Displaying items by tag: Australian Politics

A brief note about the Sex Discrimination Act amendments which have the subject of a number of recent posts. The House of Representatives has now adjourned for the year without a Government Bill being introduced to make any changes concerning religious schools and discrimination. So no binding changes will be made this year. On 6 December the Senate referred the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018 to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 February 2019. Submissions to the Committee can be made at the website linked here, and must be provided by 11 January 2019: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Sexdiscrimination.

Queensland

Exclusion-zones went into force yesterday in Queensland, along with the state's new act that moved abortion into the health code. Queensland is the fourth Australian state to enact the zones - this includes New South Wales, where abortion is still technically illegal; both territories also have the so-called 'Safe-Access' zones. Pro-lifers who wish to pray outside abortion mills and offer help to the women entering them will now have to stand 150m away from the entrance or risk huge fines and potential incarceration.

A number of Christian and other religious organisations are deeply concerned about the proposals in the ALP-sponsored private Bill due to be debated in the Senate on Monday Dec 3. As I have discussed in previous comments (here and here) the Bill, which started out as an agreed measure to stop religious schools from expelling gay students on the basis of their “orientation” alone, has a number of other serious consequences for religious freedom, not only for schools but for churches, mosques, synagogues and other religious organisations (such as, for example, University student ministries.) The Bill amends the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to remove some clauses which have previously provided protection for Christian organisations to operate in accordance with their religious beliefs.

For those following the debates about proposed amendments to discrimination laws removing religious freedom from faith-based schools, the LNP Government has now tabled a number of amendments to the ALP Bill released earlier this week. While these amendments are a move in the right direction, there are still some serious concerns about their effect on religious schools and their ability to operate in accordance with their religious beliefs. The Government amendments can be seen on this page as separate documents. I will aim to briefly outline the effect of the amendments. I will assume readers are familiar with the ALP Bill discussed in my previous blog.

The case for Kings has long been voted out. The problem with Democracy is that all votes are equal, so the vote of the King was (is) worth the same as that of the average taxpayer. And the half-wit who does not know her/his own gender, the mentally deficient dole bludger who holidays in Bali on the taxpayer benefits he gets fortnightly, and the Muslim fellow down the road who wants all Infidels to do as Allah said 1400 years ago, or else: and his four wives, who will all vote as he tells them or get a beating. He and they are all on benefits too. The taxpayer weeps. The King too. Then we have the election process. The pre-selection of toadies: branch stacking; gerrymandering. The average punter has little effect on who is being voted for. And 'the system'. Designed by clods in order to conflate. More weeping and gnashing of teeth have been heard from America in the past few weeks, such that normal conversation in the Tavern has been all but drowned out. The Land of the Free has never been known for clean elections. They have barely moved on from the  Rotten Boroughs that blighted Britain.

With the crucial Victorian state election just hours away, the two major hard-left political parties in Australia have told us yet again how much they hate Christianity and how much they want to see it silenced altogether. While Victorian Labor and the Greens will be unleashing yet more damage and devastation if re-elected, the federal parties also continue their war on Christianity. Consider several recent items which demonstrate all this. The first concerns the Greens with more anti-Christian bigotry. They have come up with yet another bill to further clamp down on free speech and religious expression. The Institute for Civil Society offers this frightening headline: “Greens’ 2018 Schools Bill to Regulate Sermons?”