Uncategorized

In her report ‘Worlds Apart’ released this week, Indigenous author Jacinta Nampijinpa Price analysed a wide range of data from locations and communities across Australia. Her report describes the vast difference between Indigenous communities and the rest of Australia when it comes to health and wellbeing, employment, education, crime, and domestic violence.

‘Education and employment rates in remote Indigenous communities are on a par with countries like Afghanistan’, she says. ‘Health and severe overcrowding in housing is like that of sub-Saharan Africa. School attendance rate is below countries such as Zambia and Iraq and life expectancy places remote Indigenous communities on a par with third-world countries like Yemen and Eritrea.’

‘Alcohol-fueled crimes occur at an abnormally high rate, petty crime is commonplace, and assaults are a regular occurrence. Within the home, the situation is just as bad. Domestic violence rates are so high that women and children do not feel safe in their homes. These factors then feed a vicious cycle that impacts school attendance, employment, and physical and mental health — leaving many communities at breaking point”, she says.

Australian governments spend over $30 billion a year on Indigenous programs yet the gulf between the world most Australians inhabit and the world a high number Indigenous Australians occupy is as wide as ever.

In the same week, News Ltd columnist Michael McGuire did Indigenous Australians no favours by invoking the myth of ‘terra nullius’ (The Advertiser, 27/1). McGuire talked about ‘acknowledging the actual history of the nation’ but then repeated the myth that ‘Australia was founded on a lie, that the land was empty and that the people who were here didn’t count’.

No-one in the 1700s ever said those things. The phrase terra nullius wasn’t used in reference to Australia until the 20^th Century. Australia was settled in accordance with the principles of international law at the time and ‘terra nullius’ was not part of it. International law mentioned res nullius but that is not the same as the modern day usage of the phrase terra nullius.

Telling people false narratives about their past is not uncommon and can absolve them of personal responsibility. But to do so at a time when family breakdown amongst Indigenous communities results in domestic violence rates up to 1000% higher than non-indigenous families is unforgivable.

In its submission to the Federal Parliament’s Inquiry into the Family Law System, the Australian Family Association has recommended that couples who separate should have to wait two years instead of the current one year before filing for divorce (unless there is a history of domestic violence). This was described by News Ltd columnist Tory Shepherd this week as “wanting to drag marriage back into the dark ages”.

Shepherd opened her article by asking “Marriage? What is it good for? A cracking party, a delightful expression of love, a way for families and friends to get to know each other?” In a letter to the editor I wrote that more than a ‘cracking party and an expression of love’, marriage is an extremely important social and public good bringing a range of economic, health, educational, and safety benefits for children and adults alike. Divorce on the other hand can have some terrible consequences. It’s why we should do all we can to strengthen marriages and promote the benefits of marriage, including giving couples more time to ‘mend it, don’t end it’.

The attacks on marriage, life and family are relentless.

What is going on? The SA Liberals seem determined to undermine the rights of faith-based organisations. Last month, Deputy Premier Vickie Chapman proposed removing exemptions which allowed faith-based organisations to run their schools, hospitals and other services in accordance with their beliefs. Now Liberal Treasurer Rob Lucas wants to deny a Christian college its payroll tax exemption.

Tabor College launches Supreme Court action against Commissioner of Taxation over more than $360,000 in payroll tax

Mitch Mott December 26, 2020 Sunday Mail (SA)

An Adelaide religious college is taking the tax man to the state’s highest court over a decision to make them pay more than $360,000 in payroll tax.

The majority of the students who attend Tabor College are studying to the join the ministry, but Treasurer Rob Lucas decided the school was acting as a tertiary institution and should be taxed accordingly.

In an application for review of an administrative decision lodged in the Supreme Court, and seen by The Advertiser, Tabor College argues their main purpose is the advancement of religion, a recognised category of charitable pursuit.

Tabor’s application is the latest in a series of cases challenging decisions of the Commissioner of Taxation to remove tax-free exemptions.

In March this year the High Court refused to hear an appeal from South Australian Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc, known as Business SA, in an attempt to wrest back $2.6m in payroll tax.

The refusal bought to an end a five-year legal saga between the lobby group, who claimed they should have charity status, and the Commissioner for Taxation, who disagreed.

In February this year Trinity College Gawler took the Commissioner to court over the refusal to grant staff at their sports centre Starplex tax-free status.

That case has since moved to mediation.

The court actions have implications for other charities offering registered education courses.

In January 2018, Tabor College wrote to Mr Lucas seeking clarification on its charity status.

They were told in a letter a few months later they were not eligible for a payroll exemption, prompting the school to launch an administrative objection.

The matter was not resolved and Tabor College began action in the Supreme Court.

In court documents Tabor said the purpose of the school as enshrined in their constitution was to “promote and provide quality Christian education”.

The school was founded in 1978 with the goal of preparing students for ministry.

Over the years the school broadened it approach until it described itself as a “multi-denominational, dual-sector Christian tertiary institution” offering government-accredited qualifications from vocational certificates to research doctorates.

Accredited degrees offered at the school include arts, social science, teaching and counselling.

Figures provided in Tabor’s court documents show 79 per cent of all courses are ministry-based with 70 per cent of students enrolled in those courses.

The school argues its focus is the “advancement of religion” by the “advancement of education”.

