Australian Family Party

Family Matters

Australian Politics

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.

A Digital Dark Age – Part 1

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Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,
‘Tis the prettiest little parlour, that ever you did spy,
Oh no, no! then said the fly, to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up to your winding stair,
Can ne’er come down again.

digital-dark-ageMary Howitt’s old poem could well be describing another web, the one that ensnares us all – the world-wide-web.

Every aspect of our lives is connected to this web – most notably our source of nearly all the information on which we base life’s decisions. It is because of this web that we are now in this predicament.

We have all been caught, and to quote Mary Howitt, we’re ‘ne’er coming down again’.

What I would like to do in this examination of the Government’s Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill is:

  1. Describe the proposed Bill.
  2. Explain why governments relish having powers such as the ones this Bill will give them.
  3. Reveal how governments enlist third parties to shut down information they do not like.
  4. Show how governments themselves are the worst perpetrators when it comes to disseminating misinformation and disinformation.
  5. Predict that the Bill will not be kind to Christians.

1. The Bill

In January 2023, the Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, announced that the Albanese Government would introduce new laws to provide the media regulator – the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) – with ‘new powers to combat online misinformation and disinformation’.

The proposed new bill, the Communication Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill, would:

  • Enable ACMA to gather information from global tech companies and require them to keep certain records about matters regarding misinformation and disinformation and provide those records to ACMA.
  • Enable ACMA to request industry to develop, vary and/or register a code of practice covering measures to combat misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms, which ACMA could then register and enforce.
  • Allow ACMA to create and enforce an industry standard, should a code of practice be deemed ineffective in combatting misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms.
  • Empower ACMA to regulate electoral and referendum content, but NOT the power to regulate political parties with regard to misleading and/or deceptive conduct.
  • Empower the Minister to direct ACMA to conduct investigations into any matter regarding misinformation or disinformation and empower the Minister to set the terms of reference for any such investigation.

The Bill also provides for significant penalties for digital platforms or individuals that do not comply with the Bill and/or the new codes and standards that the Bill creates. Penalties include:

  • Imprisonment of up to 12 months for providing false or misleading information to ACMA.
  • Non-attendance at an ACMA investigation hearing of up to 33 penalty units ($9,000) for each day of non-attendance.
  • Non-compliance with a registered code of up to 10,000 penalty units ($2.75m) or 2% of global turnover (whatever is greater).
  • Non-compliance with an industry standard of up to 25,000 penalty units ($6.88m) or 5% of global turnover (whatever is greater).

Other penalties may also apply.

The government, of course, will not be subject to any of these new laws. It has exempted itself.

Ms Rowland said the government was committed to introducing legislation which would fine social media companies for allowing misinformation or disinformation to be broadcast on their platforms.

Misinformation is defined as ‘false information that is spread due to ignorance, or by error or mistake, without the intent to deceive’.

Disinformation is defined as ‘false information designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion or obscure the truth for malicious or deceptive purposes’.

“In the face of seriously harmful content that sows division, undermines support for pillars of our democracy, or disrupts public health responses, doing nothing is not an option.

“The proposal would empower the regulator to examine the systems and processes these tech giants already have in place, and develop standards should industry self-regulation measures prove insufficient in addressing the threat posed by misinformation and disinformation”.

Harsh words indeed.

In its submission to the draft bill, the Law Council of Australia warned that the proposal could have a ‘chilling effect on freedom of expression’ by allowing social media giants and the communications watchdog (ACMA) to decide what constitutes information, opinion and assertions online.

And in case anyone was thinking this is solely a Labor Party contrivance, before the 2022 election, the Morrison government pledged to, ‘… introduce stronger laws to combat harmful disinformation and misinformation online by giving the media regulator stronger information-gathering and enforcement powers’.

To cap it all off, waiting in the wings is ‘mal-information’, defined as ‘truth which is used to inflict harm on a person, organisation or country’ and ‘information that stems from the truth, but is often portrayed in a way that misleads and/or causes potential harm’.

To invoke Climate Czar and former US Presidential candidate Al Gore, mal-information might be otherwise described as ‘an inconvenient truth’.

Thank you for your support.

A Digital Dark Age – Part 2

Camels on the Horizon

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camelsThe story is told of the founder of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid, who, when asked about the future of his country replied:

“My grandfather rode a camel. My father rode a camel. I drive a Mercedes. My son drives a Land Rover, and my grandson will drive a Land Rover.”

