JULY 2009
Pursuing the churches over human rights is contradictory
Peter Costello, The Age | WHAT happens when equal rights between men and women are so widely accepted that mainstream Australia hardly thinks about it? Surely it is time to acknowledge that anti-discrimination statutes have done their job?
Not according to the Victorian Government. It harbours the view that discrimination has got sophisticated - so hard to find under current law - that we must widen the law to catch more of it. One area in the State Government’s sights is religious bodies, and their schools.
PM stares down gay marriage push
28/07 The Australian | KEVIN Rudd has guaranteed he will resist any attempt at this week's Australian Labor Party conference to allow gay marriage or civil unions that mimic marriage.
After the party's Tasmanian branch narrowly backed a motion endorsing gay marriage at the weekend, the Prime Minister said through a spokesman yesterday that marriage was a commitment between a man and a woman.
"We support the removal of discrimination from same-sex couples and from de facto heterosexual couples when it comes to basic arrangements in terms of tax, superannuation and the rest, and also a nationally consistent relationships register," the spokesman said. "But when it comes to civil unions, as it is described, civil unions mean the effective amendment of the Marriage Act, and that is something we don't support."
Time to Make a Stand against euthanasia
Make A Stand | The deadline for Tasmanian supporters to get their submission into the euthanasia bill inquiry is quickly approaching. You have until July 31 to make your voice heard on this very important issue.
Please go to our ‘Care not Killing’ campaign at the Make a Stand website.
There you will find all the information and points of argument you need to make a submission to the inquiry. All submissions, no matter how short, will send the very strong message to the committee that protecting the lives of the vulnerable important.
It is also vitally important that as many people as possible engage with this campaign, as euthanasia campaigners have been trying for years to get a foot in the door of an Australian jurisdiction to legalise ‘voluntary’ physician-assisted suicide.
Not only would legal euthanasia in Tasmania put in jeopardy the welfare of elderly, sick and depressed people in that state, but would provide considerable leverage for campaigners to push on into other states.
Power in perspective
28/07 Herald Sun | "Every four months, from now until 2020, China will build new coal-fired power stations possessing the same capacity as (my, not Martin's emphasis) Australia's entire coal-fired power sector."
Just savour that for a while. Every four months - three times a year, every year for 10 years! - China will build one Australian coal-fired power industry. Not one power station, but the equivalent of all our power stations. Every four months, as far as the analytical eye can see.
... We can close down what is to all practical intents and purposes our entire power industry - give or take a few dams in Tasmania and thousands of all-but useless wind turbines - and the emissions 'saved' would be spent in China in four months.
Push to give 16-year-olds the vote in federal elections
27/07 News.com.au | SIXTEEN and 17-year-olds could be given a voluntary right to vote in federal elections, under changes to be canvassed by the Rudd Government later this year.
While the Liberal Party's newest recruit, Francesca Perrottet, 16, said the shift could inspire young people to get involved in politics and widen the pool of leadership talent, senior Liberals shunned the idea, The Australian reports.
Marriage under attack at ALP national conference
Australian Christian Lobby | Labor's support for marriage between a man and a woman is under threat with gay activists agitating to have the party's platform changed at the up-coming national conference in Sydney.
... Whilst minority rights are important, it is also important that this basic building block of society is not undermined to suit the agenda of an activist component of two per cent of the population.
PM Kevin Rudd rejects unions' 'Buy Australian' push
26/07 The Australian | PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has rejected the union movement's 'buy Australian' campaign, saying such protectionism led to the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Unions are putting pressure on the Rudd government to adopt the NSW Labor government's policy to give local producers a 20 per cent price advantage, ahead of next weekend's ALP National Conference.
Mr Rudd said much of Australia's national wealth depended on its access to export markets.
“We need to avoid any form of protectionist measure, which invites retaliatory protectionist measures from economies around the world, and that's what would happen,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Labor braces for tough recovery
26/07 AAP | The Federal Government is bracing for interest rates to rise ahead of the next election and has sent out its economic lieutenants to warn voters about a painful recovery ahead. Economists have said interest rates are likely to rise in the second half of 2010 as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) returns to fighting inflation.
With an election due by early 2011, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has pointed out that everyday items like food and petrol are also likely to become more expensive as the economy gathers strength.
VIDEO: Dr Mark Durie explains the Threats to Religious Freedom in Australia in
Read also: Exemptions to Equal Opportunity Laws
The issues relating to religious freedom and human rights are complex and poorly understood in Australian society. There is also a rising sense of anxiety about religious freedom at the grassroots level among many (but not all) Australian Christians. At the same time among secularists there is a good deal of hostility to church's claims for exemptions from human rights legislation.
QUEENSLAND: Nuttall gets seven years
17/07 SMH.com.au | Former Queensland cabinet minister Gordon Nuttall has been jailed for seven years for official corruption.
He will be eligible for parole in 2½ years - on January 2, 2012.
The one-time Sandgate MP, 56, was found guilty on Wednesday of corruptly receiving $360,000 in secret commissions from two wealthy Queensland businessmen between 2002 and 2005.
PM's first blog on his new website
PM Media Release | The Prime Minister's blog provides an opportunity for the community to comment and engage with each other in relation to the policy initiatives under discussion; the first blog has a focus on climate change.