In their response to Tabor’s application, the Commissioner responded the school’s principal purpose was not religion, pointing to their receipt of Federal Government funding as a higher-education provider.

The documents show the Commissioner will argue that if Tabor’s efforts were divided between education and religion they should not be able to claim charitable status based on the advancement of religion.

The case continues before the Supreme Court.

---

Article reproduced with permission.

In 1967 Dionne Warwick recorded the hit song, ‘I Say A Little Prayer For You’. Fast forward to 2020 and the Victorian Government is proposing to make it a criminal offence to say a little prayer with someone about their gender identity. This gives rise to all manner of implications. It reminds me of the story of the small-town Texas liquor store which was in the process of building an extension to its premises. The local church, in response, started an around-the-clock prayer meeting to try to stop it. Work continued on the project right up until the week before its opening when lightning struck the building and it burnt to the ground.

With the store in smouldering ruins, the church folk boasted of their accomplishment and of the power of prayer. That was of course, until the angry owner sued the church on the grounds the church and its congregation were responsible for the destruction of the store – either through direct or indirect actions or means.

In its reply to the lawsuit, the church denied liability and any connection with the liquor store’s demise.

At the opening hearing of the court case, the presiding judge read through the plaintiff’s (owner’s) complaint and also through the defendant’s (church’s) reply and said, “I’m not sure how I’m going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that what we have here is a liquor store owner who believes in the power of prayer, and a church congregation which does not”.

While this may on the surface appear to be somewhat amusing, there’s a very serious side to this, particularly in light of what is happening in Victoria.

Victoria’s proposed legislation targets anyone, including parents, pastors, priests, psychiatrists and psychotherapists, who engage in formal therapy or informal prayer with the purpose of helping a person struggling with same-sex attraction or gender confusion, unless the therapy supports their same-sex orientation or affirms their belief that they are ‘trans’. It also makes it a criminal offence to take a child out of Victoria to receive therapy.

As I have said before, the proponents of this type of leglislation are not trying to convince or persuade with reasoned arguments. Their aim is to shape society, and they want to use the power of the state to do it. To quote Mark Steyn, “They don’t want to win the debate, they want to prevent the debate”.

This assault on family, life and liberty sums up what the Australian Family Party is all about.

We have to resist this intrusion by politicians into every aspect of our lives. If we don’t, things will only get worse. We mustn’t be like the congregation in the story which didn’t have the courage of its convictions.

Part of the strategy has to be taking seats in parliament from them, State and Federal, either directly in Upper Houses, or in Lower Houses, through preferencing.

This is eminently achievable, but we need your help. Please support us by circulating this article, enlisting others and making a contribution by clicking Support here.

Thank you.

Further Reading: https://freedomforfaith.org.au/articles/labor-government-in-victoria-makes-prayer-a-criminal-offence/

It was GK Chesterton who said, “Throughout the ages we have spoken about having the courage to die; now we have descended into talking about having the courage to live.”

Over the past 20 years there have been 16 attempts to legalise euthanasia in South Australia. Each time it has been rejected.

Euthanasia is presented in many shapes and forms but is united in a single idea: it is the intentional ending of a person’s life. Over the years this has been cloaked with many euphemisms—’the right to die’, ‘mercy killing’, ‘dying with dignity’, and so on.

In the era of Covid-19, this latest euthanasia push in the SA Parliament gives rise to not one but two paradoxes – ‘protecting and preserving human life at all costs’ and ‘suicide prevention programs’.

Notwithstanding the massive burdens inflicted on the community, throughout the pandemic governments have said their primary aim has been community safety and that the preservation of life matters more than anything else. Governments opted for the health and security of the vulnerable over appeals from business owners and libertarians.

Which brings us to the latest attempt to legalise euthanasia in SA.

It begs the question, “At what age does a person no longer qualify for a suicide prevention program but enters into a suicide facilitation program?”

Now the poll we so often hear is that “70 –  80 per cent of people support dying with dignity”. Yet I wonder what the result would be if a different question were asked. For example, “Faced with a terminal illness, should we care for the patient, or kill the patient?” Polls can be designed to get whatever result the pollster wants.

Like any piece of legislation, the sensible place to start is with the facts. What is euthanasia? What is not euthanasia? Herein lies great confusion in the community, particularly when asked to consider opinion polls. Before considering what euthanasia is, let’s begin with defining what euthanasia is not. The Australian Medical Association policy on euthanasia spells out what euthanasia is not. None of the following is euthanasia: not initiating life-prolonging measures eg using a heart defibrillator; not continuing life-support measures, such as turning off life-support equipment; not offering futile care, such as ceasing prescription medication; the administration of treatment or other action intended to relieve symptoms which may have a secondary consequence of hastening death, commonly known as the doctrine of double effect, such as the administration of strong morphine dosage. None of these is euthanasia.

Almost every Australian knows of a usually elderly relative, perhaps even a close relative, who has died and the difficulty in seeing them die. That most likely informs their view on euthanasia. But no poll seeks to explain to them properly what euthanasia is and is not. People who are polled are also dismissive because they are not faced, at that moment, with an end-of-life decision. Lawyers tell us that, when preparing what are now known as ‘advanced care directives’, clients are, before proper advice, quite dismissive about their care options. ‘Just flick the switch’, they say with a smile. But when they or a loved one are faced with a situation it is not that simple.

