Australian Family Party

Family Matters

South Australia

Standing on the Promises

by

South-Australia-electionAt the Australian Family Party, we have always believed in building a stronger nation — through Defence, Economy, and Family.

What we do:
We stand to protect our nation, rebuild our economy, and support families as the foundation of a strong society.

How we do it:
We advocate for stronger defence and alliances, policies that promote growth through business and innovation, and values that protect and support families — honesty, respect, and responsibility.

Why it matters:
Because the Australia we know, love, and respect is worth safeguarding — for our children and grandchildren. In an uncertain world, we must unite, stand strong, and make sure our voices are heard.

Our last newsletter The Promised Land was very well received, and the momentum is building.

According to Roy Morgan, 17 per cent of Australians believe that the government should do more to support Israel.

A political party in South Australia needs just 4 per cent of the vote to be elected to the Upper House — and once in parliament, we will have the platform to make our case for stronger ties with Israel, and a stronger future for Australia.

To do this, we need good people — specifically, 50 candidates: 47 in the Lower House and 3 in the Upper House.

Being a candidate is not difficult — in fact, it is a great experience. There are no costs involved, and you can contribute as much or as little as you are able.

If standing yourself isn’t possible, perhaps you can encourage a young person who might be considering a political future. Mentorship is vital — without it, we risk leaving the future to career politicians with no conviction.

The good news is, Australians are ready for change. As The Australian recently reported, “Support for minor parties and independents has reached its highest level in at least four years.” The time is right.

Will you stand with us?
If you’re interested in becoming a candidate — or in supporting someone who might be — please get in touch today. Together, we can make sure that Australia remains safe, prosperous, and proud.

If you are interested in becoming a candidate, please contact us here (and choose ‘Federal Director’ as the recipient).

Thank you for your support.

Fox and Friends

by

foxIn 1969, former SA Federal MP Bert Kelly was sacked as Minister for the Navy after the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collided with America’s USS Frank E Evans in the South China Sea. Ministerial responsibility was interpreted differently in those days.

In 2025, Australia is once again on a collision course with the US, this time over our commitment to defence spending – with China again eerily in the picture.

Putting it bluntly, Australia is not pulling its weight and the Americans, who we rely on to defend us, are not happy.

In fact, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, together with his Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, seem to be going out of their way to annoy our most important ally.

All have made no secret of the fact that they do not like Donald Trump – or even America for that matter – but do they have to take the opposite side on everything?

It brings to mind those two great books – ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ and ‘How to Lose Friends and Irritate People’.

Albanese and Co. have clearly been reading the wrong book!

What they are doing is downright dangerous.

They are jeopardising the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) agreement which, at present, is our only forward defence plan.

Meanwhile, Chinese warships traverse our waters with impunity.

It is a given that the first duty of any government is the defence of the nation.

However, from the defence of the nation to the Middle East conflict to Russia and Ukraine to Australia’s energy policy and censorship laws, the Albanese government is letting the Trump administration know that we are not on the same page.

In Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Richard Plantagenet (later Richard III) says, ‘How sweet it is to wear the crown.’

Richard covets the crown and expresses his ambition and desire for the throne. He yearns for power and the perceived joys of kingship as he plots against the reigning King Henry.

However, when the question, ‘Where is thy crown?’ is posed to Henry himself, Henry responds that his crown is in his heart, not on his head, symbolizing that true kingship lies not in outward symbols of power but in what the crown represents.

Shakespeare’s insights into human nature and the yearning for power are timeless.

Like Richard Plantagenet, our Prime Minister might be good at getting to the top – be it to the top of a student union or the top of a political party – but once there he has proven himself to be totally unsuited to the role of competent governing.

It’s been said that voters want leadership, they want to be led – “But don’t boss me around,” they quickly add.

The job of a leader isn’t easy, but that’s the whole point.

Anthony Albanese was once asked, ‘Mr Albanese, if you were dictator, what’s the first thing you would do?’

‘Ban social media’, he replied.

How revealing.

That the Prime Minister would ban social media – our most popular means of communication – is brutally authoritarian.

It reminded me of a scene in the movie Oppenheimer in which nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer meets with President Harry Truman shortly after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2.

Following his successful testing of the bomb, Oppenheimer was known to have uttered the words, ‘Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’, a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, a holy scripture from Hinduism.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer told Truman he felt he had ‘blood on his hands’.

Truman angrily responded with the words, ‘The blood is on my hands, not yours. It was me who dropped the bomb, not you’.

With that, the meeting was over, and Truman said he ‘never wanted to see that man again’.

There’s more than a little Oppenheimer in Albanese’s view of himself and the world around him.