“But my great-grandson will ride a camel.”

“Why would that be?”, he was asked.

He replied, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create easy times, easy times create weak men, weak men create difficult times.”

Many great empires have risen and fallen within relatively brief periods of time – Persian, Trojan, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Ottoman, British – all have come and gone.

Most were not conquered by external enemies but rotted from within.

Members of what has been called ‘The Greatest Generation’ – those born between 1900 and 1930 – fought and won two World Wars, survived the Great Depression and defeated communism. They also created the most prosperous era (1950–1990) the world had ever known.

Strength gave rise to prosperity. With prosperity came easy times.

We know what came next because we are now living in those difficult times.

The foundation of all prosperity is energy, and it will be the destruction of our energy system in pursuit of so-called renewables that will result in our great-grandchildren riding camels.

But there is still time to change course.

It’s been said, ‘there are no bad soldiers, only bad generals’.

Or, ‘better a mob of sheep led by a lion, than a mob of lions led by a sheep’.

It has not gone unnoticed that the last few referendums – or referenda to be more precise – haven’t gone the way they were supposed to go. The Voice here in Australia, the Irish referendum on the role of women in the home and the makeup of the family, and of course Brexit, all went against what the prevailing government of the day wanted.

As we know, it was once the case that the people would demand that their governments pass new laws to fix some social ill.

These days, it is the government that demands that the people pass new laws, via referendum, to further the government’s agenda.

This does not bode well for the future of referendums.

As German playwright Bertolt Brecht once said, ‘Some party hack has decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence. If that is the case, would it not be simpler if the government simply dissolved the people and elected another people?’

Don’t give them any ideas.

As the Irish referendum demonstrated, people are not yet ready to give up on the principle that the nuclear family – mum, dad and the kids – is the basic unit of society and the foundation of freedom.

As journalist Virginia Tapscott says, “The chasm between what the top end of town thought was good for women and what grassroots women actually want was wider than anyone could have predicted.”

It is why we at the Australian Family Party believe the family should be the state’s top priority, particularly when it comes to concerns over social media.

Interviewed by The Weekend Australian Magazine, American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business, says of the experiment with the smartphone:

“There’s never been anything this big that we’ve done to children. It is affecting the majority of children, not just in the United States, but in all the English-speaking countries and in Scandinavia. And while I cannot say that growing up on a smartphone is as bad as being lead ­poisoned or sent to work in a factory when you’re young, what I can say is that as a choice we made about how to raise our children thinking it was OK, this is the biggest blunder we have ever made.”

As this website has said many times, the family is the best place to build relationships and learn who to trust, who not to trust, who to communicate with, and who not to communicate with.

Let’s face it (pun intended), Facebook friends are not real friends, they are not family. Real family is mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

The family is the one institution which can combat the lawlessness of the digital jungle and its predators. It is more powerful than the tech titans and the cyber-bullies and their algorithms.

It is time to strengthen the family – before those camels arrive.

Endnote 1: Dunstan by-election

At the South Australian State election held two years ago, Liberal Premier Steven Marshall defeated the Labor candidate Cressida O’Hanlon by just 260 votes.

At the recent by-election caused by the resignation of Steven Marshall, the same Labor candidate defeated the Liberal candidate Anna Finizio by 360 votes.

For a sitting Premier to garner just a handful more votes than a newbie candidate (out of more than 20,000 votes) says something.

There was essentially no difference between Labor’s result and the Liberals’ result between 2022 and 2024. Each dropped 3% to the Greens who increased their vote by 6% – from 13% to 19%.

Our candidate, Nicole Hussey, received 440 primary votes (2.0%).

The Australian Family Party’s primary aim in contesting the by-election and preferencing the Liberal candidate was to support Opposition Leader David Speirs for his commitment to traditional values of family, faith and freedom.

As we are fond of saying, ‘every bit helps’, hence our encouragement to others of like-mind to support an Opposition Leader of like-mind following four years of decidedly anti-family, faith and freedom rule.

A big thank you also goes out to all our volunteers who worked the early voting centre and on election day.

Endnote 2: Church & State Conference

For those who can’t get enough of this stuff, don’t forget to register for Dave Pellowe’s Church & State Conference in Hobart/Launceston/Perth/Adelaide. Register here.