It is fashionable to talk of ‘a dignified death’. But death itself is a wholly undignified and tragic reality. It is also a very personal reality, one that cannot be resolved by its acceleration. To burden doctors, who are agents of healing and life, by forcing them to participate in premature death, in killing, is a distortion of their vocation. Worse still, forcing them to do so against their conscience is a dangerous path indeed.

Terminally ill people are often overwhelmed, depressed, easily influenced and extremely vulnerable. In truth, they have far less autonomy during this time than at any other time in their lives. It is very likely that they will require their families and friends to routinely assist in their care. Tending to the needs of sick loved ones and sticking with them to the end is a dignified display of love and selflessness. Most importantly, it is a witness to outsiders of sacrificial love and familial obligation. For those who do the caring it forges a character of resilience, enabling them to persevere in times of trial. For those who do the dying, opportunities develop to reconsider past hurts and biases and for reconciliation and making peace. End-of-life moments can be the most powerful healing moments for the dying person and their loved ones.

Assisted dying offers an alternative – evasion and abandonment. Family and friends cannot face the emotional investment or the painful reality of suffering. Even in the most loving of families, there are requests for doctors to refrain from dragging things out. It is often not the dying person but the family member who wants the suffering to end. In worst cases, there are ulterior motives for wanting the death of a relative. We are only beginning to understand the extent of elder abuse. We have to realise that in some cases what began as a well-intentioned exercise in being a carer for another person can become such a burden that dark thoughts and schemes develop, particularly where money is involved—be it real estate, funds, or the proceeds of a life insurance policy or policies. No matter how many safeguards, checks or balances there are, the hunger for power, revenge or money can steer its way around many hurdles. According to the 2020 Aged Care Royal Commission, the systemic neglect of the elderly is so pervasive the whole sector should be ripped up and started again!

The overseas experience is also cause for grave concern with studies revealing serious shortcomings around consent safeguards. Professor Cohen-Almagor of the UK’s Hull University discovered that life-ending drugs are administered to people without explicit consent. This involuntary euthanasia is despite strict provisions which were supposed to guarantee voluntary euthanasia. Tragically, even children are becoming caught up in cultures transformed by these laws. The Netherlands, for example, permits children as young as 12 to be killed and Belgium has no age restrictions whatsoever.

The writing is on the wall: so-called ‘safeguards’ have not prevented a comprehensive weakening of medical and legal standards. What was intended for the elderly has now become available to all ages. What was intended for physical illness is now for mental illness. What was intended for terminal illness is now for serious illness. What was intended to be consensual is now non-consensual. Soon, euthanasia will be available for good reason, bad reason or no reason at all.

The weight of evidence is an embarrassing rebuke to advocates of so-called ‘safeguards’. There are none. And once people have adjusted to a so-called ‘new normal’ the safeguards will be continually reviewed and seen as intolerant and cruel, and should be removed. We do not have to turn to other nations to see this in action. It has happened in Australia. Some of the people euthanised under Northern Territory legislation from 1995 were not even terminally ill.

When referring to the Northern Territory, we should note its higher percentage of Aboriginal people—many of whom do not live near hospitals. Aboriginal people do not like euthanasia, and legislating it in South Australia will create an environment where they might be disinclined to seek health treatment for fear of involuntary euthanasia. Many people believe in supernatural healing. For some, euthanasia is sorcery and against customary law. Submissions from Aboriginal people to the Northern Territory Select Committee on Euthanasia were overwhelmingly against it. One submission from a Yolngu woman stated:

“We were and are nomads, hunters, food gatherers, ceremonial and cultural people who will give comfort and tender loving care to our terminally ill relatives.”

She continued:

“Because our terminally ill relatives know that they are dying they usually want songs to be sung, they want to hear the last sound of their traditional songs and the sound of the didgeridoo and clapsticks.”

In summary, the Australian Family Party opposes euthanasia. Euthanasia does not provide the dignity its advocates claim. Human beings are built to live and survive, and the deliberate ending of a life prematurely removes value and worth. Euthanasia is the wrong way to treat those who are old and sick. The Australian Family Party is committed to supporting palliative care programs which enable people to live with dignity for the whole of their lives. Vulnerable patients dependent on medical professionals for their health should not be subject to proposals of premature death.

The rights of faith-based organisations are about to be seriously eroded. Led by Deputy Premier Vickie Chapman, the SA Liberal Party is proposing to remove exemptions which have allowed faith-based organisations to run their schools, hospitals and other services in accordance with their beliefs. This is what happens when there is no conservative alternative in the parliament to block these leftist policies. For those advocating ‘joining the Liberal Party and changing it from within’, this theory has now been totally debunked. It doesn’t work. The only way, I repeat, the only way to stop them is to take seats from them, either directly in the Upper House as Family First did from 2002 to 2018, or in the Lower House, through preferencing. If we are serious about protecting the rights of faith-based organisations then we need to act.

Australian Family Party’s position is outlined on the Free to Believe page.

The primary aim of the Australian Family Party is to put the family at the centre of every conversation. Recent media reports about Australian SAS troop actions in Afghanistan have drawn widespread attention culminating in calls for the service medals of those who served and died be taken from their families. The Australian Family Party strongly opposes this. In a ‘Letter to the Editor’ which was published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 28 November 2020, Australian Family Party Federal Director Bob Day said the following:

Dear Editor,

As if the families of the Special Forces Task Group haven’t sacrificed enough (“Soldiers facing dismissal”, The Advertiser, Friday).

