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Australian Family Party

Family Matters

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Family Resilience

The Shrinking Forest – Part 1

19/01/2023 by Australian Family Party

shrinking-forest‘Itch’ (noun) “… an irritating sensation on the skin that makes one want to scratch the affected part”.

What may have started as ‘an irritating sensation on the skin’, regrettably has developed into a full-blown cancer affecting the nation’s vital organs.

I am talking about authoritarianism.

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.

‘The long march through the institutions’ is nearing completion.

More government, more spending, more taxes, more regulation, more state power, more state control. Income tax, payroll tax, land tax, petrol tax, the goods & 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 businesses, supply chains, Vladimir Putin … anyone but themselves.

As US economist Peter Schiff puts it, “Inflation is caused by governments spending money they don’t have, accompanied by compliant central banks who not only forsake their mandates to keep inflation under control by putting up interest rates and punishing governments who overspend, they instead indulge governments by printing the money for them!”

Following the 1980s excesses, the Reserve Bank of Australia increased interest rates to 17.5% and the Hawke-Keating government copped a mountain of pain. Yet, despite massive deficit spending over the past three years – the highest in the nation’s history – the RBA last month lifted interest rates to just 3.1%.

So, what happens when spending is not accompanied by revenue measures to pay for it? Where does the money come from? Inflation. Instead of higher taxes, consumers pay higher prices.

The bad news is it is going to get worse. And when it does, the Albanese government will again try to blame greedy businesses and introduce more price controls on them – like the recent coal price cap. Not good times ahead.

Then there’s the government’s bagmen accomplices, the rent-seekers – companies that base their business models on providing goods and services to consumers that are either paid for by the government or the government prevents or limits competition. It is another layer of taxation which disproportionally affects low-income families – those who can’t afford to install solar panels on their roofs, for example.

These rent-seekers are now everywhere – energy, superannuation, pharmaceuticals, higher education, land development, indigenous groups, public transport, manufacturing – you name it. They are a scourge. They tarnish the political process, distort the market and in the case of so-called ‘renewable energy’, distort the entire economy.

Renewable energy rent-seekers have leapt onto 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.

Along with unions and industry superfunds, these new Australian oligarchs have limitless amounts of money to both shore up their own positions and resist anyone who might try to challenge them.

Previously, entrepreneurs went to the marketplace to make their fortunes. Today the public purse is the mother lode.

When the NDIS was announced in 2012, it was forecast to cost $14bn a year. In April 2022, actuary firm Taylor Fry estimated that by 2030 the cost will blow out to $64bn a year– a $50bn a year increase.

How was this allowed to happen in such a short period of time? Simple – professionalised politics and sophisticated rent-seeking.

The story is told of a forest that was continually shrinking – but 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.

Filed Under: Australia's economic future, Australian Character, Australian Politics, Culture Wars, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Political Itch, Social policy

Postcard from Nepal

01/11/2022 by Australian Family Party

Nepal-ashramA fourth-year medical student had just finished top of his class at university.

His parents were so proud of him they gave him a holiday in Nepal for a month-long trek to clear his mind and prepare him for his next year’s study.

While in Nepal the young man met an Indian guru who told him of the futility of Western society and culture – always striving for success and being dependent on someone else’s failure so you can be successful. “That will never make you happy”, the guru told him. “Give up all this competitiveness and come and live with us in a community where we all love each other and where no-one is trying to take anything away from anyone else.”

The young man had finished five years of private schooling and four years of university and was ripe for this kind of influence.

He rang his parents from Kathmandu and said he was dropping out of Medical School and going to live in an Ashram.

You can imagine how pleased they were to hear this.

Six months later they received a letter from their son:

“Dear Mum & Dad, I know you weren’t pleased with me for dropping out of medical school, but I can’t tell you how happy I am. For the first time in my life, I feel good about the way I’m living. I’ve got the poison of competitiveness out of my system. This new way of life is so in harmony with the essence of my inner being in only six months I’ve become the No 2 disciple in the whole Ashram, and I reckon I’ll be No 1 by the end of the year.”

Irony and self-awareness were clearly not the lad’s strong suits.

The Late Rabbi Sacks wrote, “Those who are naïve about human nature find themselves disappointed again and again.

“Revolutions, protests, and civil wars continually take place because people think that removing a tyrant or having a democratic election will end corruption, create freedom and lead to justice and the rule of law. People are surprised and disappointed when it does not happen. All that happens is a change of faces in the corridors of power.”

After the French Revolution, Napoleon was more dictatorial than Louis XVI. After the Russian Revolution, Stalin was far more brutal than the Czar, and after the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao was more autocratic and murderous than any of the Emperors of the Chinese dynasties.