Thank you for your support.

The Winning Circle

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holmesIn ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’, one of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes is sent to investigate the disappearance – on the eve of an important race – of a champion racehorse called Silver Blaze, and the death of its trainer John Straker.

In what has become a famous exchange known as ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’ between Scotland Yard’s Inspector Gregory and Sherlock Holmes, Gregory asks Holmes, ‘Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?’

‘Yes’, Holmes replied, ‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’.

‘But the dog did nothing in the night-time’, said Gregory.

‘That was the curious incident’, Holmes replied.

That the dog didn’t bark told Holmes the person who took the racehorse was known to the dog. The thief was not a stranger. It was an inside job.

This exchange has become symbolic of the need to speak up or ‘bark’ when something is amiss.

Rest assured, here at the Australian Family Party we will not hesitate to bark.

There is no doubt South Australia has economic and social problems that it is going to have to solve – high mortgages (forcing both parents out to work), high cost of living (educating and raising children, power prices, water prices), health (bulk billing, ambulance ramping) – and social ills caused by the rupturing of family relationships.

Our State also has economic and social goals it wants to achieve.

But all we seem to get are endless announcements and pronouncements – ninety per cent of which is all BS according to our Premier – about ship building, green hydrogen, 24/7 pharmacies, upgrading Main South Road and all manner of other government grants and subsidies.

The Australian Family Party believes it is the family that should be the State’s top priority.

We believe it is time to strengthen the family, to protect the family, to fight for the family.

Let’s face it, your family is the only thing you’d take a bullet for.

Family provides meaning, belonging and security. Strong family relationships reduce depression and anxiety disorders, strengthen the immune system and speed recovery from surgery.

We all know there is no model or perfect family – every family is flawed in some way because it is made up of flawed human beings. But the family is the place to cultivate the right way to view life and the world around us. These are indeed difficult times, but we’ve known hardships before. They are the snakes and ladders of life and these too will pass.

Social ills caused by the rupturing of family relationships – divorce, de-facto relationships, fatherless households, single mothers bringing up children, high housing costs – lead to a breakdown in society.

Family breakdown is costly. Mental illness costs the economy $200bn a year. More than 3,000 Australians take their lives each year. More young men take their own lives than are killed in road accidents. Boys raised in father-absent environments are five times more likely to commit suicide, ten times more likely to abuse drugs, fourteen times more likely to commit rape, and twenty times more likely to end up in a correctional facility. Fatherless households are a dreadful problem.

As are divorce, domestic violence, loneliness and addiction to alcohol, gambling, drugs and pornography.

Suicide rates are on the rise. Rates of depression have sky-rocketed. Drug overdoses, the ICE scourge – something is very wrong.

As The Australian’s Paul Kelly has said, ‘An alarming number of people are damaged, lonely or depressed. This is the road Australia is travelling.’

The Australian Family Party believes we can serve Australia best by putting the family first.

We can build up society by building up the family. Faith and family, a sublime combination.

Which brings us to the South Australian by-election for the seat of Dunstan, caused by the retirement of former Liberal Premier Steven Marshall.

Matthew Abraham, who has been covering SA politics for a very long time, said before the last State election that he could see no ideological differences between Liberal and Labor.

“Steven Marshall is now essentially a Labor premier”, he said.

In 2017, Christopher Pyne, then leader of the Liberal Party’s left-leaning, progressive faction and mentor to Steven Marshall, said the Liberal progressives were winning the internal battle against the Party’s conservatives. “We’re in the winning circle”, he said.

How well did that work out for them?

Well, both men are now gone, the Liberal Party having lost both State and Federal elections in 2022.

In South Australia, the Liberals have now elected a more conservative leader in David Speirs to help them return to the real winning circle.

As a token of support – the Australian Family Party believes David Speirs has earned the right to lead his party to the next general election – we will be preferencing the Liberal Party – see How-to-Vote card (right).

The Australian Family Party’s candidate in Dunstan is Dr Nicole Hussey. A former research scientist who now teaches biology and chemistry, Nicole has had a wide experience in the medical/scientific sector and has direct knowledge of our education system.

The by-election is on Saturday 23 March, with early voting from 12 March – 22 March.

If you would like to help Nicole, please let us know here (choose Federal Director from the button list).