The most painful of all human emotions is betrayal. It cuts deeper than any blade. The State has a duty to these families. Society has a duty to these families.

And what the State and society owe these families is recognition. Recognition for taking on roles the rest of us cannot even begin to imagine.

Bob Day
Australian Family Party

Introduction

On 17^th March 2016, the Coalition joined forces with the Greens to amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act and abolish Senate Group Voting Tickets. Group Voting Tickets allowed voters to simply put a 1 above-the-line and delegate to their party of choice the distribution of preferences. Whilst minor parties differed widely on policy matters, the one thing they had in common was their dislike of the Greens. Using Group Voting Tickets, minor parties came to arrangements with each other to combine their votes to get ahead of them.

The Coalition-Greens deal ended that.

When these new laws were introduced, I gave the following speech in the senate:

“Nothing good will come of this. The government’s claim that these changes will benefit the voter is false. Voters will be severely disadvantaged because the government is removing from voters – approximately three million of them, their right to delegate to their minor party of choice the distribution of their preferences. These changes will result in The Greens obtaining the balance of power permanently.”

Former Prime Minister John Howard also warned the government that the Coalition’s deal with the Greens could backfire on them. “The principal beneficiary of these changes will be the Australian Greens,” Howard said.

He was right. The Greens won six senate seats at the 2019 election (one from each state) and will almost certainly repeat this result in 2022 giving them a total of 12 senators and the balance of power, enough to join forces with Labor to pass or block legislation.

The Liberals and Nationals can rail all they like against Adam Bandt and the Greens but they have only themselves to blame. They have become the Greens enablers.

The Coalition went to the 2013 election promising to abolish the carbon tax, abolish the mining tax and stop the boats. Upon election, the senate crossbench – I was one of them, voted in support of these three key election pledges. The Greens opposed them. Yet during that term, the Coalition did a deal with those very same Greens to get rid of the crossbenchers who had supported them.

They say one of the most painful of all human emotions is betrayal because it cuts the deepest. In life we put up guards and shields and filter things people say to us. But with those you trust you let your guard down, you let them into your inner most being so when someone you trust betrays you it hurts very deeply. Like the scene in the movie Braveheart when William Wallace removes the helmet of Robert the Bruce and realises he has betrayed him. The look on his face. It’s the same with political leaders. We trust our side of politics to hold the line. We vote for them, they get into power, and then they betray us. Those who voted for the Liberals or Nationals expecting them to clean up the disgracefully biased ABC or the Human Rights Commission or Section 18c (of the Racial Discrimination Act) or put an end to the appointment of activist judges or multi-million dollar grants to Marxist academics have been betrayed. Instead of practicing what they have preached, the Coalition instead teamed up with the Greens to get rid of people like me who really do want to fix those things. The Libs and Nats talk endlessly about freedom and personal responsibility and self-reliance and free speech and the rights of the individual and lower taxes and the rule of law and property rights and free markets and smaller government but when they get into office, no matter how long they’re there, they don’t do anything about these things. They talk about Thatcher and Reagan but act like Cameron and Bush.

What I would like to do today is outline a six point plan to counter both the insidious influence of the Greens, and the disappointment of the major parties.

A New Political Party

Today I announce the launch of the Australian Family Party.

1. Family Resilience

The Australian Family Party believes the family should be the nation’s top priority. The Australian Family Party believes it is time to strengthen the family, to protect the family, to fight for the family. Your family is the one thing you’d take a bullet for.

Family has what is called ‘agency’. It can do things.

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 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 $180bn 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 have increased. Rates of depression have sky-rocketed. Drug overdoses, the ICE scourge, something is very wrong.

There is also a strong link between dysfunctional families and crime.

We see this played out in both indigenous and non-indigenous communities.

The Australian Family Party believes it is futile looking to politicians, public sector bureaucrats and regulators to fix these social ills.

But there is hope. The family.

2. Family Economics

Power prices, house prices, water prices. Family budgets and family businesses – family farms, family shops, trade contractors, are all under siege. The unbearable cost of energy, regulation and taxation is sending family businesses to the wall.

Families which are renting or cannot afford solar panels or solar batteries are subsidising those who can. Low and middle income families are paying much more for their electricity than high income users. Water utilities hand over billions of dollars to state governments in the form of hidden taxes called ‘dividends’ – another impost on low and middle income families and pensioners. These ‘dividends’ from low income families, pensioners, renters and small business owners are then dished out in the form of government grants to all and sundry to garner votes.

Whether it’s the Federal Government or individual State Governments, our taxes, charges and utility dividends go into one general revenue account. There is no such thing as ‘this tax pays for that service’. Every dollar a low income person or pensioner or renter pays in taxes, charges or loaded utility costs (water, power) is the same dollar the government dishes out in grants, benefits or subsidies.

Then there’s childcare. Billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money is spent each year on childcare subsidies – subsidies which benefit childcare centre owners more than parents while single-income families who provide child care at home at no cost to the taxpayer are severely disadvantaged compared with two-income families who benefit from two tax-free thresholds. Mothers who want to mother their own children are penalised. The way the family is taxed, particularly the single-income family is inequitable. The Australian Family Party strongly advocates income-splitting for single-income households.

