SA: Matters of Public Interest: Education

29/10 Liberal Senator Cori Bernardi, SA, Senate Debates, Open Australia | A few months ago I was speaking to a university student who told me about a midsemester assignment she had received for one of her courses. I took an interest in the assignment because the class was given a paper on families and told to write about a particular type of family and the advantages and benefits of it. The paper that was presented was a study asking the students to respond and endorse the fact that children of same-sex relationships were in a better parental situation than those of a heterosexual relationship. I found this entirely controversial. It is something that I certainly do not agree with, but it brings me to the first of two points that I would like to make today. The first of which is: why I am surprised that this sort of bias and presentation is made to our university students? For some time there has been concern that within Australian universities, and even in some secondary and primary schools, there is some behaviour and some endorsement of particular political views or other biases that really have no place in the educational system. Teachers, lecturers and the like are charged with a grave responsibility, and that is to educate young minds. It means they should present facts and information in a sensible, balanced and even-handed manner. Where there are controversial issues that need to be dealt with, they should present both sides of the issue, and I have no truck with that, as I am sure many parents do not. Then, after having been presented with both sides of the argument and the necessary information, it is for students to decide for themselves and ultimately form their own opinions about these matters.

In some instances where teachers are no longer presenting both sides of an argument, it appears that children and students are being indoctrinated with a particular bias. There are many examples where teachers are pushing their own opinions about politics or society in general onto students and are only allowing one side of an argument to be heard. Indeed, teachers have been known—and there has been some evidence about this presented to a Senate committee—to pressure students to reflect certain thoughts in assignments regardless of what the student actually believes or the merits of a student’s argument, leading some students to worry that if they do not reflect the opinions of their teacher they will actually be marked down. . ....."

Crimes Amendment (Working With Children—Criminal History) Bill 2009.

29/10 Craig Thompson, ALP Representative for Dobell: House Debates, Open Australia | I rise to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Working With Children—Criminal History) Bill 2009. I do not think there is a member in this House who would disagree with the notion that the safety of our children is of paramount concern to the national community. The object of these amendments is to help protect children from sexual, physical and emotional harm, by permitting criminal history information to be disclosed and taken into account in assessing the suitability of persons to work with children. 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 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. I do not think we need an institute or a study to tell us this; it is almost self-evident. Most Australians would already understand and acknowledge these links.

This bill will amend the Crimes Act 1914 to enable the disclosure and use of criminal history information about a person’s pardoned, quashed and spent convictions, but only for the purpose of child related employment screening. ....."

Is it worth the effort?

Sometimes we ask ourselves, does writing letters, sending in submissions or shooting off emails via www.makeastand.org.au really make any difference?

Yes, it does! We are not saying this ourselves here, the well known “Crikey” political blog says so.
A recent Crikey article commenting on the change of heart by Rob Hulls and the Victorian Government over the Equal Opportunity “religious exceptions”, makes it clear that the strength of opposition right across the Christian community hit home hard. To quote: “The reaction from religious groups was fierce.”

According to official Parliamentary figures, the enquiry process generated 1252 submissions (including 419 pro-forma/form letters) and we know that the vast majority of these submissions were favouring the retention of the religious exceptions. One report says nearly ALL of the submissions related to those key exceptions which relate to freedom of religion.

Now we must await the final legislation before lowering our guard on this particular issue, but we can take encouragement from the fact that even secular journalists can see the value of Christians engaging in the process!

Keep writing those letters and sending those emails!

SA: Matters of Public Interest: Education

28/10 Liberal Senator Cori Bernardi, SA, Senate Debates, Open Australia | A Catholic student group was recently banned from displaying posters about pregnancy counselling in its university because the university had a policy that only pro-choice materials were permitted on campus. How is that fair and equitable? In the supposedly tolerant environment of a university, where there is a great deal made of equality and rights, it seems that some rights are more equal than others. Some of the examples I have just given are from submissions to last year’s Senate inquiry into academic freedom. I note that no recommendations were made as a result of that. The inquiry basically said that it appears to concern only a very small proportion of the student population. The chair, Senator Marshall, said:

Even if it were true that the majority of academics have a broadly left liberal political stance, the question is whether this matters.