Kevin Rudd’s Chinese puzzle
17/07 Tony Abbott's blog | "It’s almost inconceivable that Mr Hu could be guilty of stealing state secrets; at least, of stealing what a Western government would regard as state secrets. He is, after all. a well-respected senior manager in one of the world’s most reputable businesses His “crime”, almost certainly, amounts to no more than trying to find out as much as he could about his commercial partners and engaging in tough negotiations with them. The difference between most commercial negotiations and those in China is that Chinese ones usually involve an enterprise that it sometimes suits the government to regard as an extension of itself. Only in a communist autocracy could trying to get from a government-owned business the best possible price for your product and for your shareholders be regarded as a crime against the state....."
Minister sentencing over bribes reserved
16/07 SMH.com.au | Former Queensland Government minister Gordon Nuttall's receipt of $360,000 in secret commissions was "as serious as you can imagine", a court has been told.
Nuttall, 56, was found guilty yesterday after a trial on 36 counts of receiving secret commissions from mining executives Harold Shand and Ken Talbot between 2002 and 2005. Prosecutor Ross Martin, SC, told the Brisbane District Court today that Nuttall's offending fell at the top of the sentencing range, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years' jail for each charge.
Nations prosper with God on their side
The Australian | EVER since the Enlightenment in the 18th century, there has been a schism in Western thought over the relationship between religion and modernity. Europeans, on the whole, have assumed that modernity would marginalise religion; Americans, in the main, have assumed that the two things can thrive together.
This schism goes back to the modern world's two founding revolutions. The French and American revolutions were both the offspring of the Enlightenment, but with very different views of the role that religion should play in reason's glorious republic. In France the revolutionnaires despised religion as a tool of the ancien regime. By contrast, America's founding fathers took a more benign view of religion. They divided church from state, not least to protect the former from the latter.
These two versions of modernity have marched in different directions ever since. In Europe established churches sided with the old regime against the new world of democracy and liberty. In America, where there was no national established church, faiths embraced both democracy and the market: the only way they could survive was to attract customers.
In Europe, religion meant war or oppression, Edmund Burke once observed; in America, it turned out to be a source of freedom. For most of the past 200 years the European view of modernity has been in the ascendant. Europe gave birth to a succession of sages who explained, in compelling detail, why God was doomed. Karl Marx denounced religion as the "opium of the masses". Emile Durkheim and Max Weber argued that an iron law of history was leading to secularisation (or "the disenchantment of the world", in Weber's rather more poetic phrase). Friedrich Nietzsche remarked, "I find it necessary to wash my hands after I have come into contact with religious people." Sigmund Freud dismissed religion as a neurosis that was designed to divert attention from man's real interest, sex.
A few intellectuals deplored God's disappearance, worrying that a godless world would also be a barbaric one. "When people stop believing in God," GK Chesterton argued, "they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything." "If you will not have God (and he is a jealous God)," TS Eliot warned, "you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin."
The right to have a mother and father serves a child's best interests
09/07 Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC | Dr Moyes, a family advocate and former recipient of The Father of the Year award, stated: “The paramount interest of the child is best served by a mother and father. This is intrinsic to our human condition. From time immemorial, family relationships have centred on a mother, a father and their children. This form of social unit is innate and embedded in different cultural contexts.”
According to Dr Moyes, the recommendations in the report, if implemented, would deny some children the right to be raised by a mother and father. Dr Moyes added: “For the New South Wales Government to impose such legislation on a child is contradictory not just to Australia’s international legal obligations but most importantly, we have denied children of their basic rights to be loved, cared for and raised by a mother and father.”
John Micklethwait discusses global faith revival
LATELINE, ABC | TONY JONES, PRESENTER: In 2006 an ambitious opposition frontbencher surprised many with a call for churches to be more involved in politics. His name was Kevin Rudd and he called for Labor to fight for Australia's religious voters who he said had been co-opted by the conservative Christians in the Howard government. Mr Rudd evoked what he called the Christian socialist tradition in the gospels, with a strong emphasis on the impoverished, the poor, the dispossessed, the outcast and the oppressed.
Iran claims a long way from truth about protecting kids online
Australian Christian Lobby | The chance to better protect kids will be lost if a misleading campaign comparing the Rudd Government’s cyber safety policy with Iranian-style political repression sinks Internet Service Provider-level filtering.
Australian Christian Lobby Chief of Staff Lyle Shelton said if the claims made in an online advertisement aimed at getting the Rudd Government to drop its clean feed for kids election promise were true, ACL would also withdraw its support. “No one wants Government censoring of political discussion but the clean feed debate has never been about this.
Women Selling Their Eggs .......
09/07 Saltshakers | Yes, that's the latest proposal from the advocates of embryo stem cell research.
Last month New York became the first US state to allow scientists to pay women for their eggs. Women will be paid between $US5,000 and $US10,000 ($A6,200 and $A12,600) for each egg harvested.
Now Professor Loane Skene, from the University of Melbourne, who was the the deputy chair of the 2005 Lockhart Committee on Human Cloning and Embryo Research, is recommending that Australian women should be paid for their eggs.
Why? To obtain MORE eggs for embryonic stem cell research. She says women have to be given drugs and have invasive surgery for the eggs to be harvested - so should be paid!
Not Enough Eggs in the Cloning Basket
From the Archives: Katrina George, Nov 2006 | Politicians and scientists have been promising cures for patients and biotech bucks for the economy.
But cloning depends on a continuous supply of fresh human eggs and without eggs cloning is impossible.
