christians believe that every person will one day stand before their Creator and give an account of themselves. They will not be able to blame anyone else for their lives but will be required to take responsibility for their own actions.

If that is the case, then that person should have the fundamental right to decide, as Schumpeter and Locke have articulated, what value they place on their labour at any given time in order to fulfil what they believe are their obligations to their families.

This is, of course, fundamentally at odds with current laws in Australia.

In Australia a person can:

    • get married
    • have children
    • drive a motor vehicle
    • fly an aeroplane
    • buy a house
    • take out a mortgage
    • enter into a mobile phone contract
    • travel to some of the most dangerous places on earth
    • smoke cigarettes
    • drink alcohol
    • enlist in the armed forces and shoot enemy combatants
    • and, of course, vote

but they can NOT enter into an employment arrangement which they believe is best for them. They are subject to a multitude of wage-fixing laws.

When asked why this happens, we are told, ‘It’s for their own good – we don’t want them to be exploited’.

The old ‘We want you to be safe’ mantra.

This has been demonstrated many times – for example, the dramatic increase in youth unemployment when unrealistic wage laws were introduced and when Aboriginal stockmen were awarded ‘equal pay’ in the 1960s.

In the latter case, pastoralists argued that the application of award rates to aborigines on cattle stations would cause massive unemployment.

The Northern Australian Workers’ Union mounted the case, but it was the Commonwealth Government’s intervention which was the most telling:

‘If numbers of aborigines are thrown out of work by the award of equal pay, they will be given aid on government settlements,’ they argued.

‘And if any problems of native welfare – whether of employees or their dependants – arise as a result of this decision, the Commonwealth Government has made clear its intention to deal with them.’

Thus began the tragedy of aboriginal townships and settlements.

In his article, ‘How to create unemployment: The Arbitration Commission and the Aborigines’, journalist and author Gerard Henderson said the Stockman’s decision was ‘staggeringly irresponsible’.

‘Almost from the date of the Commission’s decision there was a dramatic decline in Aboriginal employment on cattle stations in the Northern Territory and Western Australia – with devastating social consequences for the former employees and their dependants.’

Right there is the key aspect of socialism – ‘We will decide what’s best for you’.

‘We will also decide what you need and don’t need.’

‘And first and foremost, you don’t need to own private property’, decreed Karl Marx, the founder of socialism. 

In short, socialism is a system that places the individual under the control of the authoritarian state.

Is it any wonder it encourages revolutionaries?

Once established, socialism encourages laziness and stupidity and encourages people to lie.

Socialist politicians lie about what their policies are achieving – Australia’s current energy policies being a prime example – and their public sector subordinates lie to their political masters because they don’t want to get on the wrong side of them.

And people who are forced to live under socialist rule lie in order to survive, hence the proliferation of black markets in socialist economies.

The result is untold misery.

Thank you for your support.

Christmas 2024

by

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’

by

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.

Back in the Black – Part 2

by

BlackThe Black by-election is over and, as widely reported, the seat switched quite spectacularly from the Liberal Party to Labor in 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 vote.

Our candidate, Jonathan Parkin, together with family, friends and Party members, worked tirelessly in the lead-up to the by-election and the results speak for themselves.

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.

As discussed previously, at the last Federal election, the total Centre-Right (CR) vote in each state (NSW 12.3%, Vic 11.5%, Qld 15.6%, WA 11.5%, SA 10.8%, Tas 9.8%) would have been enough to get a Senator elected in every state.

That equates to 12 Senators elected over the two-election Senate cycle, and yet only two out of six were elected – Queensland (One Nation) and Victoria (UAP).

If the CR minor parties (which, by and large, do genuinely believe in ‘family, faith and freedom’) are to counter the major parties, the Greens, left-of-centre minor parties and pseudo-independents, then they need to work more closely together.

This goes to the heart of what CR parties generally agree on – the primacy of the individual and the family over government. CR parties believe that governments are there to serve the people, not the other way around. They take the side of the people; the Left believes in the power of the state.

