Are you concerned about the harmful effects of daycare on very young children and Australian society?

• Do you want Government tax and other policies to help parents nurture their own children where possible?

Check out the 'Children need parent's website

Closing thoughts from a heretic

29/2 Chris Mulherin, ABC Religion on the 2010 Global Atheist Convention | Two weeks and many words ago, I first wrote as a guest blogger on this site. I was looking forward to participating in the Atheist Convention as an undercover heretic, a true believer in science but one who has the temerity to believe also in God. I haven’t been disappointed. I’ve been glad of the opportunities for dialogue and at times I’ve been surprised.

I’m glad that the Convention raised serious questions about ‘life, the universe, and everything’, including issues of prejudice and influence, in society and politics. I’m glad too for the challenges to the religious faithful to get their houses in order.

A surprise: despite opposing belief systems, as a Christian I found common ground with these committed ‘true non-believers’. Like me, the atheists have taken their stand. In a bizarre sort of way it was good to be amongst people who have no truck with relativism or with a postmodernism which turns truth into plasticine.

Another surprise: while religious groups feel marginalised at times by secularism, it was interesting to walk in the shoes of the atheist and hear of their angst at encountering religion at every turn of politics (Christian politicians), education (chaplains in schools) and law (tax exemptions for religious organisations).

... Atheism rejects the ‘God hypothesis’. But wait… the irony of the so-called ‘New Atheism’, represented by Richard Dawkins, is that it is characterised by its antagonism to religion. With a few exceptions, this was the brand of atheism on show at the Convention. It is unapologetic about the battle to remove the influence of religion from the secular marketplace. So, try as the ‘New Atheists’ do to distance themselves from religion, there is a sense in which they are defined by it; by their anti-religious and anti-theist stance.

(Scroll down for this blog entry )

Australian scientists in TB drug breakthrough

24/03 AFP | AUSTRALIAN scientists said today they had discovered a drug which could cure tuberculosis at its non-infectious stage and could be the first major breakthrough on the disease in 50 years.

Bacteriologist Nick West said researchers at Sydney's Centenary Institute had developed a drug which could essentially combat the disease before it takes hold, potentially saving millions of lives around the world.

"We have investigated a protein that is essential for TB to survive and we have had some success in developing a drug that will inhibit this protein," said West.

"Our goal over the coming months is to find out the full extent of this drug's potential."

Dr West said it would be the first time in history that dormant or asymptomatic, non-infectious TB would be able to be treated, potentially stemming a deadly tide of infection which claimed two million lives every year.

Hemlock & Parsley - Reflections on the Global Atheist Convention

Gary Bryson, ABC Religion | The 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, while understandably lacking in apatheists, was chock full of scientists, philosophers, comedians, and what must surely have been the most single-minded and concordant audience gathered anywhere outside of a symposium of Star Trek fans. Let’s face it, any convention that can bring more than 2,500 people together around a shared belief in nothing has to have something going for it.

The atheists it attracted were by and large the real deal; rational non-believers fully committed to filling in any theoretical ‘God-shaped hole’ with a distinctly Darwin-shaped plug, embracing evolution, the scientific method, and a wide-ranging secular humanism which supports pretty much everything on the hate list of conservative religion.

Nothing wrong with that. Except that, as Ali Sayed has pointed out elsewhere on this blog, this huge convention of like-minded people, hyperbolically calling itself ‘The Rise of Atheism’, had apparently no political objectives at all; no setting in play of forceful new movements for example, no raucous plenary session hammering out action points and strategies. No frenzied pamphlets pointing the way forward. The convention, it seems, had no ambitions to harness the forces of change.

So what exactly was it for?

A clue can possibly be found in the answers people gave me to the question, why are you here? While some said they hoped to learn something, or contribute to the debate, the majority told me they were here to see the big speakers; Richard Dawkins especially, but also AC Grayling and Peter Singer. They bought their books, too, by the truckload. I don’t have figures for the number of books sold over the weekend, but it was seriously good business, if the long queues for signings were anything to go by.

And the convention itself seemed often to be less about “the rise of atheism”, and more about the rise and rise of celebrity atheists; less a convention even, and more an extended festival, a carefully wrought piece of show business, a big production number, complete with stars and support acts, stirring music, comedic interludes and even the obligatory prima donna directors (I had the misfortune to spend some time in the control room and I can tell you there were more histrionics in there than backstage at So You Think You Can Dance).

(Scroll down for full blog entry )

Mass immigration kills Aussie culture, says demographer Bob Birrell

News.com.au | TRADITIONS based on heritage, sporting culture and common language are threatened by mass immigration, a leading demographer has warned.

Monash University population expert Dr Bob Birrell has said the huge influx of people with few or no English skills had created social problems in Melbourne suburbs such as Dandenong, Sunshine and Broadmeadows and most major cities were feeling the population strain, the Herald Sun reported.

"This is not a pretty picture," he said.  "Social divisions are becoming more obvious and geographically concentrated and certain areas are being overlain by an ethnic identification."