Senators Natasha Stott Despoja and Kay Patterson are promoting research cloning. Don't they care it is women who are most at risk from the biotech juggernaut? Egg extraction requires large doses of powerful hormones to hyper-stimulate the ovaries.
Prof Bob Williamson told federal MPs that egg extraction involved an element of discomfort and a small element of risk. An element of discomfort to say the least. In one study of egg donors, nearly 30 per cent reported a week or more of discomfort so significant that it kept them in bed, prevented them from working, or interfered with their ability to care for their children.
Religious freedom threatened by Vic Parliamentary inquiry
Australian Christian Lobby | Well intentioned but misguided ‘rights-based’ laws have already brought unwelcome notoriety to Victoria and new moves to clamp down on religious freedom should be rejected to avoid repeats of the ‘Catch the Fire’ religious vilification fiasco.
Australian Christian Lobby Victorian State Director Rob Ward today lodged ACL’s submission to the Scrutiny of Act and Regulations Committee Inquiry into the Exceptions and Exemptions to the Equal Opportunity Act 1995.
Mr Ward warned that faith-based charities, schools and organisations could have their activities severely constrained by the inquiry’s suggestions that religious bodies lose the right to employ staff who share their values.
Pay attention, or be bamboozled by bread and circuses
08/07 Ross Gittens, SMH.com.au | After being paid to study the performance of politicians for the past 35 years it finally occurs to me that the problem with democracy is the same problem we have with competition in markets: for it to work well requires more effort and attention on the part of voters (or customers) than they're prepared to devote to it.
The similarity between democracy and markets is hardly surprising because they're both forms of competition. Businesses compete for our custom, political parties compete for our vote.
... Unless enough of us pay close attention to what the pollies are doing and saying, they'll find ways to compete that are easier for them and less beneficial for us.
... Because we take so little interest in the details of problems and their solutions, because we rarely follow up yesterday's concerns, because our emotions are so easily swayed by vested interests or the media, the pollies learnt a long time ago that appearances matter more to voters than the reality of the situation. So they concentrate their efforts on creating the appearance of effective action to "address" problems, on applying those solutions the public imagines will work rather than the less emotionally satisfying measures that really do work
Black and white and Rudd all over
07/07 Gerard Henderson, SMH.com.au | As prime minister, Rudd has had a dream run in the Australian media, almost equalling that experienced by Barack Obama in the United States over the past five months. It is no secret that the Western media prefers social democrats to conservatives. In addition, Rudd and Obama have had the political advantage of leading a nation at a time of global financial crisis. Rudd looks like a near certain victor in the next election, which is due in late 2010.
Even so, Rudd is concerned about the coverage of his Government by News Limited. For all his many strengths, Rudd has one significant weakness. He genuinely wants to be loved and he does not hold the view that critics can have sound judgment along with good intentions. I noticed this when Rudd addressed The Sydney Institute in July 2007.
Election Special Pages
Nitschke fails to dispel doubts about euthanasia ‘safeguards’
Australian Christian Lobby | Australia’s most high-profile euthanasia advocate, Dr Philip Nitschke, was unable to dispel doubts about whether safeguards were adhered to with several of the 1996-7 deaths associated with the Northern Territory’s briefly operating euthanasia laws, during Tasmanian parliamentary hearings this afternoon.
Appearing before the Tasmanian Community Development Committee’s Inquiry into the Dying with Dignity Bill 2009, Dr Nitschke – a strong supporter of the legislation – failed to provide satisfactory answers to queries over possible breaches to the NT Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (repealed in March 1997), according to the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL). .
Nelson ends his political career
25/08 AAP | FORMER federal Liberal leader Brendan Nelson has announced he is quitting politics at the end of next month.
In February, Dr Nelson said he would not be contesting the next election but would continue serving his electorate. However, in a statement released just prior to a Sydney press conference on Tuesday, Dr Nelson confirmed he would be leaving Parliament earlier than expected. "I would not be returning to the frontbench or the Liberal leadership should I stay, as such it is time to go,'' he said.
Question without Notice:
20/08 Open Australia | Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government)
My question is to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. I refer the minister to her promise of 12 April 2008 to build 750 houses for Indigenous Australians in remote communities in the Northern Territory. Minister, when will one house be built?
QUEENSLAND: Parliamentarians urged to vote down same-sex surrogacy
Australian Christian Lobby Newsletter | The Queensland Government is moving to legalise surrogacy for same-sex couples, with Premier Anna Bligh this week telling parliament that the proposed bill would be introduced before the end of the year.
Despite acknowledging that some in the community would have a “moral dilemma” over her moves, Ms Bligh said “the reality is that modern technology has made pregnancy and birth possible in circumstances never previously imagined, particularly by our legal statutes”. In other words she is saying that it is technology rather than moral values which should govern Queensland’s laws!
Why Are We in Afghanistan?
Rev Gordon Moyes | The other day three Australian soldiers were seriously wounded in Afghanistan, from a road side bomb. Last week another soldier was killed. This week a fresh deployment of Australian soldiers commenced their fighting in that country. Also, my holiday photos were printed, including one I took of that marvelous bronze statue of an Afghan on his camel as I got off ?The Ghan? at the Alice Springs Railway Station. The photo records our debt to the men of Afghanistan who opened up the inland of Australia with their camel trains that brought sustenance and goods to the outback stations.
How come our early camel drivers are now our enemies? Why are Australians fighting in Afghanistan?
