If only we could vote for policies, not politicians and parties

Christian voters, like many other value-driven voter groupings, most likely progressively tear their hair out the longer an election campaign goes on.

With each day of wall-to-wall election coverage comes new policy bombs that blow up the settled belief that you know who to vote for.

The candidate or party whose policy on one issue sounded reasonable yesterday suddenly make statements on another issue today that you could never support.

Record 1717 federal election candidates is 43 per cent increase

A record 1717 candidates have nominated to contest the 2013 federal election, Electoral Commissioner, Ed Killesteyn announced today.

This compares to 1198 candidates who contested the 2010 federal election, and represents an increase of 43 per cent.

This national figure includes 529 Senate candidates for the 40 Senate vacancies and 1188 candidates for the 150 House of Representatives seats across Australia.

Mr Killesteyn said the candidate nominations were officially declared at 12 noon today at public events held around Australia.

He said that the secure printing of about 44 million House of Representatives and Senate ballot papers would now start, with early voting to begin next Tuesday, August 20.

Click to see a state by state breakdown
Click to see a complete list of candidates

Source: Australian Electoral Commission

Rev Fred Nile's fiancee Silvana Nero contests NSW by-election

Rev Fred Nile's fiancee Silvana Nero is placed seventh on the ballot paper as the Christian Democratic Party candidate for the by-election in the NSW seat of Northern Tablelands to be held on May 25.

Ms Nero, a single mother of three who lives in government housing in Dee Why, is hoping to fill the parliamentary vacancy left by independent Richard Torbay who resigned suddenly and has since been referred to ICAC.

Torbay had been selected as the National candidate for Tony Windsor's federal electorate of New England in the upcoming election. He has been replaced by National's Senator Barnaby Joyce.

Ms Nero has encouraged people to vote for her saying on her Facebook page, 'I am on the Northern Tablelands by-election ballot at No.7. Lucky number. Vote for me and go to the bottom of the ballot.'
She describes herself as 'Pro-Life, Pro-Family and Pro-Christian ethics'.

She has been a teacher for 30 years, including in Walcha and Tamworth (Northern Tablelands) and says of her faith:

'As long as I can remember I have trusted and put into practice that “For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7. I stand for Biblical truths that brings us hope, peace and love.'

Rev Nile, 78, the national leader of the CDP and NSW MLC, announced this month his engagement to Ms Nero, 55, admitting that he was besotted with her and that his wife Elaine who died in October 2011 and said he could remarry, although ruling some women off limits.

Ms Nero says that Rev Nile is her 'knight in shining armour' and has made it clear that they do not live together or share a room as both believe strongly in marriage - Rev Nile was married for 53 years.

Fred Nile's engagement announced
Silvana Nero's Facebook page
Northern Tablelands by-election
Official CDP Facebook page

Postscript: The Northern Tablelands by-election was won by Adam Marshall (The Nationals) with 63.3 per cent of the primary vote followed by Jim Maher (Independent) with 13.5 per cent. Ms Nero came seventh with 2.1 per cent of the primary vote.

Which Australian politicians believe in God?

More than 80 per cent of the federal politicians who responded to a News Ltd survey said they believed in God and would be attending at least one church service this weekend.

In the report by Candace Sutton posted online this afternoon, four politicians 'out' themselves as atheists - three Greens and a Liberal - while a fourth Green politician, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson (Tas) admitted: 'I am still a journeyman on this one...'

Those who responded to the survey saying they believed in God included:

Australian Senate: Senator Eric Abetz (Lib, Tas), Senator Chris Back (Lib, WA) Senator David Feeney (ALP, Vic) Senator Mark Furner (ALP, Qld), Senator Ian Macdonald (Lib, Qld), Senator Bridget McKenzie (Nat, Vic), Senator Dean Smith (Lib, WA), Senator Ursula Stephens (ALP, NSW), Senator Matt Thistlethwaite (ALP, NSW).

House of Representatives: Karen Andrews (Lib, Qld), Bob Baldwin (Lib, NSW), Jamie Briggs (Lib,SA), Teresa Gambaro (Lib, Qld), Steve Georganas (ALP, SA), Natasha Griggs (CLP, NT), Bob Katter (KAP, Qld), Shayne Neumann (ALP, Qld), Graham Perrett (ALP, Qld), Tanya Plibersek, (ALP, NSW), Michelle Rowland (ALP, NSW), Kevin Rudd (ALP, Qld), Janelle Saffin (ALP, NSW), Bruce Scott (Nat, Qld), Alan Tudge (Lib, Vic), Bert van Manen (Lib, Qld), Maria Vamvakinou (ALP, Vic), Joe Hockey (Lib, NSW).