Each of these tyrants – Napoleon, Stalin and Mao – as well as fomenting anti-sovereign hatred – also held a deep hostility towards God:

“We will never be free until we strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest.”  – Diderot

Like the young man in the Ashram, what the people who supported these tyrants naïvely overlooked was the inability of human beings to prevent the abuse of power and position once it has been attained.

The threat to our nation, and the Western world, is not a virus or climate change, it is the slow takeover of every aspect of our lives by those who seek more and more power. We are witnessing the ascension of a new authoritarianism. ‘The long march through the institutions’ is nearing completion.

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

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

For example, kill-switches are now fitted to many makes of motor vehicles – rental cars in particular. These switches can be accessed remotely or programmed to activate if the vehicle approaches a certain geographical area. Legislation was passed recently in the US mandating that by 2026 a kill-switch must be included within the operating software of all new motor cars (see Biden kill switch by 2026).

We’ve already seen freedom of speech and communication curtailed, freedom of movement will be next.

In England, zone restrictions have been introduced in cities such as Oxford preventing motorists from driving from one part of town to another.

In Holland, banks are tracking what people spend their money on with a ‘carbon emissions summary’ – from food to airline tickets to petrol – noted on their receipts.

In Australia, smart meters can now be used to control a home’s power usage – or disconnect the power completely. No need to physically visit homes that might have locked gates or uncooperative homeowners.

What you buy, what you say, where you go, how much power you use …

A quotation often attributed to GK Chesterton (but actually coined by Belgian writer Emile Cammaerts who was studying Chesterton at the time) puts it in a nutshell, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.”

Sig Samuel wrote, “This is religion minus all the God stuff. These atheists are more religious than Christians.”

The state, presided over by its gurus and high priests who are every bit as dogmatic and dictatorial as you’ll find in any sect or cult, has become the new religion.

We must stand firm. We must not yield.

This is not easy. Please support us in our efforts to monitor and report what is happening. Thank you.

Note: I will be joining the Panel at the forthcoming ‘Church & State’ Conference in Adelaide on 5 November. For further information click here.

Filed Under: Australia's economic future, Australian Character, Australian Politics, Culture Wars, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Social policy

Between Elections

01/09/2022 by Australian Family Party

parliament-house-between-electionsAs the late Texas politician Robert Strauss used to say, “You can fool some of the people all of the time – and they’re the ones you need to concentrate on”.

In politics, the golden rule is whatever result you see, that is what was intended.

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson says, “We live in an age of astonishing disengagement by far too many good citizens in the life of our nation. I suspect that without compulsory voting we’d have up to half the electorate not bothering to vote at all.”

If we apply the golden rule to John Anderson’s observation, then citizens being disengaged from politics is exactly what is intended. Keep people in the dark. Do things that turn them off politics. Take parliament’s Question Time for example. Not only do our politicians behave appallingly, they take our money and our freedom and say they will act in our best interests. Instead, they act in their own interest and the interests of the rent-seeking cartels. No wonder people are disillusioned and disengaged.

This world is not a playground, it is a battleground. The troubling aspect, however, is the consistency of the forces on that battleground. Whether it’s Black Lives Matter, Roe v Wade (the US Supreme Court ruling on abortion), transgenderism, climate or Covid, the activists seem to all follow the same script – regardless of where they are in the world or how the issue affects them.

Most people are not into confrontation and opt out, leaving the world to be ‘ruled by those who show up’ as the old saying goes. The problem is that those who show up do not think like the ‘good citizens’ John Anderson has in mind.

The activists want everyone to be like them and embrace their views on everything from morality to marriage to matters of life and death – and everything in between. If you object, as US Bible teacher Chuck Swindoll puts it, “If you don’t shut up, we’ll shut you up”.

The world is polarised like never before. As we’ve said on our website previously, the (political) centre is disappearing. Public policy is becoming like a gym barbell with weights on each end and a long bar between them. People are either at one end of the political spectrum or the other.

Science was once similar to mathematics in that there was general agreement on the facts. Not anymore. ‘Follow the science’ is looking less like mathematics and more like economics, with one side of politics pushing its version of the science and the other side pushing theirs.

So, what is the answer?

As we have argued from the outset, ‘family, faith and freedom’ are the best bulwarks against division and authoritarianism. We must stand firm.

