Reflections on the New Government

It is early days yet for the new Rudd government, but already we have been given some pretty good indications as to where and how this government will proceed. These first few months in office make up what is known as the ‘honeymoon period’, in which the media and others are supposed to be kind to the new government, and only use kid gloves in their evaluations and interaction.

The problem is, with an overwhelmingly leftist and Labor-supporting mainstream media, this honeymoon period is likely to last for the full term of the government. Thus it is worth our while to examine some areas which may be of concern to Australians as a whole, and people of faith as well.

I here raise a number of concerns, some more weighty than others, which may very well indicate even more problems to come. To highlight the areas of concern at this point is not to suggest that there are no positives. Perhaps another article in the future can focus on those aspects. But here are some ten areas where the Rudd government has been causing some worry.

One. Within weeks of taking up her education portfolio, Julia Gillard announced that school chaplains should be secular. Under the former Howard government, schools were given funding to have religious chaplains to help bring some spiritual dimension to the life of the students. The new Education Minister wants to change all that, and allow secular counselors. She says she wants the scheme to be secular in nature. But schools have plenty of secular counselors. What chaplains provide is a window into the spiritual realm, which children should have the right to access.

Now That We’ve Said Sorry

Well, the speeches have been made, the protests have been held, the emotions have poured forth and the rhetoric has been sprayed over wide areas. Time will tell whether today’s historic gesture will achieve anything of real value, for blacks as well as for whites. It is hoped that some genuine good will come out of it all.

Of course whole oceans of ink have been spilled on all this. As would be expected, it is of mixed quality. There were however two recent pieces – both appearing in the Australian – which I thought were especially noteworthy.

The first appeared yesterday and was written by Noel Pearson, director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. It was a significant piece and deserves careful reading. I here offer some snippets from this incisive and nuanced article. 

Pearson, unlike so many “experts” and commentators on this issue, realizes what a complex and multifaceted issue this is: “The truth is the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of Aboriginal families is a history of complexity and great variety. People were stolen, people were rescued; people were brought in chains, people were brought by their parents; mixed-blood children were in danger from their tribal stepfathers, while others were loved and treated as their own; people were in danger from whites, and people were protected by whites. The motivations and actions of those whites involved in this history - governments and missions - ranged from cruel to caring, malign to loving, well-intentioned to evil.”

Whales In, Babies Out

Japanese whaling ships continue to make the news, with Greenpeace chasing them around the oceans, and Hollywood celebrities making a whale of a stink about the treatment of these water-bound mammals.

Two recent newspaper articles about the plight of whales caught my attention and deserve some comment. In last week’s Australian animal rights campaigner Peter Singer had an op-ed piece entitled “Hypocrisy on the high seas”. And Australian actress Isabel Lucas was featured in a Herald Sun magazine article this weekend. Both have great concern for these marine mammoths, and their anti-whaling rhetoric warrants a closer look.

Consider the article by Singer. He says that in a submission on the subject he “argued that whales were social mammals with big brains, capable of enjoying life and of feeling pain, and not only physical pain but very likely also distress at the loss of one of their group.” While the last claim is certainly a moot point, much of his article centres on this idea of whales feeling pain.

He says, “Causing suffering to innocent beings without an extremely weighty reason for doing so is wrong.” Now Singer is well known as not only an animal liberationist, but a vocal proponent of abortion, euthanasia and infanticide. Does anyone else besides me see some hypocrisy here, some double-standards?

Islamisation versus Christendom

There are plenty of theological differences between Islam and Christianity. But there are also some profound differences in terms of political and social life under both systems. While these distinctions are a matter of historical record, some ideologues refuse to see the distinctions, and instead seek to lump all religions together in their secular crusade. Such attempts are made quite often on my own website.

Indeed, one good thing about running a blog site is you get a lot of great illustrations about what you are writing about by various commentators. As an example, I had no sooner finished a piece on sloppy thinking regarding church-state relations when yet another atheist/secularist trotted out some tired old arguments in his comment about how Christian influence in the West is just as harmful as sharia law.

This is the myth of moral equivalence: the idea that all religions are equal, or at least equally bad. The inability – or unwillingness - to make a distinction between life under sharia law, and life in, say, “Christian England,” reflects not only sloppy thinking but the power of ideology to hide facts and distort truth.

These secularists and atheists who are happy to lump all religions together and characterise them all as theocratic and dangerous are simply blinded by their hatred of religion. That is why a good term for them is misotheists. They hate God and this hatred often blinds them to rational analysis. They may have a particular hatred toward Christianity, but if they have to criticise militant Islam, they will argue that Christianity is no better.

Human-Hating Humanitarians

Some of the more radical elements of the environmental movement say some pretty weird things. Some of their proposals to make us all greener seem to be proposals to makes us all dead – or at least some of us dead. In their zeal to save the planet, they are often quite willing to view humans as expendable at best or a plague at worst. Indeed, some of them really don’t seem to like people at all.

Consider the case of one academic and his proposals as found in the Medical Journal of Australia. Associate Professor Barry Walters of the University of Western Australia told the journal that families should pay a $5000-plus baby levy at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child. He also opined that every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child’s lifetime.

And consider another recent case, this one from the UK. One woman, Toni, who works for an environmental group, said that she “shudders with horror” at the thought of a “little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.” As Charles Colson tells the story, she is terrified at the thought of the impact on the environment a child might have.

A Dark Day for Children

Why am I not surprised? The Victorian government has just announced that it will grant IVF access to homosexual couples. Minutes ago it declared that it will go ahead with most of the recommendations put forth in a Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) report into changes to the state Infertility Act. It made 130 recommendations, and Attorney General Rob Hulls has agreed to nearly all of them.

The most controversial include allowing same-sex couples to have access to IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies. We will now have basically open slather, with numerous combinations of “lifestyle arrangements” being able to bring children into the world.

I have been writing about this whole process from the day the Inquiry was announced back in 2002. Everything has gone exactly according to plan – the plan, that is, of the radical social engineers, the homosexual lobby, the biased VLRC, and the leftist Labor government. I said this was going to be a done deal, and sure enough, that has taken place as if it was all pre-arranged.

The concerns of most Victorians and the wellbeing of children have been totally overlooked. The Labor Government and the VLRC have effectively said that the rights of minority activists groups should always take precedence over the well-being of children.