In a plea to the Rudd Government to slash the current immigrant intake of 180,000 a year, Dr Birrell warned that the predicted population of 35 million by 2050 would be a disaster for urban living and the environment.

"One would have to wander deaf, dumb and blind through Australian capital cities to not notice how urban congestion has already reduced the quality of life," he said.

The intake dominated by people from non-English speaking backgrounds was transforming Australia, Dr Birrell said.  (Click to see the Immigration department's statistics on migration and where migrants have come from )

"We are losing core elements of what was once shared. Almost all could once aspire to a house and land ... and sharing a common language, sporting culture and heritage," he said.

Jail in lockdown after child sex offender found dead

17/03 AAP | A JAIL west of Brisbane is in lockdown after a 42-year-old child sex offender was found dead in his cell. A Queensland Corrective Services spokesman said the man was serving a six-year sentence at the Wolston Correctional Centre for sex offences against a child.

Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine

16/4 Melanie Philips, The Australian

This was even after (or perhaps because) he referred to the Pope as a Nazi, which managed to combine defamation of the pontiff with implicit Holocaust denial. By comparison, Family First senator Steve Fielding may feel he got off lightly when Dawkins described him merely as more stupid than an earthworm.

For someone who has made a career out of telling everyone how much more tolerant the world would be if only religion were obliterated from the human psyche, Dawkins manages to appear remarkably intolerant towards anyone who disagrees with him.

The fact is, however, the shine has come off Dawkins. For sure, he remains a superstar for the legions who loathe religion. But, nevertheless, a strong feeling has developed in less credulous quarters that he has gone too far.

Time to clean up prisoner drug use, says Anex

Bans on prisoners possessing drugs and syringes have failed to stop their now commonplace use behind prison walls, says The Association for Prevention and Harm Reduction Programs Australia (Anex).

Drug-using inmates were routinely sharing dirty needles, the group says, with the practice promoting the spread of disease within the prison population and in the community on an infected inmate's release.

NSW: Gonorrhoea cases quadruple in Newcastle

AAP | HEALTH authorities have warned of an alarming spike in gonorrhoea cases in the NSW port city of Newcastle.

More than 40 people have been newly diagnosed with the sexually transmitted infection so far this year, more than four times the rate seen over the same period in 2009.

The infection, which can lead to infertility, has been increasingly seen in young men and women in their teens and 20s, Dr Treeny Ooi said.

"Men who have sex with men have been identified as a group particularly at risk, however heterosexual people have also been infected," Dr Ooi, who is director of sexual health at Hunter New England Health, said.

NSW: Spike in sex infections in Newcastle

SMH.com.au | Health authorities have warned of an alarming spike in gonorrhoea cases in the New South Wales port city of Newcastle.

More than 40 people have been newly diagnosed with the sexually transmitted infection so far this year, more than four times the rate seen over the same period in 2009.

Dr Treeny Ooi from the Hunter New England Health area says the STI, which can lead to infertility, has been increasingly seen in young men and women in their teens and twenties.

He says men who have sex with men have been identified as a group particularly at risk.

Girls ordered to spend weekends with sex offender father

The Australian | A COURT has ordered two young girls to spend weekends with their sex offender father provided he puts a door on their bedroom they can lock. Judge Robert Benjamin, in the Family Court's Hobart branch, ruled that the girls "need some protection from (their father), particularly at night".

However, the risk of sexual abuse was "diminished when they are awake and alert".

Judge Benjamin said that the father, who was convicted of downloading child pornography, must have an "adult friend" stay with him when the girls stayed overnight.

He added that until the youngest turned 14, the girls must "share the same room so they can have the mutual support of one another".

A Family Court counsellor said that the girls, aged ten and eight, "are at an age and maturity when awake, dressed and together it would be unlikely the father would act inappropriately toward them". .... The eldest girl has told counsellors that she was afraid to stay overnight with her father.

Family law unable to back mum on new life

In a judgment handed down in Melbourne, federal magistrate Evelyn Bender acknowledged that some women feel compelled to "start fresh" after divorce by leaving town, with the children.

Until recently, they had mostly been allowed to go their way, on the grounds that happy mothers meant happy children.

However, the shared parenting law, brought in by the Howard government in 2006, shifted the pendulum toward a child's right to have the father involved in all aspects of life, including weekday meals, weekend sports, overnight stays and parent-teacher nights.

The shared parenting law is the subject of a government review.

Muslim leader wants elements of sharia in Australia

SMH.com.au | ELEMENTS of Islamic law - the sharia - should be legally recognised in Australia so that Muslims can live according their faith, a prominent Muslim leader says.

... ''I don't think we are so unsophisticated that we cannot consider a multilayered legal system as long as it doesn't conflict with the existing civil system.''

Mother fights to stop daughter calling her stepmother 'mum'

The Australian | AN Adelaide mother went to court to prevent her daughter from referring to her ex-husband's new wife as "Mum" or "Mummy" or "my other Mummy". 'The woman, who cannot be named, argued that her ex-husband was deliberately undermining her role as their child's mother, by encouraging his new wife to answer to the terms "Mum" and "Mummy" and "Mummy-D" (D being the first letter of the stepmother's first name.)