We need to be fierce advocates for the family as society’s key defender. Our Top 10 objectives are to STOP:

  1. The ‘tax and control’ agenda – including opposing digital identity legislation.
  2. Fearmongering – climate change is not a threat to life on earth and nor is Covid.
  3. The money-making racket that is renewable energy.
  4. The indoctrination of children through the education system.
  5. The undermining of faith-based schools and organisations.
  6. The mental health epidemic.
  7. Addictions to alcohol, gambling, drugs and pornography.
  8. The decline in home ownership and the associated rental nightmare.
  9. Social media harming the young.
  10. Bureaucrats running the country.

As the Greens have demonstrated over and over again, the way to get what you want is through political power. You get elected, you do deals to increase your Senate representation, and then when you have the balance of power – like they have now, you flex your muscles and get your way.

If you agree, please continue to support us – particularly between elections.

A basic $20 annual donation would cover our expenses. Please support us if you can here.

Thank you again.

Filed Under: Australia's economic future, Australian Character, Australian Politics, Covid, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Housing Affordability, Social policy

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

13/07/2022 by Australian Family Party

reaganIn his brilliant book ‘The Subversive Family’, British writer Ferdinand Mount argued that marriage and the family, far from being oppressed by the ruling class, are in fact the chief bulwarks against authoritarianism.

Former US President Ronald Reagan, in his farewell address following his successful eight-year presidency said, “All great change begins at the dinner table”.

Here in Australia, Gillian Triggs, the former president of Australia’s Human Rights Commission received a standing ovation at a (former Greens leader) Bob Brown event, for a speech which included the line, “Sadly, you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home.”

Western democracy was founded in Christianity and in the family. It’s why Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the co-authors of the ‘Communist Manifesto’, were determined to undermine both. Marx and Engels knew faith and family were the enemy. They did not like what families and people of faith people talked about around the dinner table.

Following the recent Federal election, the general agreement around this Party’s dinner table is that Australia is about to get mugged by reality. We’re heading for a recession. High mortgage rates, power blackouts, food and petrol shortages and price rises, and a housing affordability and rental crisis will lead, we conclude, to the collapse of the Albanese government.

For a glimpse of what we can expect, look no further than across the ditch to New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s, unfettered, left-wing policies have totally failed that country. Whether it’s the health system, food and petrol price rises, five interest rate rises in a row, increasing crime, one of the worst housing affordability ratings in the world, numerous unfulfilled promises and a deliberate policy of dividing Kiwis along racial lines, New Zealand is Exhibit A. Once again, we are shown that just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, there are economic and social laws that cannot be mocked.

Political veteran Winston Peters, who once supported Prime Minister Ardern, says, “New Zealand is turning into a country we no longer recognise”.

New Zealanders have, however, finally woken up to Jacinda and, if she hasn’t resigned in the meantime, will comprehensively turf her out at the next election.

Here at home, whether the electorate will be ready to embrace a Peter Dutton-led Liberal Party following the failure of the Albanese government is another matter. Therefore, it is important that the electorate has some alternatives.

In our numerous internal post-election discussions along the lines of ‘What went right? What went wrong? and Where to from here?’ we need to first and foremost get the Australian Family Party’s name above the line! Being on the ballot paper is a good start and our Senate candidates’ names below the line is fine, but the blank box above the line was a major problem. To get our name above the line we need to lift our membership number past the 1,500 threshold and get registered federally.

Second, there were no less than seven ‘Faith, Family and/or Freedom’ parties and two well-known independents (Nick Xenophon and Rex Patrick) attracting a total of 16.0% of the primary vote. It is highly unlikely all will run again in 2025.

Third, on the policy front, as Ferdinand Mount stated, we need to be fierce advocates for the family as society’s key defender against tyranny. Accordingly, our Top 10 objectives are to STOP the following:

  1. The ‘tax and control’ agenda – including opposing any digital identity legislation.
  2. Fearmongering – climate change is not a threat to life on earth and nor is Covid.
  3. The money-making racket that is renewable energy.
  4. The indoctrination of children through the education system.1
  5. The undermining of faith-based schools and organisations.
  6. The mental health epidemic.
  7. Addictions to alcohol, gambling, drugs and pornography.
  8. The decline in home ownership and the associated rental nightmare.
  9. Social media harming the young.
  10. Bureaucrats running the country.

An example of that last point was the recent Census which revealed the not-so-subtle attempt to undermine or delegitimize the place of faith in society.

In 2016, ‘No Religion’ was moved from the bottom of the list of options to the top. How puerile.

But it worked for them. This year, ‘No Religion’ polled 39% and the accompanying reporting was nothing short of jubilant. The ABC, naturally, was first out of the blocks with, “So Friedrich Nietzsche was right, God is dead, and we have killed him.”