Accordingly, I am pleased to announce that the Australian Family Party is currently in merger talks with the DLP (formerly the Democratic Labor Party).

To be known as ‘DLP – Australia’s Family Party’, this new Party will add further potency and capability to our cause.

Having even one Upper House seat gives a party a platform, a status, and a portal into the Parliament for its members.

For any project to succeed it must work effectively on three levels – strategy, tactics and operations.

Strategy is the big picture. This is the primary aim. In our case it is to have twelve Senators who can hold together for a minimum of twelve years.

As with anyone who has ever done a jigsaw puzzle, it is vitally important to have the picture on the box before you start. In other words, what the puzzle will look like when it’s finished.

In our case, we want twelve Senators, representing our various political constituencies across six States to hold together to save the nation from people such as Jim Chalmers.

Tactics is about which Parties get to represent which States and at which election. Initially, agreement would be reached for both the 2025 and 2028 elections.

To have six Senators elected in 2025 and six more in 2028, it will be vital that all parties, in all six States agree to work together and for each other, keeping an eye on the main prize.

Operations are the day-to-day administration, compliance and member servicing. A modestly sized Secretariat would be able to manage this.

Shortly after World War II, George Orwell published his novel 1984.

The story was set in a country ruled by ‘Big Brother’, a supreme dictator in an all-powerful, one-party state. The central character, Winston Smith, whose job it was to re-write the nation’s history books to fit the current narrative of the state, was continually tormented by his task. The department in which he worked was called ‘The Ministry of Truth’.

Orwell’s novel exposed the true nature of authoritarian governments which hold on to power by generating fear, distorting facts and censoring alternative views.

For a book published in 1949, his description of surveillance technology to track and trace citizens is downright spooky.

“Know everything in order to control everyone”, said Adam Weishaupt.

Technology and mass surveillance allow governments to do just that – know everything.

More government, more spending, more taxes, more regulation, more state power, more state control. Income tax, payroll tax, land tax, petrol tax, the goods and services tax, stamp duty, excise duty on alcohol and tobacco, power company dividends, water company dividends, the River Murray Levy, the Emergency Services Levy, the Regional Landscape Levy, the Solid Waste Levy, the Medicare Levy, Council Rates and many, many more. Local, state and federal governments taxing us at every turn.

And of course, that most pernicious of all taxes – inflation tax.

Pernicious because it so disproportionally affects those who spend a higher percentage of their income on food, petrol, electricity and gas, which are more susceptible to price rises.

Naturally, the government blames everyone else for the price rises – greedy business owners, supply chains, Vladimir Putin … anyone but themselves.

In the story of the forest that was continually shrinking, the trees kept voting for the axe. The axe, you see, was very clever: it was able to convince the trees that because its handle was made of wood, it was one of them.

It will be our job to present an alternative to these axe-wielding, ‘top-down’ power merchants.

Thank you for your support.

Breaking the Adoption Taboo

by

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’.

Back in the Black

by

tractorIt’s been said that there are only two industries in the world – farming and mining. The rest are jobs.

Everything we use is the result of something being grown or something being mined.

Yet both are constantly maligned by the Left.

‘Australia is just a farm and a mine’, they snarl.

To which we should all respond, ‘Well, we happen to be very good at farming and mining’.

On these pages just a few months ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Western Mining’s discovery of the gold, silver, copper and uranium ore body at Olympic Dam in South Australia.

Olympic Dam became one of the State’s most successful projects (and biggest earners!)

At the time of Federation in 1901, South Australia had an influential hand in shaping the new Commonwealth of Australia. For decades after, Adelaide was Australia’s Number 3 city – bigger and more prosperous than either Brisbane or Perth.

Led by Liberal Premier Tom Playford, South Australia prospered.

A grower himself, Playford believed in farming and mining. He also believed in things which flowed from farming and mining. Unsurprisingly, he remained Premier of South Australia for nearly 30 years.