The battle has been going on for almost as long as the child has been able to speak. Her parents separated when she was four months old.

Growing number of Muslim men and multiple wives exploiting loophoole for taxpayer handouts

05/03 Herald Sun | GROWING number of Muslim men and their multiple wives are exploiting a loophole to get taxpayer handouts.

Centrelink has confirmed it has investigated up to 20 cases of multiple relationships, including polygamy, in the past two years for payment irregularities. It has forced some families to pay money back.

Polygamy is illegal in Australia, but a Centrelink spokeswoman said it was not the welfare agency's job to police polygamy laws. "It's not our concern if they are a member of a polygamist relationship," the spokeswoman said. "We look at whether they are receiving the correct rate of payment. We treat each couple independently."

But Islamic Women's Welfare Council of Victoria director Joumanah El Matrah said some men were exploiting Australia.

What Price a Child

Lifesite News | Overseas students and workers in Australia on special visas are being forced to abort their babies if they become pregnant.

Last month a major SA hospital reported that a massive one third of abortions are being performed on overseas students (The Advertiser, 3/11/09, p 6).  Unofficial reports from other states suggest a similar situation Australia-wide.

The grim reality is that women who come to Australia on special student or work visas are not covered by Medicare.  Most only have basic health insurance which does not include pregnancy-related items.  Giving birth costs over $10,000 in doctor and hospital fees – compared with about $800 for an abortion in a Sydney clinic or $1700 in an SA public hospital.

“If these women become pregnant, they find that abortion is the only option they can afford,” says Robyn Grace.  “I see their distraught faces every week.”

Robyn Grace gets up very early twice a week and takes the long drive from her home in the Adelaide hills to the government abortion clinic.  Years ago, the Mareeba hospital healed very sick babies – before it was rebuilt in 1992 and euphemistically renamed the Pregnancy Advisory Centre (PAC).  In over 95 percent of cases, PAC pregnancy “advice” is to terminate the life of a healthy unborn infant. 

Christian Schools are angry over the banning of the teaching of Creationism

03/03 SMH.com.au | Australian Christian schools will campaign against what they see as the thin end of the wedge - a decision by the South Australian Non-Government Schools Registration Board to effectively ban the teaching of creationism.

Under policies published in December, the board said it required ''teaching of science as an empirical discipline, focusing on inquiry, hypothesis, investigation, experimentation, observation and evidential analysis''. The board said it ''does not accept as satisfactory a science curriculum in a non-government school which is based on, espouses or reflects the literal interpretation of a religious text in its treatment of either creationism or intelligent design''.

Queensland kids rescued from child porn industry

02/03 Brisbane Times | Fifteen Queensland children subjected to sexual abuse have been removed from their homes in the past year, police have revealed.

Ten of the children were discovered in relation to one case, while four were connected to another individual investigation.

The children - mostly aged in their early teens - were rescued during investigations into online pedophile activity, including the creation and exchange of child pornography. At least one had been raped, police said.

Detective Superintendent Peter Crawford, of the Child Safety and Sexual Crimes Group, said new sophisticated software had allowed police to locate and track down men exploiting the children.

Queensland: Top students 'filmed dealing drugs in CBD'

02/03 Brisbane Times | A television network claims it has evidence students from some of Brisbane's top schools are openly dealing drugs in the CBD. The pictures, obtained in secret by Channel Ten, will go to air tonight and are said to have "shocked and appalled" the schools involved.

The network filmed an alley off Elizabeth Street over a period of two weeks, capturing vision of teenagers dressed in school uniform passing items to one another in a clandestine fashion.

WA : Spray link to birth defect

01/03 Perth Now | A TOXIC herbicide widely sprayed on food crops across the state has been linked to a shocking birth defect that is on the rise in WA.

Doctors at a Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine conference have announced a correlation between exposure to the agricultural chemical atrazine and gastroschisis - a rare congenital birth defect in which a baby's intestine grows outside its abdomen.

Research by the University of WA and King Edward Memorial Hospital shows cases of gastroschisis have been steadily increasing in WA over the past decade.

Since the mid-1980s, the WA Department of Health Birth Defect Register shows children born with the defect more than tripled from 15 between 1984 and 1985 to 48 from 2005-08.

Atrazine is recommended by the WA Department of Agriculture for use on crops such as maize, sugarcane, lupins, peas, wheat, potatoes and canola to control weeds.

Training tomorrow's leaders

There is a great need in this nation to assist those students and recent graduates who demonstrate a high potential to become influential leaders for Christ across strategic areas of our nation including politics, law, media, science, education, arts and philosophy.
The Compass program, an eight-day course in Christian worldview, aims to address this need.

The inaugural program kicks off this Sunday with 40 students at the University of Queensland. For more information and to register interest for 2009, please go to www.compass.org.au .

Lyle Shelton
National Chief of Staff , Australian Christian Lobby