It also quoted Philosopher Charles Taylor who warned, “Modern civilisation cannot but bring about a ‘death of God’. We have seen the rise of an ‘exclusive humanism’. We have swapped God for a culture of authenticity, or expressive individualism, in which people are encouraged to find their own way and discover their own fulfilment”.

Yet, had the first question been, “Do you believe in God?” or “Do you have a faith?”, I dare say the results would have been very different. After all, who wants ‘Religion’? Not me. As the old joke goes, “A lot of people are abandoning religion and going back to God”.

We are witnessing, in real time, a concerted effort to undermine Western civilisation.

We must stand firm. We must not yield.

Thank you for your support.


1 “Pre-schoolers will learn about non-binary gender identity and become champions of reconciliation and sustainability under a proposed new curriculum for early learning.” – From national review of Early Years Learning and School Aged Care Frameworks, Federal Government, 2020.

Filed Under: Australian Character, Australia's economic future, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Senate Election 2022, Social policy

The Great Australian Dream

17/06/2022 by Australian Family Party

great-australian-dreamWhen John D Rockefeller died in 1937 he was reputedly the richest man in the world. At his funeral were many of his employees as well as a large contingent from the press.

Spotting Rockefeller’s chief accountant in the crowd, a young journalist from The Washington Post approached the accountant after the funeral.

“Weren’t you Mr Rockefeller’s accountant?” enquired the journalist. “Yes, I was,” replied the accountant.

“Tell me,” whispered the journalist, “How much did he leave?”

“All of it,” whispered the accountant.

Benjamin Franklin said, “In this world nothing is certain except for death and taxes.” Will Rogers went on to say, “And the only difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time parliament sits!”

Great friends, good job, nice car, see the world, live life to the fullest, save a few dollars, get married, buy a house, start a family, stay healthy.

This was the ‘Great Australian Dream’ for many young Australians.

It might still be the Great Australian Dream, but it’s getting harder by the minute.

Young people can’t afford to buy a house and start a family, and many are burdened with HECS debts.

Then there’s income tax, payroll tax, land tax, petrol tax, the goods & services tax (GST), stamp duty, 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 … local, state and federal governments tax us at every turn.

Not to mention, of course, pensioners who are unable to afford to heat their homes or water their gardens.

The Great Australian Dream and belief in ‘Family, Faith & Freedom’ need to be promoted and defended.

Which brings us to the results of the election.

In South Australia, the final 6th Senate seat went to the 3rd Liberal on the ticket – Kerrynne Liddle with 5.3% of the primary vote (total Liberal vote 33.9% minus 28.6% used for the 1st and 2nd Liberals, Simon Birmingham and Andrew McLachlan).

The ‘freedom’ parties of One Nation, Liberal Democrats, Australian Federation Party, UAP, Great Australian Party, IMOP and ourselves polled, between us, 10.9% of the primary vote – more than double the primary vote of the 3rd Liberal and enough to have secured that 6th spot.

Now whether a single ‘Family, Faith & Freedom’ Party would attract the same total is anyone’s guess – but it might. Especially considering that each of these areas will continue to be under attack over the next few years.

And whilst a combined 10.9% for the ‘freedom’ parties is a start, the reality is that nearly 90% of voters still voted for climate and covid/tax and control parties.

The new Labor government’s commitments – now with additional pressure from the Greens and Teals – to spend more on childcare, aged care, housing, the NDIS, PBS, and climate change, at a time of rising interest rates, high inflation, food prices, power prices, petrol prices and rent prices all going up, a mental health crisis among young people, volatile global events, and concerns over religious and personal freedoms do not bode well for the defenders of ‘Family, Faith & Freedom’. Recently tabled legislation in the ACT, for example – a sign of things to come perhaps? – further weakens protections for religious organisations. If passed, it will allow secular courts to intervene even in the internal workings of the church, including the ordination of ministers and who can, and who cannot, take communion.

So where to now for the Australian Family Party? How do we respond to all this?

As discussed in a previous post, the Party has a credible voter base, a solid membership list, a strong policy platform, a database of Newsletter recipients that runs into the thousands and we have just run two elections like clockwork. We have much to offer.

Two elections – State and Federal – hot on the heels of each other, has been quite an effort. Time now for some reflection on both. Your feedback would be most welcome here.

To our members and supporters who uphold us in so many ways, thank you for your support.

PS Thank you to all those who have contributed to our election budget. We’re nearly there, so any support to close the books on these two elections would be most welcome. Thank you.

Filed Under: Australian Character, Australian Politics, Election '22, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Senate Election 2022, South Australia

Baptists & Bootleggers

27/05/2022 by Australian Family Party

baptists-bootleggersThe most conspicuous feature of this election was the presence of the powerful ‘Baptists & Bootleggers’ phenomenon.