I think it does matter when academics are pushing a political view, be it Left or Right, on students without allowing students to hear a balancing counterview in a reasonable setting or to express a counterview without penalties attached to their academic transcripts or performance.

It goes to a broader concern that at some levels—and people have shared this with me—universities seem to have been caught up in social engineering and that they have forgotten to be open-minded educational institutions. They should be providing students with the tools to help them form their own opinions, not forming opinions for them. If you want to characterise it in a single phrase, it is possibly an abuse of trust. One of the submitters to the inquiry wrote:

Students are easily malleable, and … they trust the opinion of their teachers to a high degree. The teacher-student relationship has much to do with why teachers are so influential. Students are entrusted by their parents, and by the community, to these people to properly educate them. ....."

Petition to save the sanctity of marriage

Gordon Moyes | The Australian Family Association is calling on Christians to oppose a new push to legalise gay marriage by petitioning their local Federal MPs. The Marriage Equality Amendment Bill is currently before an inquiry which is due to report at the end of November 2009.

The Marriage Equality Amendment Bill is a Private Senator's Bill (sponsored by Senator Sarah Hanson-Young) that seeks to remove all discrimination from the Marriage Act 1961 on the basis of sexuality and gender identity, and to permit marriage regardless of sex, sexuality and gender identity.

The Bill seeks to repeal the definition of marriage to:

"Marriage means the union of two people, regardless of their sex, sexuality or gender identity, voluntarily entered into for life." The Bill seeks to omit the words "a man and a woman", with the substitute of "two people".

Mary-Louise Fowler, NSW President and National Vice President of the Australian Family Association (AFA) says proposed legislation by the Greens allowing same-sex couples to hold legally binding ceremonies should attract ?a public outcry? from Christians in order to prevent a precedent being set for other states.

The deadline to sign the petition is Monday 9 November 2009. Copies of the petition can be obtained online at http://www.family.org.au/index.php

or contacting AFA secretary Joe Lopez on 02 4753 6097 and should be submitted to your local Federal MP.

Matters of Public Interest: Border Security

28/10 ALP Senator David Feeney VIC, Senate Debates, Open Australia | I am delighted indeed to speak on this subject on such an auspicious day. Today is an auspicious day because in the Catholic calendar of saints today is St Godwin’s day, a day which I know is of great spiritual significance to senators opposite. I know that those opposite have long been devotees of the cult of St Godwin because a few months ago they gave evidence of their faith by displaying in this Senate a holy relic of the saint, a miraculous email of Saint Godwin, which had apparently come to Senator Abetz in a vision. So, in keeping with this auspicious day, I thought I would start my contribution today with a text from Holy Scripture. In the Book of Proverbs, at Proverbs 26:11 in fact, we read:

As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly.

I am sure those opposite will see at once the relevance of this text to today’s debate. Today in this matter of public importance motion we are seeing the opposition repeating the folly of its MPI on Monday. Like the dog that returns to its vomit, the opposition comes back to the folly of this divisive, inflammatory debate about asylum seekers ... ."

National Senator Barnaby Joyce QLD, Senate Debates, Open Australia | ".... Anyway, today is the feast day of St Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. That is so typical of exactly where the Labor Party’s policy is. The saint of today, St Jude, is the patron saint of hopeless causes. That is exactly where they are.

How completely apt is his discussion about a patron saint. How completely lacking in detail is the Labor Party, as usual. They are completely bereft of any research. There are just wonderful statements about the cabal of the illuminati but without a skerrick of detail sitting underneath what they talk to you about. This is just so beautiful! What a great day to be in this chamber when they make such a clanger like that. It is a ripper... "

Constituency Statements: National School Chaplaincy Program

26/10 Mark Coulton, Parkes, National Party, House Debates, Open Australia | The discovery in Senate estimates last week that the National Schools Chaplaincy Program has not been funded past mid-next year has caused considerable concern amongst students, parents, teachers and chaplains in my electorate.