TASMANIA: Pollies vote to deny kids a dad
Australian Christian Lobby Newsletter | In a blow for the rights of children, the Tasmanian Lower House today passed a bill which would create biological fiction and dismiss the presumption that a child has a father.
The Relationships (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2009 aims to amend the Status of Children Act 1974 so that the partner of a lesbian women who has conceived through IVF is also recognised as the child’s parent – in other words saying that the child has two mothers but no father.
Health Legislation Amendment (Midwives and Nurse Practitioners) Bill 2009; Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth Contribution) Scheme Bill 2009; Midwife Professional Indemnity (Run-Off Cover Support Payment) Bill 2009: Second Reading
20/08 Open Australia| (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing)
"... It is no wonder that these patients, these expectant mothers, these mothers who have been through the process of homebirthing and who have experienced the benefit of having a trained midwife in attendance, are so frustrated at the approach of this government, when you see the minister’s petty interjections in relation to this speech. I cannot believe that a Labor government with the people who sit opposite, who champion the cause of choice, of the rights of women, are effectively taking away the choice of those women around the country. It is no wonder that there has been revolt in the Labor Party caucus against the minister’s decision.
This is a bad outcome for those women who have a choice. Some people agree with homebirthing; others do not. But the reality is: they have a choice to make, and the fact that this government has taken that choice away is a very sad indictment of many people within the Labor Party—not just in this place but in the other place as well. I do not care what people in the Labor Party are saying in private to homebirth mothers; they are saying absolutely nothing in public. It is worthless for them to continue to show sympathy and to say that they are going to advocate behind the scenes on behalf of homebirth mothers when not one Labor female or male MP in this place, or Senator in the other place, has spoken out publicly against this minister’s stance. I know that there are dozens of people within the Labor Party who are talking to homebirth mothers in their electorates, in Canberra and in other parts of the country, and they are saying to people in those conversations that they do not agree with what this minister is doing. She does not have the support of the caucus and yet somehow this has been rammed through on them. It is a pathetic example of representational politics by the Labor Party in this country that many of those women are not speaking up.
Whether the Prime Minister has gagged them or whether the health minister has gagged them, if these people are going to stay true to the convictions that they commit to in private then they should be coming out to provide public support to their statements and they should be talking against this particular provision by Nicola Roxon. That is the important part: this provision is by Nicola Roxon, who has championed herself as some sort of advocate of nurses yet she is saying to midwives who want to continue in the practice of homebirth that effectively they are going to be fined $30,000. That is completely outrageous...." (For full text)
Crimes Amendment (Working with Children - Criminal History) Bill 2009: Second Reading
20/08 Open Australia | Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs)
".... According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, unofficial estimates are that approximately one in four girls, and between one in seven and one in 12 boys, are victims of some form of sexual abuse alone.
The effects of abuse and neglect on children are also tragic. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that there are established links between abuse or neglect as a child and poor social, behavioural and health outcomes as well as a higher likelihood of criminal offending and mental health issues.
It is for these reasons that governments across the Commonwealth have established schemes such as child protection registers and working with children checks to ensure we protect children, the most vulnerable members of our society, to our utmost ability.
The scoping study noted that assessment of the criminal history of people working with children or seeking to work with children is an important part of the overall strategy for managing risks to the safety and wellbeing of children.
It also recognised that child-related employment screening is a difficult and challenging process, which requires careful balancing of potential risks to children with individual rights to privacy, employment and the freedom to participate in the community as a volunteer.
The Australian Institute of Criminology, in its report Child sexual abuse: offender characteristics and modus operandi, noted that incarcerated sexual offenders are more likely to have previous convictions for non-sexual offences than for sexual offences.
Further, law enforcement agencies have indicated that charges relating to offences against children are often withdrawn as a decision is made to protect the child victim from the stress and trauma of giving evidence, cross-examination and simply waiting for committal and trial.
For these reasons, jurisdictions considered at COAG that it was appropriate to consider a person’s full criminal history, including non-conviction information, in assessing whether he or she poses a risk to children if employed in child related work ...."
(For full text)
Afghanistan Elections:
20/08 Open Australia | Senator Scott Ludlum (Australian Greens)
I move:
That the Senate notes:
(a)
an international petition with 275 signatories, expressing the view that the presence of warlords, corrupt officials and incompetent leaders will not win freedom, peace, stability and prosperity for the people of Afghanistan;
(b)
the petitioners call to the international community, the United Nations and the International Court of Justice to help the people of Afghanistan by bringing those warlords and criminals implicated in the Human Rights Watch report, Blood stained hands to the International Court of Justice; and
(c)
the Human Rights Watch report implicates former warlords in crimes against humanity, which should preclude them from running in the election for the post of Vice President.
Question put:
State Labor Must Improve its Record
Australian Christian Lobby Newsletter | State Labor’s assault on Christian and societal values continued today with the Tasmanian Government announcing moves to provide a form of ceremony or civil celebration for homosexuals registering their relationship.
However, the Rudd Government and Federal Labor’s commitment to marriage as defined in the Marriage Act means that these moves are symbolic at best and have no bearing on legal marriage.
This is because marriage falls under Federal law. However, Australia’s constitutional arrangements mean the Federal Government can’t stop a State from mimicking marriage in the way Tasmanian Attorney General Lara Giddings has floated today..