The term ‘Baptists & Bootleggers’ was coined during the 1920s Prohibition era in America, when the makers of illegal liquor – ‘Bootleggers’ – found ways to finance the ‘Baptists’ campaign to have alcohol banned. The Baptists were successful, alcohol was severely restricted and the Bootleggers made a fortune. These days we might call those Bootleggers ‘rent-seekers’. Rent-seekers use the political process to extract money from taxpayers and consumers.

And they are everywhere – in energy, superannuation, pharmaceuticals, higher education, land development, indigenous groups, public transport, manufacturing – you name it. They are a scourge. They tarnish the political process, distort the market and in the case of so-called ‘renewable energy’, distort the entire economy. No matter what industry you are in, that pay-rise you thought you deserved has gone into the pockets of rent-seekers lurking in the corridors of parliament house.

One day the whole renewable energy racket will collapse under the weight of its own absurdity, and someone will write a book called ‘50 Years of Madness: How the World was Conned’.

Another fascinating feature of the election has been what I call ‘voter switch’.

Huge numbers of voters switched from the major parties to minor parties and independents. Labor voters switched to the Greens, and Liberal voters switched to the ‘Teals’ – independent candidates in wealthy electorates financed by renewable energy investors. Labor voters switched to the Liberals in Tasmania and Liberal voters switched to Labor in WA.

But by far the biggest switch has been the complete reversal of the traditional socio-economic paradigm. 15 of the 20 poorest electorates in Australia are now held by the Liberals, whilst 15 of the 20 wealthiest electorates are held by Labor, Teals and the Greens! And despite Labor winning the election with 32% of the vote (Labor under Kevin Rudd won with 42%), in the SA seat of Spence, the poorest electorate in the state, Labor suffered a 6% swing against it.  Go figure.

When nearly 70% of the electorate didn’t vote for the new government, you can bet it “won’t be easy for Albanese …”.

The under-30s, too, had a big impact on this election, by and large voting Greens.

But the most significant flow-on effect of the election was the Greens’ 30% increase in its Senate numbers. As we have been saying on this website for the past year, the 2016 Liberals/Greens deal to abolish Group Voting Tickets has seen the Greens pick up an extra three Senate seats, taking their number to 12. Again, the Liberals can rail all they like about the influence of the Greens, but they have only themselves to blame.

So why did Labor win the election – or more to the point – why did the Liberals lose? The Liberals’ Coalition partner, the Nationals, haven’t lost a seat in three elections.

During the pandemic, the government provided massive stimulus packages which kept thousands of workers in their jobs and thousands of businesses’ doors open. The unemployment rate was an incredibly low 3.9% and interest rates were at all-time lows. The government seems to have received no credit for this. There was also instability on the world stage – Russia and China in particular – all of which normally bode well for the Coalition.

So what happened?

Personally, I think as well as committing the nation to ‘Net Zero by 2050’ and racking up a one thousand billion dollar debt, the ‘Family, Faith and Freedom’ factor had something to do with it.

Family – cost of living was rated the No 1 issue of concern to voters. Faith – Scott Morrison failed to carry through on his promise to legislate protection of religious freedom. As a result, exemptions for faith-based schools in their hiring choices are now under threat. And Freedom – his appalling judgement in allowing State Premiers to introduce the most draconian, police-state lockdowns which confined people to their homes, closed schools, separated the elderly from their families, and coerced people into taking an unproven vaccine – all counted against the Prime Minister and his government.

As for what the outcome in the Senate will be, at this stage we have no idea whether I’ll be elected or not. It’s certainly not out of the question we could get a significant ‘below the line’ vote given that we didn’t have a party name above the line. As members would know, last year the major parties increased the minimum number of members a party needs in order to gain federal registration from 500 to 1,500. No below-the-line votes have yet been counted, so we’re not giving up just yet …

But regardless of who wins that last Senate seat in SA – be it us, One Nation, the Liberal Democrats, or whomever – standing at the polling booths alongside six other like-minded, centre-right parties – One Nation, Lib Dems, UAP, Australian Federation Party, Great Australian Party and the Nationals – a total of seven minor parties – made me think that there has to be a better way. Whichever minor party wins that last seat, there has to be a good case for the other parties to fall in with it. A policy council comprising all seven parties under the banner of the party who wins must surely be considered.

Speaking of standing at polling booths, can I once again say ‘thank you’ to all our volunteers. Manning a polling booth – a number of members stood for ten hours straight – is no mean feat. Installing and removing all the campaign posters is also a challenge (if you see a stray campaign poster, please report it here.) Thank you.