There’s an old Greek proverb, ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows only one thing’.

Albanese knows only one thing – politics. It’s all he’s ever done. He’s a hedgehog.

But as we know, the world isn’t made up of just one thing, it is made up of a whole range of competing factors and trade-offs that differ for different people of different ages who live in different places and have different priorities.

Like the ‘crystallised intelligence’ vs ‘fluid intelligence’ paradigm. Crystallised intelligence employs experience and wisdom and knows how the world works. Fluid intelligence knows how to study, learn facts and pass exams. Foxes vs hedgehogs. We’ve all met them.

Harry Truman – a Democrat (America’s version of the Australian Labor Party) was a good President. A Bob Hawke type of President.

Before entering politics, Truman was a soldier and then a shopkeeper. A better understanding of how the world works you wouldn’t get than by owning a shop!

Harry was quite the fox.

The story is told of when Truman was elected President, his former army buddy and shopkeeper partner, Eddie Jacobson, said to him, ‘O Harry, now that you’re President, everyone’s going to start telling you what a great man you are, when you and I both know you ain’t’.

True leaders value the Eddie Jacobsons in their lives.

Anthony Albanese is no Harry Truman – or even a Bob Hawke for that matter.

And Australia is all the poorer for it.

Having said all that, I am consoled by the words of a small child who prayed, ‘Dear God, please look after mummy, and please look after daddy, and please look after my brother and sister and most of all please look after yourself because if anything ever happens to you we’re all going to be in a real mess.’

Thank you for your support.

Life Lessons from Les Mis

by

les-misWhen the great French novelist Victor Hugo was in his 80s, he reflected on his life with the words, “I am like a forest that has been continuously cut down; yet each time I am cut down, the new growth has more life than ever”.

Hugo’s writings reflect his understanding of Biblical truth – that we are ‘continually and always being sanctified’ (Hebrews 10:14).

His epic novel, Les Miserables, embraces themes of crime and punishment, law and grace, sin and repentance, love and redemption.

As most will recall, the main character in the novel, Jean Valjean, is convicted of a petty crime and is imprisoned. He manages to escape before completing his sentence and begins to lead a bitter and resentful life. When he is treated kindly by a local bishop he repays the bishop’s kindness by stealing from him.

He is caught, but instead of pressing charges, the bishop vouches for him and invokes the words of Jesus, telling him to ‘go and sin no more’.

This is grace, unmerited favour, and it has a profound effect on him. His life, having been cut down, re-grows with love and ‘more life than ever’.

Valjean’s antagonist throughout the story is the ruthless and unforgiving policeman, Javert.

As US cleric Bishop Robert Barron puts it, ‘If Valjean represents grace, Javert is the embodiment of the law’ – harsh and unyielding.

Ultimately, Javert, being the proverbial Pharisee, cannot handle Valjean’s act of grace towards him and takes his own life.

This theme of law and grace permeates the Bible.

Jesus, for example, was crucified between two thieves.

These two thieves represent the two types of people in our fallen world: those who accept God, and those who reject Him.

As recorded in the gospels, both men speak to Jesus.

The first thief to speak represents those who reject God, “Aren’t you supposed to be the Christ? If you are, then save yourself … and us!”

No contrition, no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility for his crimes.

The second thief then rebukes his accomplice, “Don’t you fear God? We’re being justly punished for our crimes, but this man has done nothing wrong”.

The second thief takes responsibility. He doesn’t blame others. He admits he’s a sinner and is redeemed.

This is at the core of what has gone wrong with the world in which we now live.

As described in my last newsletter, Noughts and Crosses, sometimes we need to be reminded of what our Judeo-Christian heritage has brought to the world – the establishment of schools, universities, hospitals, aged care organisations and welfare agencies. The elevation of women, as well as the abolition of slavery, cannibalism, child sacrifice and widow burning.

The ‘equality of human beings’ is a Judeo-Christian idea which led to the abolition of slavery and international human rights.

All form the basis of Western civilisation which acknowledged original sin and the need for redemption.

We fail, we sin, we feel guilty. Acknowledging this is virtue.

In response, we confess, we repent, we accept forgiveness, and then we move forward with confidence. That is how we survive the vicissitudes of life.

I have proven this in my own life.

Marxists, leftists, and people from many other cultures, however, do not see it that way.

To them, admitting fault is seen as weakness. They do not accept responsibility for their situation. They blame others. To them, all is a zero-sum game.

And herein lies the problem.

By rejecting God’s system of confession, repentance and forgiveness, Westerners respond by looking elsewhere to placate their guilt – virtue-signalling being one of the main outlets.