Question Without Notice: Afghanistan Women's Rights:
19/08 Open Australia | Senator Bob Brown (Australian Greens)
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. What has been the reaction of the Prime Minister to news that President Karzai of Afghanistan has signed a decree repressing women against the Afghani constitution and international law? Is the Prime Minister going to go quietly with the decree which enforces starvation on women who refuse to submit to the sexual desires of their husbands, prevents women from going to work without their husband’s agreement and in any dispute situation gives custody of children to the husband or to the grandfather, with the women left voiceless, helpless and unrepresented?
Your urgent action requested to preserve marriage
Australian Christian Lobby Newsletter | The Greens are trying to legalise homosexual marriage through a private Senator’s Bill. The deadline for submissions to a Senate Inquiry into Senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s so-called ‘Marriage Equality’ bill is next Friday, 28 August 2009.Her bill would radically alter the definition of marriage so that any two people, regardless of gender, could marry. Same-sex marriage will undermine marriage because it equates any loving relationship between any two consenting adults as "marriage". .
Victoria: Abortion Law Reform Act:
19/08 Open Australia | Senator Julian McGauran (Nationals)
"On 10 October 2008, the Victorian parliament passed the Abortion Law Reform Act—the freest abortion laws in the world. The new law has opened the floodgates to late-term abortions, right up to and including nine months. Who doubts that abortions at nine months will occur in increasing numbers as the law settles in? However, this monumental shift in the legal status of abortion was not enough for the pro-abortionists. Not content with having unfettered power over unborn babies, they sought the added power over pro-life doctors and nurses.
It should and would alarm members of the public to know that a clause was inserted into the act that took away the conscientious objection of doctors and nurses to any involvement in the act of abortion. It is worth reading the relevant section, 8(1)b, into the Hansard. It reads:
Obligations of registered health practitioner who has conscientious objection
(1) If a woman requests a registered health practitioner to advise on a proposed abortion, or to perform, direct, authorise or supervise an abortion for that woman, and the practitioner has a conscientious objection to abortion, the practitioner must—
… … …
(b) refer the woman to another registered health practitioner in the same regulated health profession who the practitioner knows does not have a conscientious objection to abortion.
It is clear that the conscience of the pro-life doctor or nurse has been stripped away.
Equally offensive is that the suppression of the right of doctors or nurses to exercise their conscientious objection on this very deeply held moral issue was expunged in a conscience vote of the parliament. Consider: the very parliamentarians who hold dear their right to exercise a conscience vote on this issue did not hesitate to smite the right of doctors and nurses to exercise their conscience on the same matter....." (For full text)
Petitions:
Responses; Religious Persecution
18/09 House Debates, Open Australia | Dear Mrs Irwin
Thank you for your letter dated 11 June 2009 about a petition submitted to the Standing Committee on Petitions regarding apostasy laws.
The Australian Government shares the view that Muslims, or indeed persons of any religion, should be able to choose freely to Senator Conroy leave their faith and follow a new belief, without penalty.
As the petition notes, the right to freedom of religion, including the right to change religion, is set out in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
In support of this right, Australia has consistently co-sponsored a resolution on the ‘Elimination of all forms of religious intolerance’ in the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee. This resolution urges states to “ensure that their constitutional and legislative systems provide adequate and effective guarantees of freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief to all without distinction, inter alia, by the provision of effective remedies in cases where the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, or the right to practise freely one’s religion, including the right to change one’s religion or belief, is violated”.
The Australian Government makes regular human rights representations to a number of countries, including those that place restrictions on freedom of religion. We will continue to be alert to opportunities to raise the issue of religious freedom, including the issue of apostasy, in our representations.
Thank you for bringing the petition to the attention of the Government.
from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Stephen Smith
Question without Notice:
18/08 Open Australia | Steve Fielding, Senator (Family First Party)
The compulsory student services fee is a tax on the poor—nothing more, nothing less. It is a tax on university students. It is a tax on those who can least afford it. Students are doing it very, very tough. If the Rudd government realised how tough they are doing it, they would not be slapping a tax on students, a compulsory fee on university students. We have to be clear that it is nothing more than a tax on them ... (For full text)
Ministerial Statements: Homelessness (18 Aug 2009):
18/08 Open Australia | Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government)
The coalition welcomes the government’s statement on homelessness as delivered by the minister this afternoon. I also place on record my commendation to the minister for her very sincere and dedicated personal commitment on this issue. As I move around those who work in this area I think there is one thing we can very much agree on, which is the minister’s very personal commitment to this issue.
The coalition has taken a very proactive and consistent bipartisan approach on the vast majority of measures that have been discussed today and that have been introduced by the government. We have supported some $3½ billion of initiatives that have been announced by the government in the area of homelessness and in the area of affordable housing and we continue to do so.
Homelessness is a significant challenge. There is no single cause. It is not simply a bricks and mortar issue. The various impacts of family breakdown, substance abuse, domestic violence and sexual abuse all take a very heavy toll. I am very pleased to know that, as was the case with the coalition government, these social issues are being addressed through the many programs that are out there and available.
Our task is to help each of these Australians gain some stability in their lives and give them the opportunity to get their lives back on track. That is the ultimate goal. This requires, I believe, case-by-case, individual-by-individual measures that will enable them to take the next step then the one after and the one after that. That is why in government the coalition focused its additional efforts on early intervention programs such as Reconnect, mentoring programs and other initiatives which the government have taken up and expanded on. We are also particularly pleased that they have had some impact. While there are around 105,000 people who are designated as homeless, in the period 2001-06 we did see the level of homelessness among 18- to 24-year-olds decline by 16 per cent. But I know the minister and I agree that one special and very disturbing concern is the increase in family homelessness that has occurred, particularly evidenced by the incidence of homelessness among young children... (For full text).