And finally, as discussed in our ‘Sitting Ducks’ newsletter a fortnight ago, we have one last invoice to pay in the amount of $5,000 for the how-to-vote cards. So far, we have raised $2,700 towards it. We want to finish well – the campaign has gone like clockwork – we just have that final box to tick.

Filed Under: Australian Character, Australian Politics, Election '22, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Senate Election 2022, South Australia

Dog Day Afternoon

20/05/2022 by Australian Family Party

dog-dayA number of years ago I was building a house at Magill in Adelaide’s east when one of our bricklayers arrived on site with his bull terrier dog. Bricklayers always preferred bull terriers as pets because if a brick accidently fell on the dog’s head, the dog didn’t feel it and in fact thought it was a game and waited for more bricks to be dropped.

At the Magill site, the galvanised iron fence between the building site we were working on and the property next door had about a 75mm (3 inch) hole in it through which the neighbour’s spaniel would regularly insert its nose to investigate the new building activity.

When the bull terrier arrived on the scene, however, the spaniel was far from impressed and began barking violently at the impertinent interloper. The bull terrier nonchalantly responded with a swift head-butt to the fence which so startled the spaniel that it jumped backwards and cut off the end of its nose on the rough edge of the fence.

The spaniel was taken to a vet and 12 stitches were needed to repair the damage.

Being responsible for the site at the time, I found myself on the receiving end of an account for the vet’s fees from the spaniel’s owner plus an invoice for $100 for repairs to the fence caused by the bull terrier. I agreed to pay the vet’s fee but balked at paying for the fence.

dog-day-afternoonThis incident came back to me last Saturday afternoon when I was asked to look after a voter’s bull terrier dog while its owner went in to vote at the Munno Para early voting centre in Adelaide’s north. Long-standing Family Party member and volunteer Roger Potger snapped the accompanying photo and dubbed it ‘Dog Day Afternoon’.

Tightly holding on to the dog, I was nervously on the lookout for any local spaniels. Fortunately, none appeared and I successfully handed the dog back to its owner – who I trust voted for me! You never can tell. I remember after my first election – which needless to say I didn’t win – I bumped into a voter who proclaimed excitedly, “I voted for you!” “Ah, you’re the one,” I replied, “I’ve been looking for you”. The amused voter chuckled and walked off unsure if I was joking or not.

I’m hoping this time will be different.

Still on the subject of dogs, in ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’, one of the Sherlock Holmes short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes is sent to investigate the disappearance – on the eve of an important race – of a champion racehorse called Silver Blaze and the murder 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.

For this election we have done the hard yards, put in the work, listed all our policies in great detail here, traversed the state with our campaign posters, negotiated good preference arrangements and handed out how-to-vote cards at early voting centres. These are our ‘five loaves and two fishes’. Whether God chooses to perform a miracle or not is up to Him. We have peace about it.

Across the globe, however, there is little in the way of peace. In fact, there is havoc. Shakespeare’s ‘dogs of war’ are growling and Australia will not escape at least some of this havoc.

Tomorrow – Saturday 21st May – is election day. Without wanting to labour the point, we can’t let our country go to the dogs. Click here to see how to vote to help prevent that from happening.


Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Filed Under: Australian Character, Australian Politics, Election '22, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Senate Election 2022, South Australia

Black Hawk Down!

13/05/2022 by Australian Family Party

black-hawk-downThere’s a scene in the movie ‘Black Hawk Down’ where the sergeant yells to one of his soldiers, ‘Get in the truck and drive!’ ‘But I’ve been shot’, the soldier replies. ‘We’ve all been shot, now get in and drive’.

I couldn’t sit by and watch both Labor and Liberal Governments introduce their anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-business policies and not try to do something about it. I couldn’t say, sorry, can’t help you, I’ve been shot. I had to get back in the truck and drive.

Bad things happen to everyone. Some have been shot by cancer, others by the loss of a child, or by a relationship breakdown, or by an addiction, or a moral failure, or being accused – or even worse convicted – of a crime they didn’t commit. I’m no different, except for me it was very public.

In my case it was a business failure. I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. I’d bitten off more than I could chew and paid the price.

But you can’t let your past mistakes define you. You have to get back in the truck and drive.

I’ve called my election campaign, ‘Unfinished Business’.

Australia has economic and social problems that it wants to solve – inflation, rising interest rates, high mortgages (forcing both parents out to work), high cost of living (educating and raising children, power prices, water prices) – and social ills caused by the rupturing of family relationships, addiction to alcohol, gambling, drugs and pornography, and suicide.