Since the National School Chaplaincy Program was established by the former coalition government two years ago, students and school communities from every corner of my electorate have benefited immeasurably from the valuable support, pastoral care and guidance offered by their chaplains. When the program was first implemented, there was a degree of concern expressed by many schools who felt it may threaten the separation of church and state. However, over the past week, I have received a great deal of correspondence from students, principals, parents and chaplains who have benefited in one way or another from the program.

The benefits that this program offers school communities are immense. Despite being a relatively new program, the feedback I have received is that school chaplains are making an enormous contribution to the personal, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of many school communities. This was recently reinforced by a study into the program by Edith Cowan University. The study found that teachers’ feedback from the program has been overwhelmingly positive. For teachers, the program fills a vital gap and provides an invaluable resource for teachers who have neither the time nor the capability to provide the services offered by these chaplains ....

Despite the fact that 97 per cent of school principals have engaged a chaplain and strongly support the program and its benefits to their school communities, the government has refused to rule out cancelling funding for this program. The government must give a firm commitment that this program will be extended.

In closing, I would say that this is something that has worked. It is not a religious indoctrination. I know from personal experience that very marginalised children have benefited from having a person with a kind and caring ear to speak to.."

Clergy unite over human rights charter

23/10 The Australian | THE nation's most powerful church leaders have united in a bid to scuttle efforts to create a national charter of human rights, warning the Rudd government it could curtail religious freedoms and give judges the power to shape laws on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

Catholic cardinal George Pell led a delegation of about 20 church leaders to Canberra to raise strong concerns about the impact of a charter on religious freedoms.

The leaders, representing major churches including the Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist and Pentecostal, warned that a charter of rights could restrict the ability to hire people of faith in churches, schools and welfare bodies. Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen did not attend the meeting with Attorney-General Robert McClelland on Wednesday because of a synod meeting but said he staunchly backed the delegation's views.

"We strongly support human rights, but we don't think a charter such as this is necessary or even effective in protecting the rights of the most vulnerable people in our community. It may in all likelihood make things worse, particularly in the area of religious freedom," he said.

Cardinal Pell said there was no doubt a charter of rights would be used against religious schools, hospitals and charities by other people who did not like religious freedom and thought it should not be a human right.

THE AUSTRALIAN PEACEFUL ASYLUM INVASION

16/10 Tony Abbott's blog | Prime Minister Rudd said this week that the Government’s policy towards boat people was both “hardline and humane”. His difficulty is that it’s next-to-impossible to be hardline and humane at the same time. A hardline policy will seem inhumane to refugee advocates. A humane policy will seem like a welcome mat to people smugglers and their clients.

There’s no doubt that the Rudd Government has watered down John Howard’s border protection policies. In particular, it has replaced temporary protection visas with permanent residency; provided people on offshore islands with additional appeal mechanisms; and stopped sending would-be arrivals to places such as Nauru and PNG. Last year, the Government wanted to stress how different it was from its despised predecessor. The message might have been intended for voters in inner city electorates but it was also picked up by people in troubled third world countries. With boat people arrivals ten times greater than in 2007, Mr Rudd now wants to stress how tough the Government will be. Unfortunately for him and for the integrity of Australia’s borders, desperate people are more interested in the Government’s actions than its words. . ....."

15/10 Crossbench Comment | In recent months, we have seen the rate of family joblessness increase at a much faster pace than joblessness generally. According to Professor Peter Whiteford from the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, joblessness among families is one of the most significant problems facing Australian society. It is the most important cause of child poverty in Australia and is a major contributor to overall income inequality.

Jobless families include not only those who are unemployed but those not participating in the paid labour market. Around two-thirds of these families are lone parents, and more than 80 percent of lone parents are women.

In December 2007, the newly-elected Federal Labor Government established three new bodies: a Social Inclusion Unit within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, a Social Inclusion Committee of Cabinet, and a Social Inclusion Board to advise the government on ways to combat economic and social disadvantage in Australia. The objective of "addressing the needs of jobless families with children" is listed first among the priorities on the social inclusion agenda.