It’s the same with aged care. According to the aged care royal commission, the sector should be ripped up and started again. Billions of dollars in government subsidies have lined the pockets of aged care entrepreneurs while, as identified by the commission, nursing home residents suffer systemic neglect.

3. Family Technology

There is an indisputable link between mental health and social media. Social media kills people. Violent computer games affect boys. Cyber bullying has turned deadly for girls. Sexting is rife. Online sexual predators are pervasive. Terrorist radicalisation and recruitment are real.

The internet has become the new wild west with power concentrated in the hands of tech giants – Facebook, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Netflix. These global giants are out of control. They destroy competition and privacy and misuse the information they collect.

No parent wants their children growing up being manipulated by tech engineers who know how to control their attention and make it impossible for them to do their homework, or to make them compare themselves to unrealistic standards of beauty. Social media companies manipulate people. And unlike protections for children when watching Saturday morning TV saying you can’t advertise in these ways, there are no such rules governing children watching online.

So how to respond to this new threat to our way of life? Do we try to control it or do we try to inoculate people against its effects?

Any suggestion these global behemoths can reform themselves or be trusted to ‘act fairly’ is laughable. And they’ve only just begun – they’ve been going less than 20 years. Imagine what they’ll be like in another 20 years. They’ll be craftier, more devious, more predatory, more intrusive, and more exploitative.

Things are changing so profoundly – in social attitudes, world economics, and especially technology that politicians and bureaucrats are hopelessly ill-equipped to manage it.

Politicians, public sector bureaucrats and regulators who think they can control these internet titans are either delusional or dishonest. They are bullies when it comes to ordinary citizens, but powerless – or rather, impotent when it comes to tech giants. Facebook, Google and Amazon are bigger than many of the world’s governments anyway. And once they start issuing their own currency they’ll almost be governments. Listening to politicians and regulators saying things like, “We’re going to introduce codes of conduct” or “We are going to increase fines and other penalties” or “We’re going to set up specialist units within the ACCC to better understand how their algorithms work” or “We are going to appoint an internet ombudsman” or an “eSafety Commissioner” must make the tech companies laugh out loud. And as for academics suggesting, “We need to bring them into public ownership. Nationalise them. They need to be subject to democratic, not market, control”, if you thought the owners of these tech giants were authoritarian, imagine them being owned and run by politicians and bureaucrats! Big Brother would truly have arrived. Last year (2019) Google was granted a patent to monitor home activities like a high-tech nanny reporting things people in the home are doing, saying, watching, reading and eating.

The nation state is hopelessly outdated and outgunned in the digital age. We can no longer rely on politicians, public servant bureaucrats and regulators to protect us. Citizens and businesses must protect themselves.

Tech entrepreneur and former Google insider Tristan Harris says we are in the midst of a ‘great social upheaval’. He calls it ‘the checkmate’ where technology attacks the very foundation of what we trust. He says we are entering a digital Dark Age where disinformation is more valuable than factual information. Tech investor Roger McNamee calls tech tyrants a ‘clear and present danger to democracy’.

There is only one institution which can combat the lawlessness of this digital jungle and its predators. One thing more powerful than the tech titans and cyber-bullies and their algorithms and that is the family.

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. Facebook friends are not real friends, they are not family. Real family is mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

4. Free to Speak

Freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of opinion. These freedoms are critical to the very existence of a strong democracy and are recognised in international treaties and conventions to which Australia is a party. Without free speech, no search for truth is possible. People who aren’t free can never reach their true potential.

The Australian people own the Australian language, not politicians. The Australian people have delegated to politicians the responsibility to protect them from harm. They have not delegated to them the right to decide who should or should not be offended. Being offended is part and parcel of the price of freedom. Regulating for what is essentially the hurt feelings of a reader or a hearer is not the same as incitement to harm. It is not a politician’s or regulator’s role to regulate free speech, it is society’s.

When I was in parliament, I tried to amend Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The Coalition blocked it.

Now it goes without saying that no-one should be obnoxious and no-one should be rude or insulting or offensive, but these things should not be outlawed.

Tolerance has become a one-way street. In the name of tolerance and acceptance an anti-freedom culture has developed. Views will not be tolerated if they do not conform. The rights of individuals and voluntary groups are under threat and we know from history how things turn out when free speech is repressed.

5. Free to Believe

Without free speech there can be no search for truth. Without freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, we are not free.

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

There are some things free people will not be dictated to or lectured about. One of them is their religion or their morals, particularly what they teach their children. They will certainly not allow themselves be bullied into submission by being called bigots or homophobes.

The debate over religious freedom seems to be not about equality and tolerance at all but about discrimination against religious people. The left calls for tolerance but what they really want is for everyone to agree with and endorse – even celebrate, their view of the world. If you don’t, you are a bigot.

And it’s not as if they try to convince or persuade people with reasoned arguments. They’re not interested in debate or argument. To quote Mark Steyn, “They don’t want to win the debate, they want to prevent the debate” and they want the legislative power of the state to force everyone to comply. Their aim is to shape society. They know that without the power of the state they have nothing.

If being free means anything it means citizens having the right to ensure that the religious and moral education of their children conforms to their own convictions – as outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is a signatory. It means having freedom of conscience and the freedom to believe and practice the core commitments, tenets and values of one’s faith – including, for example, the rights of parents not to have their children participate in Safe Schools programs. It is every parent’s right to raise their child in their faith and in accordance with their moral principles, and it is the state’s role to uphold and protect those rights.