Thank you for your support.

The Seven Deadly Sins

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vineyardWe are all familiar with the story of Jesus overturning the trading tables and driving out the moneychangers from the temple.

Following this outburst, Jesus was confronted by the chief priests and elders demanding to know by what authority he was doing these things.

He responded by asking them their opinion of John the Baptist and then telling them a parable:

There was a man who had two sons. The man went to the first son and said, “Son, go and work today in the vineyard.”

“I will not,” the first son answered, but later changed his mind and went.

The father then went to the other son and said the same thing, “Son, go and work today in the vineyard.”

“I will, father,” he said, but did not go.

‘Which of the two sons did what his father wanted?’ Jesus asked the Pharisees.

‘The first!’ they answered.

He then rebuked them, telling them that although they acknowledged the first son was the good son, they were more like the second son – saying one thing but doing another:

‘Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God before you will.

‘John came to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did’.

Proverbs and axioms such ‘Actions speak louder than words’ and ‘I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do’ have for centuries reinforced the link between personal and public morality. You simply couldn’t get away with saying one thing and doing another.

Sadly, it appears that rule no longer applies.

In today’s world, the second son gets the free pass if he mouths the right platitudes.

What he does no longer matters. It is the first son, the one who spoke the wrong words but did the right thing, who is now the villain.

Remember the seven deadly sins?

They are not quite as well known as the Ten Commandments, but they are equally important in theological terms.  They are:

  1. Anger
  2. Greed
  3. Sloth
  4. Pride
  5. Lust
  6. Envy
  7. Gluttony

What is noticeable about these seven deadly sins?

Or rather, what are they not?

None of them are actions. Murder is not there, adultery is not there, stealing is not there.

One would think that murder was a deadly sin. The same goes for adultery. But no.

The old theologians had it right, the deadly sins are not about the ‘what’, they are about the ‘why’.  Why people do what they do.

One of the most fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity, is Judaism says God divides people into good and evil, whereas Christianity says God divides people into believers and non-believers.

Which brings us to the South Australian by-election for the seat of Dunstan, caused by the retirement of former Liberal Premier Steven Marshall.

In 2022, then Labor Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas went to the SA State election with one overriding campaign pledge – to fix ambulance ramping at Adelaide’s new $2.3bn hospital.

He won in a landslide – 27 seats to the Liberals’ 16.

Two years later, ramping is now worse than it was under the Liberals, and yet Labor retains a significant lead over the Liberals in the opinion polls.

Actions, it seems, no longer speak louder than words.

In fact, these days it appears to be just the opposite. No-one is punished for lying anymore, but lots are punished for telling the truth!

Former Premier Marshall’s left-leaning colleague, Deputy-Leader Vickie Chapman, retired in May 2022.

It was the actions of Marshall and Chapman (in particular) on issues such as euthanasia and abortion that led to the establishment of the Australian Family Party.

Launched in October 2020 as ‘Family First 2.0’ in the wake of the Liberals’ profound anti-life policies, the Party’s membership grew quickly, and the Party was registered the following year.

Inaugural letterbox flyer from 2020

One Liberal MP, however, who refused to go along with Vickie Chapman’s ghastly legislation was the Member for Black, David Speirs.

Interestingly, Speirs is now Leader of the Liberal Party in South Australia.

Accordingly, as a vote of confidence in his leadership, the Australian Family Party will preference the Liberal candidate in Dunstan at the forthcoming by-election on 23 March.

Our candidate is Dr Nicole Hussey. A former research scientist who now teaches biology and chemistry, Nicole has had a wide experience in the medical/scientific sector and has direct knowledge of our education system. Nicole would make a great Member of Parliament.

If you would like to help Nicole in the by-election, please let me know here (choose Federal Director from the button list).

And for those interested in the ongoing ‘church and state’ debate, this year’s Church & State Conferences – now in their 7th year – will be held in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Launceston. These conferences are excellent. For more details, visit their website Church & State.

Thank you for your support.

University River

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university riverIn William Blake’s hymn Jerusalem, the phrase ‘those dark Satanic mills’ was assumed to be referring to the cotton and woollen mills of his time and the mills’ terrible working conditions.

Based on the date of the hymn and Blake’s religious background, however, many question whether he was referring to the Dickensian factories and cotton mills at all, but rather to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Blake was scathing of universities. He loathed them. He saw them churning out, factory-like, a new godless world.