As British-born American philosopher and scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah points out, watching King Charles acknowledge the unceded – or ‘stolen’ land – on which the Canadian parliament stands begs the question, ‘Then why do they continue to occupy it? And the obvious contradiction: acknowledging theft while benefiting from it is like apologising for eating someone’s lunch while still holding the sandwich!’

This is the West surrendering to the anti-God Left.

British journalist and political commentator Douglas Murray makes this point in his 2017 book, The Strange Death of Europe.

It is civilizational suicide.

Speaking of which, allow me to make an observation or two about the recent Federal election.

First, before too many claims are made about Labor getting a ‘strong mandate’, at the previous election (2022) Labor’s primary vote was 32.5%. In 2025, it was 34.5% – a 2% improvement.

As a percentage of registered voters, however – including informal votes and those who chose not to vote – Labor’s vote was just 29.5%

Seats won, however, paints a very different picture – from 77 seats in 2022 to 94 seats in 2025 – a 22% increase.

Winning 62% of the seats with 29% of the vote is starting to look like the UK or Europe!

Or compare Labor’s vote in 2016 (34.7%) 69 seats; 2019 (33.3%) 68 seats; 2022 (32.5%) 77 seats; and now 2025 (34.5%) 94 seats!

The disparity between votes and seats in 2025 is due to changes in preferences by the Liberal Party and minor parties.

In the past, the Liberal Party would typically put Labor last on its how-to-vote cards. This time it put the Greens last, resulting in what one might describe as the bright and silver lining on an otherwise dark and gloomy cloud – the ejection from parliament of Greens leader Adam Bandt!

In India it was said that people did not cast their vote but rather vote their caste. India’s caste system divided its society into hierarchical groups based on birth, occupation and ‘dharma’ – a cosmic order of law and moral principles that apply to all beings and things – and people voted accordingly.

That Labor’s vote does not change materially from election to election suggests that the old ‘Labor, right or wrong’ principle is alive and well.

Whether it’s education, immigration, net zero, energy or the environment – power bills going up $1,300 instead of coming down $275 – Israel and the Palestinians, international relationships (UN, WHO, WEF etc), the taxing of unrealised capital gains on our superannuation, abortion and euthanasia, the Albanese government is deeply entrenched in the Left of politics.

It will not end well.

Which is why we are readying ourselves.

Our merger plans with the DLP (and other like-minded parties) are progressing and we are looking forward to contesting the next election on the horizon – the South Australian State election in March next year.

Thank you for your support.

VUCA World

by

Donald-TrumpAs most will recall, the Coalition went to the 2013 election promising to ‘abolish the carbon tax, abolish the mining tax and stop the boats’.

Upon election, seven Centre-Right (CR) Senate crossbenchers voted in support of these three key election pledges giving the Coalition Government the numbers it needed (33 + 7) to get its legislation passed.

The seven Senators comprised three Palmer United Party (PUP) Senators, Ricky Muir of the Motoring Enthusiasts’ Party which had entered into a formal alliance with PUP, the DLP’s John Maddigan, the Liberal Democrats’ David Leyonhjelm and me, representing Family First.

With four Senators in his team, plus the fact Clive Palmer had been elected to the House of Representatives seat of Fairfax, watching Clive Palmer in action during that time reminded me of a comment by Winston Churchill about US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles whom he described as “… the only bull I know who carries around his own china shop!”

Clive was, and still is, a force of nature.

Following this successful endeavour, David Leyonhjelm and I met with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and put to him what we called a 40–40–40 game plan: ‘40 votes (a Senate majority) to fix 40 years of unfinished business and set the nation up for the next 40 years.’

We tried valiantly to convince him that the best way to get Coalition policies through the parliament was to have more Senators elected like us. That is, if the Coalition couldn’t win a majority in its own right – which seemed unlikely (and still seems unlikely) – it should at least attempt to achieve a majority with the support of like-minded minor party Senators.

Needless to say, our suggestion was not taken up.

In fact, the exact opposite happened. The Coalition, under Malcolm Turnbull, teamed up with the Greens (who had voted against ‘abolishing the carbon tax, abolishing the mining tax and stopping the boats’) and changed the Senate voting laws to get rid of those very Senators who had supported them!

As a result, and as predicted by John Howard at the time, the Greens increased their number of Senate seats from 10 to 12, Labor increased its number of seats from 25 to 26, centre-left parties increased from 1 to 3, the Coalition lost a seat, and the CR parties dropped from 7 seats to 3. From 33 + 7 (a CR majority) to 32 + 3 (a CR minority). A loss of 5 Senate seats!

If anyone can explain why the Coalition did that, I’d love to hear from them.