ACL call for focus on root cause of homelessness
Australian Christian Lobby | Federal and State Governments need to bring a sharper policy focus to bear on the root causes of homelessness – particularly family violence and relationship breakdown – if Australia is to achieve a long-term solution to this distressing problem, ACL said in a submission lodged with the parliamentary inquiry into homelessness legislation last Friday.
While much good work has been focussed on curing homelessness, ACL feels that not enough has been done to prevent it. The Government’s White Paper, The Road Home, says that the most common causes of homelessness are domestic violence and family breakdown. .
Kerryn Phelps favoured to challenge for Wentworth
16/08 Glen Milne, Sunday Mail (QLD) | FORMER high-profile AMA president Kerryn Phelps has emerged as Labor's favoured star candidate to defeat Malcolm Turnbull in his now marginal seat of Wentworth at the next election.
The move to put maximum pressure on Mr Turnbull in his own backyard comes as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd dramatically escalates the stakes in his stand-off with the Coalition Leader over climate change.
Ludicrous reasoning behind TGA abortion decision
demonstrates need for accountability
Australian Christian Lobby | The Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (TGA) decision to not only widely
increase the availability of abortion drug RU486 but also relax previous rules for
its use is deeply concerning and appears to be based on ludicrous reasoning, the
Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said today.
ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said that reports indicating the TGA had been
persuaded by abortion provider Marie Stopes International’s claims that it is safer
for a woman to terminate a pregnancy than to give birth raise serious question
about the gullibility of the TGA.
Suicide, euthanasia link seen as `ironic'
The Examiner | CATHOLIC Church leaders have told a parliamentary committee it was "ironic" that Tasmania was on one hand trying to deal with a rising suicide rate and on the other considering the legalisation of euthanasia.
... In a joint submission by Hobart Archbishop Adrian Doyle, Vicar-General Father Mark Freeman and Calvary Hospital doctor Gerry McGushin, the committee heard that the bill not only contradicted the ethos of Christianity, but eroded the pillars of a good society.
"We are appalled at the rate of suicide within society among young people and my concern, and the concern about this legislation, is that it almost suggests that the ending of life, the choosing to end life, is an option for people," Father Freeman said. "It's such an irony to put so much energy and effort into trying to address the problem of suicide in our society and then proposing legislation to do almost exactly that but in a different setting."
NEW INITIATIVE: CHILDREN NEED PARENTS
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
PETITION 1: STOP the Rudd govt. TAXING stay-home parents much more !!
To the Honourable the President and Members of Australia’s Senate in Parliament assembled:
The government takes more tax from single-income families where one parent stays home to care for the kids, than two-income families where the kids go to child care centres. This is unfair.
Petition 2: End unfair funding for stay-home mums (and dads)
To the Honourable the President and Members of Australia’s Senate in Parliament assembled:
The government gives much less funding to single-income families where one parent stays home to care for the kids, than two-income families where the kids go to child care centres. Government-funded maternity leave from 2011 would give even more taxpayers’ money to two-income families. This is unfair.
READ MORE ON THE NEW CHILDREN NEED PARENTS WEBSITE
ACL appears at Tasmanian euthanasia inquiry
Australian Christian Lobby | ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace and Tasmania State Director Nick Overton presented evidence before the Tasmanian Community Development Committee’s Inquiry into the Dying with Dignity Bill 2009 on Monday in Launceston.
Jim and Nick argued that the passage of this Bill, which attempts to legalise voluntary euthanasia in the state, would pose a serious threat to the lives of Tasmania’s most vulnerable members – the sick, lonely, elderly and depressed.
ACL was just one of the many strong presenters on the day urging the Committee recommend the rejection of the dangerous Bill. Lyons Liberal MHA Rene Hidding and Reverend Professor Michael Tate presented, as did Hobart Archbishop Adrian Doyle, Vicar-General Father Mark Freeman and Dr Gerry McGushin in a joint submission..
Matters of Public Interest: Human Rights
12/08 Open Australia | Senator Marise Payne (Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Indigenous Affairs)
I rise to speak in the matters of public interest debate, scheduled in the red and the Notice Paper today. I note that we have visiting our parliament today Dr Ines Alberdi, Executive Director of UNIFEM, who is currently briefing the Australia-United Nations parliamentary group on the launch of UNIFEM’s Progress of the world’s women report for 2008. Although I was only able to hear a few moments of her briefing, it is certainly again compelling evidence of the stark reality of the lives that many women in the world face—which many women in Australia can perhaps not hope to understand, given the challenges.
I want to speak about some specific human rights issues in our region. I start by noting that, since the signing of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the campaign for human rights across the world has in fact made huge advances. The recognition and protection of fundamental human rights have become international norms and they are no less valued for the fact that they are frequently dishonoured. Our basic human rights—the right to life, liberty and security of person; freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; recognition before the law; freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile; the right to equality and a fair trial; the right to freedom of opinion and freedom of religion; the right to education—are all building blocks of any just and peaceful society. However, in many countries in our region and beyond, these rights are often honoured more in breach than in observation. In the Asia-Pacific region, human rights remain fundamentally vulnerable. Australia, with other like-minded countries, must redouble our efforts to ensure the protection of basic human rights everywhere and for every person, without distinction of any kind, as the UN declaration says.