Playford was an advocate for ‘cheap land, cheap power, cheap water, and cheap labour’. Wages might have been lower than in Sydney and Melbourne, but despite the lower pay packets, South Australians’ quality of life and standard of living were higher than their interstate counterparts.

It was an example of genuine competitive federalism – not the pseudo-competitive federalism of today in which state governments try to outdo each other by enticing companies to set up in their states.

He was also not into bread and circuses and would never allow himself to be seduced by grifters.

Like former Labor Premier John Bannon, South Australia’s current Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas is likeable and sincere. He is also equally naïve.

John Bannon was infatuated with Tim Marcus Clark and his State Bank opportunists.

Bannon allowed the bank to invest billions of dollars of South Australian taxpayers’ money in schemes and projects he didn’t understand.

It was all a scam.

I predict the same will happen with the current Premier’s infatuation with so-called ‘green hydrogen’ and all things renewable.

These renewable energy merchants are, in my opinion, nothing more than corporate parasites who go around manipulating the political process in order to extract money from taxpayers and consumers.

They are a curse.

They rake in billions of dollars gaming the system, raising energy prices, impoverishing consumers, destroying jobs, and fleecing taxpayers.

Playford understood all this.

He also knew how unpredictable the world could be and was a great believer in being self-sufficient – at both a personal and at a State level.

In 1946, he established the Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) and in 1960 built the Port Augusta power station. By 1970 South Australia was completely self-sufficient for electricity – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – not reliant like we are today on interstate cables ‘for when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow’!

He also oversaw the construction of the Port Stanvac oil refinery in South Australia which began refining crude oil in 1963!

Since then, almost all of SA’s manufacturing and self-sufficiency industries have been shut down and SA is no longer self-sufficient.

The car industry has gone, the Onkaparinga Woolen Mills have closed, so too Port Stanvac refinery, the Port Augusta power station and countless ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) Top 100 companies – Fauldings, Elders, Normandy Mining, Adsteam, Southcorp and of course, one of the world’s biggest companies, News Ltd – have all left town.

Strategic oil reserves, strategic food reserves, strategic water and power policies … who is talking about these things today?

Sir Tom would turn in his grave.

Speaking of no longer being in the black, SA is to have a by-election in the seat of Black following the resignation of former Liberal leader David Speirs.

During the Dunstan by-election earlier this year, the Australian Family Party supported the Liberal Party with its preference decisions due to David Speirs’ commitment to the values of family, faith and freedom.

In replacing Speirs, the Liberals have elected Vincent Tarzia who is also on the same page in these areas.

Matthew Abraham, who has been covering SA politics for a very long time says, ‘While Labor is well-placed to win Black, Tarzia as leader is focussed and no slacker.’

Abraham says Malinauskas, ‘Is still a vote magnet, but cost of living remains the main issue in Black. This should play in Tarzia’s favour.’

Jonathan-ParkinThe Australian Family Party’s candidate in Black is Jonathan Parkin (pictured). A former commercial airline pilot, Jonathan has lived in the electorate for most of his life. Married with two children, he has been involved in a number of community activities, including the Nipper program at the local Seacliff Surf Life Saving Club. More about Jonathan in coming weeks.

The by-election is on Saturday 16th November, with early voting from Monday 11th November – Friday 15th November.

At the general election in 2022, Black was a ‘3-way contest’ – Labor, Liberal and Greens – with the Greens’ candidate feeding preferences to Labor and no-one preferencing the Liberal Party.

Not this time.

If you would like to help influence the outcome of this by-election, please let us know here (choose Federal Director from the button list). We need volunteers on polling day, and at the early voting centres. If you can volunteer for an hour or two, that would be most helpful.

Also, the cost to run in a by-election – candidate registration, how-to-vote cards, etc., is around $1,500.

If you can make a small contribution to help cover these costs, again this would be greatly appreciated. Please click here.

Thank you for your support.

A.I. – The New Celestial City

by

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

by

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

by

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.