The socialist left is out to undermine our freedoms. They’re coming for our churches, our schools, our farms, our mines, our cars and, most of all, for our children. They’re coming for our old people with their euthanasia needles, they’re coming for our about-to-be-born babies with their grotesque point-of-birth abortion laws, their coming for our teenagers with their drug liberalisation laws, and they’re coming to indoctrinate our primary school children. They’re also coming for Christmas Day and Australia Day and Anzac Day and Remembrance Day. These people mean business. They are brutal and dictatorial.

In 2013, David Flint and Jai Martinkovits wrote a book called, ‘Give Us Back Our Country’. In the seven years since they wrote that book, it is fairly clear we are not getting our country back any time soon. If anything, more of our country and our freedoms have been taken from us. In a recent article Flint is no longer calling for our country to be ‘given back’, but rather we’re going to have to take it back.

The culture wars have always been important. The Greek-Roman wars saw Rome conquer Greece militarily, but the Greeks conquer the Romans philosophically. Rome controlled the territory, but the Greeks controlled the culture. Or as modern day management would say, ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’. In Australia today, the right controls the territory but the left controls the culture.

People and faith-based institutions – schools, hospitals, aged care providers, charities, should not have to rely on exemptions from anti-discrimination laws to function in accordance with their faith. They should, for example, have the freedom to select people as they see fit. Political parties have that right because the political allegiance of a job applicant matters; in environmental groups, views about climate change are relevant; in women’s shelters, gender is important; saying you can only become a member of a chess club if you play chess is not discriminating against people who don’t play chess. In ethnic clubs and institutions, ethnicity is sensible and practical. We accept all these differences. And in religious institutions, religion matters. Forcing religious schools to become indistinguishable from secular schools regarding staffing is senseless. After all, no-one is forced to work for a religious organisation or send their children to a religious school where all the staff follow that particular religion.

Expressions of faith by a person or faith-based organisation must be declared lawful. Section 116 of the Constitution says there can be no law which prohibits the free exercise of any religion. Statutory exemptions are inadequate. Exemptions granted can just as easily be withdrawn. The right to religious freedom must be treated as a pre-eminent right and be recognised and protected. Human Rights Commissions should have no role to play. A Commonwealth law, by reference to its Objects clauses, must recognise religious freedom as pre-eminent, and override all state and territory anti-discrimination laws.

I would commend to you the 10 liberties contained in The Niagara 2020 Declaration.

6. Free to Work

There has been a dignity and sanctity associated with work since ancient times. The Hebrew word for ‘work’ and ‘worship’ is the same – Avodah. Denying a person the right to work is like denying them to right to worship. ‘He who builds a factory, builds a temple’, said Calvin Coolidge, ‘He who works there, worships there’.

When people, young people in particular, are excluded from full participation in community and working life, the social costs are enormous – drug and alcohol abuse, crime, domestic violence, poor health, depression, frustration, boredom, bikie gang recruitment, civil disorder, teenage pregnancy, even suicide. This is what happens when young people can’t get a job. They are locked out of the labour market at exactly the time they are biologically ready to enter into relationships, get married and start a family.

It is not only morally wrong, it is economically foolish.

A single person with no dependents on Newstart (Jobkeeper) Allowance receives approximately $400 a week. The minimum wage is $740 per week. No-one is permitted to work for any amount under $740. We praise people who work for nothing – those who work in OpShops, nursing homes, meals on wheels, animal shelters and many other organisations, but we don’t allow them to work for any amount between zero and $740. Surely if you are allowed to work for nothing you should be allowed to work for something. It is absurd.

There is a solution to this madness, and it lies with focussing on the people who want to work. For example, a person could be unemployed, living at home rent-free, with no (or very low) cost of living and would be willing to work at a starting pay rate of say $20 an hour – which is a lot higher than they are getting from Centrelink, but because penalty rates on weekends or public holidays are around $40 an hour they are not allowed to take the job. So they stay on unemployment benefits, the business stays shut and the customer doesn’t get to buy whatever it is they wanted to buy. What a clever country we are.

Australia has been groaning under this yoke for a century.

For the low skilled or poorly educated or socially disadvantaged or for those who lack connections or self-confidence, the barriers to entry to getting a job are almost insurmountable.

To be clear on this, the Australian Family Party is not talking about ‘amending labour laws’ – in Australia’s case the Fair Work Act. It is saying a person’s ownership of their own labour should be absolutely sacrosanct. No person should be prevented from working under terms and conditions which suit them.

Before anyone mentions ‘WorkChoices’, I was a vehement opponent of WorkChoices. I visited Canberra on a number of occasions lobbying various Ministers imploring them not to proceed along the WorkChoices path. I suggested they leave Peter Reith’s 1996 Workplace Relations Act alone and simply allow people to ‘opt out’ if they wanted to. Those workers who wished to stay in the workplace regulation system could do so, but those who didn’t want to stay could opt out. As history shows, the former Government didn’t take my advice and Australia went from Peter Reith’s 600 page Workplace Relations Act to Kevin Andrews’ 2,000 page disaster WorkChoices.