I want to focus today on several specific situations in our region where human rights remain, at best, fragile. Let me begin by making reference to Burma, where human rights are under constant and serious threat. After the military junta in Burma violently suppressed peaceful democracy protests in August and September 2007, the number of political prisoners in that country more than doubled. That left over 2,000 people in prison for simply expressing their political views. Since late November 2008, the situation for many of those political prisoners has declined. ... (For full text)
Abortion pill rules loosened at clinics
11/08 The Australian | AUSTRALIA'S drug regulator has accepted that it is safer for women to terminate pregnancy than to give birth, clearing the way for dramatically wider use of the abortion pill, RU486. Abortion provider Marie Stopes International yesterday began offering women the choice of medical and standard surgical abortions at its nine clinics in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and the ACT.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration authorised the service to use RU486 under special licensing to give desperately ill people access to drugs not available in this country. The only provisos were that women had to be less than nine weeks pregnant and meet eligibility criteria covering standard surgical abortions, the group said.
The TGA denied it had watered down controls on RU486 -- effectively banned in Australia until three years ago -- but Marie Stopes said the federal regulator had agreed to broaden its definition of the "life-threatening or otherwise serious" illnesses that could be treated with foreign drugs under the Authorised Prescriber Scheme. "We argued that pregnancy is a condition that may be both serious and life-threatening in particular circumstances," said Jill Michelson, the organisation's national clinical adviser.
"What is undeniable is the fact that the risk to a pregnant woman of induced abortion is much less than the risk of continuing a pregnancy through to delivery at term.
Abortion pill available to more women
News.com.au | THE abortion pill RU486 will become more widely available in Australia after a not-for-profit sexual health group was approved to use the drug in its clinics.
Fourteen doctors at nine Marie Stopes International Centres in Victoria, NSW, the ACT, Queensland and Western Australia will offer the drug, also known as mifepristone, as an alternative to surgical abortions.
The Marriage Day report you won’t read in the media
Australian Christian Lobby Newsletter | The time for social experimentation is over according a British pro-marriage activist who addressed a National Marriage Day breakfast attended by nearly 500 people at Parliament House in Canberra today.
“Children are the losers in an endless game of pass the partner”, London-based barrister James Bogle said, referring to the cultural decline which has led to chronic marriage and social breakdown in western society.
“Do children relish the endless change of partners?“The test of any social change should be whether or not it enhances or harms peoples’ lives.”
Mr Bogle said the verdict from the 1960s sexual revolution was in and it was clear the consequences had been overwhelmingly negative.
He said the cost of marriage breakdown in Britain was 20 billion pounds per year and that marriage breakdown was one of the leading pathways to poverty for children, particularly amongst the most economically disadvantaged.
The breakfast was organised by the Australian Family Association and a number of pro-family groups to “promote a renewed culture of marriage within our nation” and marked the fifth anniversary of the passing of the amendment to the Marriage Act which defined marriage between a man and a woman.
A petition signed by more than 10,000 people was presented calling on the Government to institute a national marriage day.
Former Governor General Michael Jeffery and his wife Marlena (pictured) were named inaugural marriage ambassadors for the next 12 months.
“A caring family – which provides love, guidance, care and discipline, and inculcates ethical and spiritual values – is still the most nourishing of social ‘units’; the core building block of a cohesive society,” Major General Jeffery said.
QUEENSLAND: Lobbyists barred from Qld govt positions
05/08 Jessica Marszalek, SMH.com.au | Lobbyists will be banned from all government-appointed boards and positions in another move to make Queensland politics more transparent.
Premier Anna Bligh says any lobbyist serving in such a role would be given an ultimatum to choose between the two jobs. The intention is to keep all lobbyists at a distance from government.
"I have asked my director-general to conduct an exhaustive search of the membership of all government boards and associated bodies to identify any individuals who are also registered as lobbyists on the lobbyist register in this state," Ms Bligh told parliament on Wednesday.
"Anyone who receives a tick in both boxes will receive a letter from my director-general advising them that they have one month to choose between these two roles."
SAME - SEX MARRIAGE - AN EXPERIMENT WE WILL LIVE TO REGRET
Australian Prayer Network Archives | If same-sex marriage is ever approved in Australian let me make a prediction. In about 30 years, we will be shaking our heads at yet another failed social experiment.
All the hallmarks are there. Like many other failed social experiments before it, the same-sex marriage agenda is driven by a blinding rush of idealism filled with the best of intentions. Under the guise of multiculturalism, we allowed a laudable desire for tolerance to morph into Balkanisation, separatism and contempt for Western values. Seduced by slogans, we verge on beginning another disastrous social experiment with same-sex marriage.
Children As Trophies - Examining the Evidence on Same Sex Parenting
From the Archives: Patricia Morgan, The Christian Institute | “I’m not in favour of gay couples seeking to adopt children because I
question whether that is the right start in life. We should not see children as
trophies.
Children, in my judgement, and I think it’s the judgement of almost
everyone including single parents, are best brought up where you have two
natural parents in a stable relationship. There’s no question about that. What
we know from the evidence is that, generally speaking, that stability is more
likely to occur where the parents are married than where they are not.”