As more and more families become unemployed and have no permanent source of income, we will see more and more people displaced from their homes and become homeless. It is a form of displacement that Australia has not seen since the Great Depression.

WHAT CONSTRUCTIVE OPPOSITIONS DO

08/10 Tony Abbott's blog | "It makes sense to minimize carbon dioxide emissions but not to devastate the economy in the process. It makes sense to join an international campaign to reduce emissions but not to think that other countries will be more motivated by Australia’s example than by their own self-interest.

It would be foolish of Australia to adopt an emissions trading scheme in advance of the rest of the world or to adopt one which is more onerous than that of our competitors. Yet this is precisely what the Rudd Government is currently proposing to do. As long as Prime Minister Rudd insists on ETS legislation being passed prior to the Copenhagen conference, at which other countries will indicate the emission-reduction measures that they are prepared to take, it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that he is putting his own vanity ahead of Australia’s national interest.

The Coalition has urged the Government to wait until after Copenhagen to finalize its ETS bill. The Coalition has also urged the Government to ensure that Australia’s ETS imposes no more costs on our industries than the proposed American ETS will on theirs. In particular, the Coalition wants agricultural emissions explicitly excluded as the Americans propose to do. These are sensible, reasonable requests designed to ensure that an ETS does not become a futile gesture. ....."

Curtain call for Costello as darker play takes shape

04/10 The Age | ''THE Liberals'' might well have been a play in three acts yesterday - tales of ambition, burning ambition and thwarted ambition.

Enter first: the beleaguered Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, who faced the elements in suburban Berwick busily maintaining that he would fashion the Liberals' position on an emissions trading scheme despite rumblings within the party ."

Peter Costello to quit on October 19

07/10 Julian Drape, Nine News | Going, going, gone. Some within the Liberal Party never really believed Peter Costello was going to quit federal politics but now it's a done deal. Mr Costello - Australia's longest-serving treasurer, who introduced the GST - will finally resign in just over a week.

... In June this year Mr Costello declared he wouldn't recontest the seat of Higgins at the next federal election, due in late 2009. But some hoped he still might change his mind, even after Kelly O'Dwyer was preselected by the Liberal Party to run in his Victorian seat.

Statement Concerning Higgins Electorate

07/10 Peter Costello.com | When the House of Representatives resumes I will tender my resignation to the Speaker as Member for Higgins.  This will allow a by-election to be called this year and for it to be held at the same time as the by-election for Bradfield.

It has been a privilege and honour to serve as Member for Higgins for just on 20 years - the longest period of any of its Members since the seat was established in 1949.  I have always considered my representative duties as my first priority - one of the reasons I maintained my residence in Melbourne during a long Ministerial career.  During the last two years, the first I have served without a frontbench position, I have had the chance to work daily from my suburban Electorate Office and spend more time than ever with constituents.  I will be sad to say farewell.  Although I will return to private life I hope to continue some measure of service to the public in the future.

The Liberal Party has now chosen an outstanding candidate for election in Higgins - Kelly O'Dwyer.  I believe she will be part of the renewal which the Liberal Party now needs to undertake.  Successful organisations plan for succession and engage in renewal.  I will give her every support as she campaigns for support in the electorate. 

I wish my colleagues in the Parliamentary Liberal Party every success in the Federal election next year.

I thank my Electorate Committee comprised of the finest people I have ever met and I thank the Liberal Party Members in the Electorate of Higgins who have given me total support.  I acknowledge with gratitude my many friends outside of politics who have stood by me in difficult times.

I thank my Electorate Staff:- Aly, Louise and Merryn for their loyalty and dedication.   Especially I thank Philippa Campbell who has been an outstanding person to work with.

Most of all I thank my greatest supporters:-  my dear wife Tanya and our wonderful children Seb, Maddy and Phoebe.  Now removed from the relentless cycle of the political life we will have the chance to spend a brief time together as a family before each of our children steps out into their own independent stories."