And it has social and economic goals it wants to achieve – full employment, affordable housing, low crime rates. Looking to politicians, bureaucrats and regulators to solve these problems and achieve these goals is, however, a lost cause. The world is changing so profoundly – in social attitudes, world economics, and especially technology – that politicians and bureaucrats are hopelessly ill-equipped to manage it. They are simply outdated and outgunned.

The major parties and their apparatchiks live in a world that is foreign to ordinary people.  Simply put, they do not know enough to make the correct decisions. Those at the ‘top’ know less than those at the ‘bottom’.

Over the past decade – before Covid-19 hit – the economy was quite healthy and yet government debt still increased every year under both Labor and the Liberals.

Over the next few years, Commonwealth debt is forecast to exceed a trillion dollars – that’s 1,000 billion dollars. It is not going to end well. The old adage, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”, hasn’t been around for 100 years for nothing.

We are heading for very tough times thanks to irresponsible fiscal (spending) and monetary (interest rates) policies. You simply can’t spend hundreds of billions of dollars like we have and expect no repercussions.

Someone is going to have to pay for it. And that someone is the next generation. The English rock band The Who – Pete Townshend on guitar, Roger Daltrey on vocals, John Entwistle on bass, & Keith Moon on drugs – got it right when they said of the older generation, “…things they do look awful cold …. (hope I die before I get old!)”

Someone has to go into bat for them and the family.

The Australian Family Party is based on six key principles: Family Resilience, Family Economics, Family Technology, Free to Speak, Free to Believe and Free to Work.

Basically, the family has been dudded. It’s time to push back in the form of:

  1. Recognition – shifting the centre of gravity from the political class to the family.
  2. Encouraging family formation – getting married and starting a family.
  3. Home ownership – addressing land supply for new housing.
  4. Cost of living – introducing income-sharing and stopping price-gouging – power prices in particular.
  5. Free to work – your rights at work need to become your rights to work.
  6. Free to speak and free to believe.
  7. Technology – addressing the indisputable links between social media and mental health.

Society relies on 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. Nurturing the conscience starts in infancy. Here, childhood connection is vital. There needs to be more incentive for parents to look after their own children and less emphasis on government-subsidized childcare.

For a free society to prosper, people have to be able to control themselves. Teaching self-control starts with the family. The family cultivates within a child the right way to view life and the world around us.

A renaissance is needed, one that puts the family at the centre of society. Every decision by government should be measured against how it affects the family.

The State has a duty to the family. Society has a duty to the family. And what the State and society owe the family is not food or housing or education or health care, what the family is owed first and foremost is ‘recognition’.

We can serve Australia best by putting the family first. Click here to see our how-to-vote card.


Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Filed Under: Australian Character, Australian Politics, Election '22, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Senate Election 2022, South Australia

Sitting Ducks: News from the Campaign Trail

06/05/2022 by Australian Family Party

campaign-siiting-ducksA political candidate was asked where he stood on the issue of duck shooting.

“I have friends who are duck shooters”, the aspiring politician answered, “and I have friends who oppose duck shooting. And I always stand by my friends”.

They say if you can’t ride two horses at the same time, you don’t belong in the circus.

The campaign trail can be a hazardous place for candidates. Sometimes all it takes is one slip-up and your election prospects are finished. The circus tent collapses on top of you.

Fortunately, no such calamity has befallen us yet. But then again, there’s still a fortnight to go! As a wise sage once observed, “Politics is like swimming in a dirty river. Just don’t swallow any of the muck”.

Putting up campaign posters all over the state was always going to be a big challenge. That was until our party faithfuls stepped forward – Nicole Hussey (Yorke Peninsula, Mid North and Eyre Peninsula), Lionel Zschech and Peter Ieraci (Murray Bridge to Mt Gambier), Tim Vivian (Riverland), Tony Kew (Barossa), Dieter Fischer (Elizabeth & Gawler), Alex Banks and Joe Tripodi (Golden Grove & Salisbury), Adrian Redman, Matt Barnes, Peter Heidenreich and Pat Amadio (suburban Adelaide) and I covered the Adelaide Hills. Mission Accomplished.

Our next challenge is early voting. Record numbers of voters are expected to turn up at early voting centres at this election. We desperately need volunteers to attend these early voting centres. There are usually between 1 – 3 early voting centres per electorate, so if you are available to hand out that all-important how-to-vote card at a centre near you, please contact us here as soon as possible. Thank you.

Then there are the candidate forums, radio interviews and endless questions about preferencing. Preference arrangements are another hazardous business.