Now we have its successor, the Fair Work Act 3,000 pages of rules and regulations. Disputes costing the nation millions of dollars can be laid squarely at the feet of the political/bureaucratic/regulatory-designed Fair Work Act. Accord-like forums comprising politicians, bureaucrats, business executives and unions are so patronising. Those who want union leaders like Sally McManus or Business Council of Australia CEOs like Jennifer Westacott or politicians like Christian Porter to speak on their behalf are more than welcome, but there are a lot of people who don’t. And those who don’t, know a lot more about their own personal circumstances and their own lives than some remote politician or union leader or business executive.

It’s been said that any place you can’t leave is a prison. Well, the present workplace regulation system is a prison, trapping people in its thousands of pages of regulations.  And when we ask why we lock people up like this, we are told “Oh it’s for their own good – we don’t want them to be exploited.” Clive James famously said Australians like to think of themselves as descendants of convicts when in fact we are overwhelmingly descendants of prison guards! We need to be set free.

The workplace prison system is an infringement on liberty, freedom and dignity. It violates a person’s right to get a job and provide for themselves and their families. It is unjust and unfair – particularly to young people where youth unemployment is over 40% in some areas.

Consider the following: a person over the age of 18 is permitted to:

• get married
• have children
• drive a motor vehicle
• buy a house
• take out a mortgage
• travel to some of the most dangerous places on earth
• smoke cigarettes
• drink alcohol
• serve in the army
• and of course vote

… but is not permitted to work on terms and conditions which suit them and their family.

The unemployed and the under-employed could lift Australia’s productivity by being permitted to work as and when and on terms and conditions, suit them.

Following the recent budget, the Treasurer talked endlessly about ‘labour market dynamics’ – “we’ve got this, we’ve got that” when the truth is they’ve got nothing. They can’t possibly know all the factors and circumstances affecting every individual worker and their family. Put simply, the Treasurer cannot begin to know what is best for you.

To Summarise

Australia has social and economic problems that it wants to solve and social and economic goals it wants to achieve – full employment, affordable housing, low crime rates, however looking to politicians, bureaucrats and regulators to solve these problems and achieve these goals is not going to work. I’ve been a politician and I’ve been a public servant. I’ve seen both up close and believe me you don’t want them running your lives for you. If we learn nothing else from watching Question Time it is these people should not be controlling our lives. Not only do they behave appallingly, they take our money and our freedom and say they will act in our best interest. Instead they act in their own interest and the interest of rent-seeking cartels. Aged care, child care, disability care. As Eric Hoffer once said, ‘Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket’. The big rent-seekers in energy, superannuation, pharmaceuticals, higher education, unions, land developers, indigenous groups, public transport and manufacturing, even government itself has degenerated into a racket.

As James Maddison once said, governments are made up of human beings, not angels. It’s why we see such abuses of power.

The major parties and their machine men live in a world that is foreign to common people.  Simply put, they do not know enough to make the correct decisions. If they did, as Bert Kelly once said, “they wouldn’t be here they’d be sitting in the South of France with their feet in a bucket of champagne!”

The simple reason is those at the top know less than those at the bottom. ‘The tyranny of experts’, the fatal deceit. The very word bureaucracy itself gives the game away. Bureaucracy is derived from two words – ‘bureau’ from the French word for ‘desk’ and ‘kratos’ from the Greek word for power, hence ‘bureau-krat’, ‘desk-power’.

Over the past decade – before Covid19 hit, when the economy was healthy, government debt increased every year under both Labor and the Coalition.  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.

To quote the IPA’s Daniel Wild, “Whether it was Wayne Swan’s non-existent budget surpluses, Julia Gillard’s “there will be no carbon tax”, submarines that won’t keep us safe, the costly and inferior NBN, the fraud that is compulsory superannuation, the current Treasurer’s premature claim that we are “back in the black”, the $570 billion in gross commonwealth debt, and so on, our political elites get it wrong so many times”.

A renaissance is needed, one that puts the family at the centre of society.

Free markets and a free and civilised society rely on individual consciences. It is the family that nurtures the conscience. For a free society to prosper, people have to be able to control themselves. Only family can teach self-control. Only in a family can you learn to live with other people whilst maintaining your individuality.

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, and the world, best by putting the family first.

Thank you.

 

[Address to Senate Inquiry Into Decisions Made By The Court of Disputed Returns Adelaide, SA, 19 February, 2018 by Bob Day AO]

INTRODUCTION:

I only learned of this Inquiry’s existence on 29 December last year. I quickly put together a submission and lodged it 2 days later – on 31 December.

What I’d like to do this morning is expand on that submission by doing 3 things:

1. Make an Opening Statement
2. Give a brief summary of the circumstances leading to my disqualification and
3. Address some of the implications of that disqualification

OPENING STATEMENT:

First and foremost, can I say this is all a bit perplexing. A Senate Inquiry is established with former Senator Rod Culleton and myself named as of particular interest. The Inquiry was established on 6 December with submissions to be received by no later than 22 December. Neither Rod Culleton nor I were informed of any of this.

Has there ever been a Senate Inquiry into a former Senator where that Senator has not been made aware of its existence? I doubt it. It would be like the police inquiring into an incident and the person involved in the incident being neither informed of the inquiry nor interviewed about it.

After lodging my submission I was informed that it would not be accepted as a formal submission thus preventing its publication by the committee.

I would like to now table my submission, or ‘correspondence’ as the committee prefers to call it.