“I will not cease from mental fight”, he writes in a subsequent verse.

He considered these elite establishments incapable of mental fight.

Fast forward to December 2023 and United States Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asking a number of University Presidents at a Congressional hearing whether “calling for the genocide of Jews breached their university’s codes of conduct on harassment and bullying?”

Staggeringly, each of the University Presidents – including Harvard University President Claudine Gay – refused to answer in the affirmative, saying only, “When speech crosses into conduct, we take action.”

“It would depend on the context,” she added.

In other words, only when Jews are actually murdered would the university step in!

Similar responses were given by the other University Presidents, which would no doubt be mirrored by responses from some of Australia’s elite universities were they to be asked the same question.

‘Satanic’. ‘Incapable of mental fight’. Exactly what Blake was referring to.

The above exchange is what one might call a ‘shibboleth’.

In his excellent book Blink!, Malcolm Gladwell describes how it is possible to weigh up situations in the ‘blink’ of an eye.

In other words, how to make good decisions in an instant by doing what he calls ‘thin slicing’.

Thin slicing is a concept similar to taking a big salami, and no matter how thinly you slice it, everything you want to know about the whole salami is in that one slice.

Often you don’t have time to study or research an organisation or a person; you have to analyse what is going on by finding that ‘thin slice’. That shibboleth.

Shibboleth is a Hebrew word meaning ‘stream.’ It is referred to in the Old Testament book of Judges, where Jephthah and the men of Gilead fought the Ephraimites and captured the Jordan River crossing. As people crossed the river, to distinguish who was friend from foe, they had everyone say the word ‘shibboleth’. If they couldn’t pronounce it properly, they knew they were the enemy. From this, the word shibboleth was absorbed into the English language to describe a key identifier or a dead give-away.

What we saw in the University Presidents’ exchange was that dead give-away.

Jewish Liberal MP Julian Leeser has said: “I go back to the universities because this is the cauldron where it all starts.”

The reluctance of universities to confront what is happening to Jewish students is not surprising.

A recent scorecard on incidents of anti-Semitism in Australian universities found that in the last year at the University of Sydney there had been 56 incidents of anti-Semitism, the University of NSW 49, University of Technology Sydney 17, Macquarie University 9, University of Melbourne 7, and Monash University 6. A total of 72 per cent of those surveyed said experiences of anti-Semitism had worsened since the Hamas attack of October 7.

Part of the explanation for this lies with Gramsci’s long march through the institutions to impose Marxist thinking – beginning with the universities. It is where formative minds are indoctrinated.

Once out of university, these graduates disperse into other key institutions – the law, politics, media, business – and Marxist ideology soon takes hold.

Now, it was once the case that occupations such as nursing, teaching and journalism were learned ‘on the job’ – on the hospital ward, in the classroom, doing the rounds of the courts – supplemented by part-time study. Journalism, in particular, was considered more of a trade than a profession.

Not anymore.

Adapting to the rigours of the hospital ward or classroom or police beat as a nurse, teacher or reporter was much easier for a young person post-high school than post-university.

Sometimes, when a regime has been in place for a very long time, it is not possible to ‘break through’ that system. You have to break with it.

Over time, institutions – such as the public service or the industrial relations system or higher education – become adept at building up defences and seeing off zealous reformers.

The only option is to break with.

Employers should be encouraged to hire students with the appropriate aptitude straight from high school and facilitate their higher education in the form of part-time study at industry-specific places of higher learning.

I know this works as I myself was recruited straight from high school into a materials testing and research laboratory.

Similarly sponsored employment traineeships and cadetships could be rolled out across all sectors, the aim being to by-pass the toxic environment that our universities have become.

Let me finish with a story.

A group of hikers were out walking when they chance upon a river. Their attention is suddenly drawn to a number of young people in difficulties being carried downstream by the river’s strong current.

The hikers immediately jump into the river and start rescuing the youngsters.

As they pull them out, they notice that more and more young people are being swept towards them.

As more youngsters appear, one of the hikers climbs out of the river.

“Where are you going?”, asks one of the other hikers.

“I’m going upstream to find out who is throwing all these kids in the river!”, he replied.

The universities are the river. We have to stop our young ones from being thrown in.

Thank you for your support.