Preference recommendations are often not, as a lot of people might think, a descending order of like-mindedness. Rather, they are a calculated trade-off between reciprocity – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours – and the likelihood that your preferences might assist someone else to be elected – compared to the alternatives. If a candidate has no chance at all of being elected – for example, a minor party candidate in a safe (major party) Lower House seat – there is no point preferencing that candidate just because their policies are similar to yours. Preference arrangements are not the place to signal virtue. They are the place to help you get elected. It goes without saying that you can help your constituency a lot more if you are elected than if you’re not!

To be clear, how-to-vote cards are recommendations only. Once in the polling booth, voters can preference candidates in any order they wish, however we recommend voters number the candidates in a certain way to help us get elected.

Candidate forums can also be tricky – especially during Q & A. You’re up on the stage like the proverbial sitting duck. For audience members who have been crusading on a particular issue for 20 years, this is their opportunity. They want a ‘Yes or No’ answer from you as to whether you will support a Royal Commission into their cause. Often the cause does have merit, but ‘Yes or No’ answers can be a trap for young players. Forums are also time-consuming. Questioners who forget for a moment (or ten minutes) that they have the microphone in their hand to ask a question, sometimes give political speeches. This is where a good forum MC is the candidates’ best friend.

All in all, the campaign is going very well. We’re right where we need to be at this point. We have also introduced a new digital marketing arm to the campaign and included a new video series. If you could please follow us on Facebook and share our posts with your family and friends that would be really helpful. Thank you.

One final matter, we have a $5,000 bill to pay for our how-to-vote cards. Can you help? If so, please go to our Support page here.


Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Filed Under: Australian Character, Australian Politics, Election '22, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Senate Election 2022, South Australia

E is for …

29/04/2022 by Australian Family Party

heh-senate-electionAt the recent State election we drew box J, the 10th letter of the alphabet. Readers may recall the reference to the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet ‘Yud’ in a recent State election post. The Yud was an important letter in Hebrew, we said, because first and foremost, it was the first letter of the name of God, YHWH: Yud – Heh – Vav – Heh.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, for the Federal election we’ve drawn the letter E, the 5th letter of the alphabet, which in Hebrew is Heh. Heh is the second letter of the name of God.

Seems we’re spelling out God’s name here – just two more elections to go …

Not only does the letter Heh appear twice in God’s name, in Hebrew writings ‘H is used as an abbreviation for YHWH, and when God declares, ‘I am here!’, He uses the phrase ‘Heh-neh!’

Heh is also called the ‘timeless letter’, as the Hebrew words for past, present and future are all connected to the letter Heh.

Like the number 10 in our State election post, the number 5 is also very significant in Scripture. Again, from the first chapter of Genesis in which God creates light, He mentions the word ‘light’ five times. This is believed to be connected to the light revealed in the five books of Moses – the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), the five characteristics of mankind (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, consciousness) and our hands containing five fingers which represent our physical connection to work and the world. We note also that the Hebrew word for work and worship are the same – Avodah. It’s why we say denying a person the right to work is like denying them to right to worship. ‘He who builds a factory, builds a temple’, Calvin Coolidge famously declared, ‘He who works there, worships there’.

This all accords perfectly with our Family, Faith and Freedom policies of ‘Family Resilience, Family Economics and Family Technology’ and ‘Free to Speak, Free to Believe and Free to Work’.

At this election, every voter will be asked to cast two ballots – one on a small green ballot paper for the House of Representatives – your local MP – and the other on a very large white ballot paper for the Senate – representing the State.

The House of Representatives ballot paper is quite straightforward – simply number the candidates (usually between five and ten of them) in your order of preference.

The Senate ballot paper, however, is not so straightforward.

For a start, it is a metre long and contains 22 registered political parties or groups above the black line and over 50 individual candidates below the line.

You can choose whether to vote above or below the line, but not both. Voters must number a minimum of six boxes if they choose to vote above the line, or a minimum of twelve boxes if they choose to vote below the line.

As discussed above, we have drawn box E on the Senate ballot paper. E for Employment, E for the Economy, E for Education, E for Excellence, E for Endurance, E for Eternity, E for Elvis, E for Elijah and of course, E for Esther for such a time as this.

We are recommending to voters that they vote above the line and follow our how-to-vote card by placing a 1 in box E, then a 2 in box J for Australian Federation Party, and then a 3 in box S for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, 4 in box A for Liberal Democrats, 5 in box G for National Party and 6 in box U for United Australia Party.

Click here to view or download our how-to-vote card.

All we need now are a few more V for volunteers to do some letterboxing and hand out the how-to-vote cards and, of course, a few D for dollars to help pay for them.


Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Filed Under: Election '22, Australian Character, Australian Politics, Family Policy, Family Resilience, Freedom, Senate Election 2022, South Australia

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