The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP on the Today programme,
4 November 1998
Surrogacy backlash hits Bligh
19/08 The Australian | PREMIER Anna Bligh will swing Queensland into line with the rest of the country and decriminalise not-for-profit surrogacy, provoking an outcry yesterday from Christian groups and conservative MPs.
The Premier said same-sex couples would be allowed to become parents through "altruistic surrogacy", in which the birth mother's expenses could be met by the adoptive party but no other payments made.
The Liberal National Party warned that the legislation would be defeated in a conscience vote of MPs if Ms Bligh persisted in linking the measures.
While Ms Bligh acknowledged that some in the community would have a "moral dilemma" over the moves, she urged people to set aside their prejudices and put the interests of surrogate children first.
NT: Government in crisis as pollie quits Labor
04/08 The Australian | RENEGADE MP Alison Anderson has quit Labor and thrown the Northern Territory Government into crisis.
Godwin Grech: a 'good public servant' feels betrayed
04/08 The Australian | GODWIN Grech, a workaholic public servant who cares deeply about policy and has few interests outside his job, never wanted to be the centre of attention. His nervous public appearance before a Senate inquiry and his obvious ill-health are testimony to his discomfort at being in the forefront of politics.
Mr Grech, presently a self-admitted patient in a Canberra hospital psychiatric ward who has several debilitating illnesses, is again about to be at the centre of a political drama that once had the potential to end the political careers of Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan or Malcolm Turnbull. It is obvious now that the findings of the Auditor-General's report into the handling of the government's OzCar finance scheme, and the allegations of improper conduct or political favours, are not going to end the careers of either the Prime Minister or the Treasurer. It is equally obvious Mr Grech's career is already effectively over.
Why I faked OzCar email: Godwin Grech
04/08 Paul Maley, The Australian |GODWIN Grech has admitted he created the "fake email" at the heart of the OzCar affair and claimed that he passed the contents of that email to Malcolm Turnbull under "enormous pressure".
The senior Treasury official, speaking from a psychiatric ward in Canberra last night, admitted to an error of judgment in creating the email.
But he said he still believed there had been an original email from Kevin Rudd's office, urging help for Ipswich car dealer and Labor donor John Grant, but conceded it could not be found.
Win for marriage at ALP conference
01/08 Lyle Shelton | I have just spent the past three days as an observer at the Australian Labor Party’s National Conference at Darling Harbour in Sydney.
I am writing this from a café metres away from several hundred gay and lesbian protesters noisily but peacefully protesting against the Rudd Government’s support of marriage between a man and a woman.
The marriage debate has been a close run thing. There was a big push from ‘Rainbow Labor’, to remove marriage from the ALP’s platform during this conference.
Thankfully, this has not been achieved.
Tell Optus no money for Kyle Sandilands’ show
01/08 Jim Wallace| The 2Day FM scandal over the grilling of a 14 year-old girl live on air about her sexual experiences by Kyle Sandilands and Jacki O shows the depths to which we have sunk as a culture.
Her tragic revelation about being raped as a 12 year-old was broadcast as part of this ill-conceived stunt.
The girl’s pain was compounded when the revelation was handled with characteristic moral obliviousness and insensitivity by Sandilands.
Corporations like Optus which advertise on 2Day FM need to be given a clear message that they should not commercially support people like Kyle Sandilands and Jacki O and their station’s owner Austerio.
Time to Make a Stand against euthanasia
Make A Stand| The deadline for Tasmanian supporters to get their submission into the euthanasia bill inquiry is quickly approaching. You have until July 31 to make your voice heard on this very important issue.
Please go to our ‘Care not Killing’ campaign at the Make a Stand website.
There you will find all the information and points of argument you need to make a submission to the inquiry. All submissions, no matter how short, will send the very strong message to the committee that protecting the lives of the vulnerable important.
It is also vitally important that as many people as possible engage with this campaign, as euthanasia campaigners have been trying for years to get a foot in the door of an Australian jurisdiction to legalise ‘voluntary’ physician-assisted suicide.
Not only would legal euthanasia in Tasmania put in jeopardy the welfare of elderly, sick and depressed people in that state, but would provide considerable leverage for campaigners to push on into other states.
Pursuing the churches over human rights is contradictory
Peter Costello, The Age | WHAT happens when equal rights between men and women are so widely accepted that mainstream Australia hardly thinks about it? Surely it is time to acknowledge that anti-discrimination statutes have done their job?
Not according to the Victorian Government. It harbours the view that discrimination has got sophisticated - so hard to find under current law - that we must widen the law to catch more of it. One area in the State Government’s sights is religious bodies, and their schools.
Making a Stand: An Australian Charter of Rights
We the undersigned are opposed to a Charter of Rights which would allow judges to determine if laws are incompatible with human rights. We support the protection of human rights, especially those of the most vulnerable in our society, but we wish to see elected representatives of the people, not unelected judges, remain responsible for the protection of human rights. We note that this system has already made Australia one of the freest countries in the world with a human rights record the envy of people all over the world. We call upon the Australian Parliament to:
a. reject a Charter of Rights orb. not enact a Charter without a referendum.
To Sign this Petition on the Make A Stand website
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Why Are We in Afghanistan?
NEW INITIATIVE: CHILDREN NEED PARENTS
Australian Christian Lobby Newsletter 
Australian Prayer Network Archives | 
Win for marriage at ALP conference
Tell Optus no money for Kyle Sandilands’ show
Time to Make a Stand against euthanasia
Pursuing the churches over human rights is contradictory