Well, Clive is back, this time as Chairman of the Trumpet of Patriots Party (formerly the Australian Federation Party).

Readers of this blog would recall numerous exhortations by me for Australia’s CR parties to work more co-operatively and to move from thinking ‘State-based’, to thinking and acting ‘nationally’.

If a CR party gets a Senator elected, that Senator should be viewed by their party not as their State Senator, but as their National Senator. The Senate, after all, hasn’t been a state-based institution for more than a hundred years. There is virtually no recognition of States in the way the Senate operates. Senators don’t even sit with their State colleagues; they sit with their party colleagues.

Which brings us to the impending Federal election.

We are currently living in what has been described as a VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.

Many believe, me included, that what Donald Trump has done, and is doing, in America is badly needed here in Australia (ignore his tariffs on steel – they are so insignificant that they will have no effect on us. Donald Trump is a free-trader – he personally oversaw numerous free-trade deals when he was last in office. In any event, if we are so concerned about the price of steel, we should be focussing on the energy, IR and business regulation costs associated with making Australian steel).

What Trump is giving America, and the world, is a long-overdue dose of reality.

The borrowed time, the borrowed money, is coming to an end.

Europeans and Australians have been freeloading on America for more than 50 years and Americans want it to stop.

We should want it to stop.

The world has been acting like a school playground with its bullies and weaklings and America playing the part of the teacher trying to protect the weaklings from the bullies.

But the weaklings in this case do not need to be weak. Countries such as Germany and Australia are wealthy and resourceful and could, like Israel, stand on their own two feet if only they had a mind to.

Trump famously said, ‘Drill, baby, drill.’

We should be saying, ‘Mine, baby, mine!’ and ‘Farm, baby, farm!’

As has been wryly observed, there really are only two industries in the world – mining and farming. The rest are jobs.

And Australia happens to be very good at mining and farming.

Also on Trump’s list are:

  • Ending the climate change/renewable energy scam
  • Curbing immigration
  • Championing free speech
  • Supporting Israel
  • Instituting a Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.)
  • Advocating for a peace deal in Ukraine
  • Ending support for the transgender movement.

On that last point, we had the unbelievable spectacle during a recent NSW Government Estimates Hearing of the NSW Minister for Women and PREVENTION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, Jodie Harrison, saying if ‘someone identifies as a woman, they should feel free to use the women’s changerooms’.

This is the sort of wokeness that needs to be purged from society.

Our Prime Minister, however, seems to be going out of his way to annoy America’s newly elected President.

Albanese has made no secret of the fact that he doesn’t like Donald Trump – or America for that matter – but for Australia’s sake does he have to take the opposite side to Trump on everything?

It brings to mind those two great books – ‘How To Win Friends and Influence People’ and ‘How to Lose Friends and Irritate People’.

Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong, Kevin Rudd and many others have clearly been reading the wrong book!

Albanese and Labor are taking Australia down a very dangerous path.

From the Israel–Palestinian conflict to Russia and Ukraine – ‘We stand with Ukraine and will consider sending troops there’ – to censorship laws, to cosying up to the UK’s Keir Starmer who also detests Trump, Albanese has gone out of his way to make it clear he is not on the same page as our most important ally.

Former Labor Foreign Minister Bob Carr says Australia should re-consider its relationship with the US and re-open discussions with the French on the submarine project!

The French! Who are, shall we say, ‘not famous for their military reliability’.

And all this while Chinese warships sail around our coastline!

In preparation for the 2026 SA State election, we have completed the Australian Family Party’s re-registration process with the SA Electoral Commission.

However, to:

  1. Promote the all-important cause of centre-right minor parties nationally (à la 2013) and
  2. Help enact Trump-like policies here in Australia,

I have joined the Trumpet of Patriots (ToP) SA Senate team for the forthcoming Federal election and Nicole Hussey, also from the Australian Family Party, will be the ToP candidate for the South Australian seat of Boothby.

Thank you for your support.

Breaking the Adoption Taboo

by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five years later, little has changed.

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

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

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

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

Black By-election

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

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

Thank you.

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

Back in the Black

by

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

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

Yet both are constantly maligned by the Left.

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

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

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

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

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

Led by Liberal Premier Tom Playford, South Australia prospered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was all a scam.

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

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

They are a curse.

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

Playford understood all this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sir Tom would turn in his grave.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not this time.

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

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

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

Thank you for your support.

Olympic Dam’s Gold Medal Performance

by

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

But discovering the ore was just the beginning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nuclear power is both reliable and emissions-free.

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

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

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

All have, or will have, spent nuclear fuel.

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

We could be the Switzerland of the South.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your support.

Camels on the Horizon

by

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

by

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

by

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.