SUMMARY OF EVENTS LEADING TO MY DISQUALIFICATION:

A full description of the events leading to my disqualification is in my submission which I presume Members have read, however I would like to highlight a number of key points:

1. At no time between September 2013 when I was elected and December 2015 when the lease was signed on the building in question was I ever informed of any potential constitutional problems with the lease.
2. Throughout those 2 years and 3 months I had countless discussions with numerous departmental officers however again, at no stage did anyone mention Section 44.
3. On 7 November 2016, in answer to a question in the senate, the Special Minister of State Senator Cormann said, “Former Senator Day subsequently provided information to the department about vendor-financing arrangements underpinning his sale of the 77 Fullarton Road property. Related financial arrangements caused concerns about whether then Senator Day in fact remained connected to the Fullarton Road property. Subsequent to that, and being aware of all of the information, the department advised me (Sen Cormann) that it was open to me, and that it would not be a conflict to make rental payments under the lease from 1 March forward. The issue, to be frank, was not a concern to the department at that point in time” …. “and at no point did I receive any advice from the Department of Finance that the lease signed on 1 December 2015 in itself and in the absence of rental payments could cause a potential breach of section 44 of the Constitution.
4. No payments were ever made either to me or anyone associated with the property.
5. Notwithstanding the advice from the Department, the then Special Minister of State Senator Ryan obtained a private legal opinion.
6. Minister Ryan provided that private legal opinion to me and then Senate President Stephen Parry who contacted me on 28 October with the grim news that he was going to advise the senate on the next sitting day of its existence and then refer me to the High Court. Faced with that I felt I had no choice but to resign immediately.
7. My family business was experiencing difficulties at that time and whilst I had been contemplating resigning, I had started to work my way through those problems. The Special Minister of State’s advice and Senate President’s actions however put paid to that idea.
8. Neither the Department nor the Minister believed that the arrangement with my senate office breached the constitution. In fact the High Court confirmed their belief saying the previous ruling (the Webster case) could not be permitted to stand and changed the constitution’s meaning of ‘indirect pecuniary interest’.
9. Notwithstanding the Department’s actions over the previous three years, and the authority of three Special Ministers of State to proceed with the lease as arranged, the government argued in the High Court that I should be disqualified.

IMPLICATIONS:

The implications of my disqualification fall into 4 categories:

• The implications for the electors of South Australia
• The implications for the parliament
• The implications for future members and senators and
• The implications for me personally

Implications for voters:

At the 2013 and 2016 federal elections, enough electors gave either me or my party Family First enough first preference and subsequent preference votes to enable me to be elected to represent them in the Australian senate. The consequences of my disqualification has not reflected the will of the voters.

Implications for the parliament:

The implications for future members and senators is disturbing to say the least. I was a cross-bencher. Is it only cross-benchers who are to be referred to the High Court without their agreement?

I note there’s a Mexican stand-off in the parliament at the moment over the Member for Longman Susan Lamb who is a dual citizen. Susan Lamb and her party both claim she took reasonable steps to renounce her British citizenship and therefore shouldn’t be referred to the High Court. The argument in Susan Lamb’s case is ‘did she or did she not take reasonable steps’?

When my case reached the High Court, two hearings were held – the first before a single judge – Justice Michelle Gordon, to establish the facts, and the second before the full bench to decide my fate.

Justice Gordon found that I had properly and legitimately disposed of the property in question – including paying the full stamp duty on the transfer, that I was not a party to the lease, and that in her opinion I had done all I thought was required to comply with the constitution. Yet I was referred to the High Court and Susan Lamb hasn’t. There is obviously one rule for members of a major party and another rule for those who are not.

Had I known then what I know now, my Party and I would have opposed a referral to the High Court. And what would President Parry have done then? Put a motion forward for a hostile referral to the High Court based on a vague indirect pecuniary interest asking the Court to overturn the Webster case? I don’t think so. As mentioned in my submission, Professor Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland said that for the High Court to change the law and then backdate it to apply to someone who had relied on a previous ruling (Webster) seems somewhat unfair.

The implication in my case is, a Minister could get a legal opinion about a cross-bencher to simply put pressure on him or her.

As most of you would know, I voted with the government 90% of the time – more than any other crossbencher. So why did the government argue I should be disqualified? Would my disqualification give the government some political advantage? Or was it simply to prove the adage “no good turn goes unpunished”?

Given the Department’s advice that there was no conflict, the government could have just as easily argued I should not be disqualified. It’s hard not to be suspicious.

Implications for future members and senators:

As we all know, the Department of Finance provides members and senators with a document this thick about every minor allowance and entitlement you can think of, but not apparently anything about breaching the constitution. Does the Department of Finance owe a newly elected senator any duty of care in this area?

It was found by the High Court that I benefited from an ‘indirect pecuniary interest’ in a contract with the Commonwealth notwithstanding the fact that no payments were ever made.

Implications for me personally.

Since the Senate President informed the senate in November 2016 of the legal advice in his possession, I have been accused by senators, members of parliament, journalists and members of the public of all manner of things including fraud, corruption, misconduct in public office, cronyism, hypocrisy, self-entitlement, a cover up, ripping off taxpayers, trading my vote for office accommodation, and having my hand in the till.

The implications are obvious. A person’s life and reputation can be ruined.

I ask that this evidence, together with my submission, be made public.