Don't believe in God: Senator Lee Rhiannon (Greens, NSW), Senator Larissa Waters (Greens, Qld), Adam Bandt (Greens, Vic) and Senator Simon Birmingham.

Here's what Tony Abbott said on 60 Minutes

Tony Abbott appeared on 60 Minutes tonight, interviewed by Liz Hayes, and also featuring his family including his sister, lesbian Christine Forster.

Mr Abbott, who many tip to be Australia's next Prime Minister, was being tested as to whether his views of the past were current today or whether he could successfully present himself as a changed, '21st century man'.

Here is some of what he had to say:

When Liz Hayes suggested that he was only person who could stop himself becoming Prime  Minister, Abbott said that he often will 'warn the party that we could stop ourselves winning, it often happens.'

Asked if Julia Gillard's now famous misogyny speech - directed mainly at Abbott - had hurt him politically: 'In the end, I guess, we’ll find out on polling day but it wasn’t true and it wasn’t fair.'

Bob Katter stakes a claim for Christian voter heartland

If the result of the recent Neilsen poll carried through to the election - Coalition leading the ALP by 47 per cent to 30 per cent may - the minor parties' battle for the balance of power might become obsolete.

But if it election results in both houses is close enough to bring the fate of the minor parties and independents back into play, Bob Katter's Australia Party is tipped by some analysts as the party to watch.

While the birth of the party nationally has been marked by controversial comments and candidate resignations, it could be a case of 'all publicity is good publicity' considering the challenge most small parties have in creating national profile. And in any case there is little doubt Katter and co will poll well in Queensland, and maybe western Sydney, right where Labor is expected to suffer badly.

Open Australia bridges democratic disconnect and puts you in touch with Parliament

A new website that makes the unfathomable depths of Hansard easily accessible will be a huge asset for serious voters in the 2013 election.

OpenAustralia has a simple goal - to be 'a non-partisan website run by a charity, the OpenAustralia Foundation and volunteers. It aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their representatives in Parliament.' <>

Screenshot of an electorate search using a postcode.

OpenAustralia has already been featured by the Global Mail which has used information sourced from the website to produce charts showing how politicians use language to describe issues. Check out its Party Lines interactive feature.

The OpenAustralia website describes its function as a bridge for the 'growing democratic disconnect':

New political party has high hopes: Australian Christians

'The political landscape is at a crossroads. We believe the time is right for a new party, shaped by Christian values, to step forward as a viable third alternative.'

This is the bold declaration of a new political party known as Australian Christians which was launched in some states early last year.

A news story on the party by Perth Voice reports comments by national director Ray Moran who hopes that three existing political parties with Christian affiliations - Family First, Australian Christian Democrats and the Democratic Labor Party - can be united into one large Christian party.

However at the time, according to Perth Voice, the only progress had been some "official talks" with Family First.

A Victorian State Conference and Campaign Launch is being held on February 3 with the theme defending the essential three strands of faith, family freedom. Ecclesiastes 4:12 is highlighted - 'A cord of three strands is not quickly broken' - perhaps applicable also to the goal of uniting Christian political parties.

One of the speakers is Australian Christians' lead Senate candidate in Victoria, Vickie Janson, author of Ideological Jihad. She has recently completed a trip through regional Victoria meeting church leaders and other Christians. Tasmanian lead Senate candidate is Kevin Swarts.

On its website, Australian Christians describes a hopeful vision, clearly unsullied by political realities that too easily engulf even experienced hands.

'We see a movement that is known for what it promotes, not what it opposes. A party with a voice in the political conversation that can shape policy, promote and protect the values that create a better Australia for all Australians, no matter what their faith and belief. We believe this movement has the potential to unite Australian Christians. And we believe it has the potential to influence the values and culture of our next generation.'

Comment: at first glance, Australian Christians would seem to have unrealistic hopes and little organisation - the twin plagues of most Christian endeavours in the world of politics. A closer look reveals that, in Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania at least, there is some degree of organisation and resource and even a few candidates. ACV

Wikipedia contains a small and slightly outdated reference to the party. It claims that Australian Christians will not operate in NSW due to the strength of the CDP in that state.

Roxon, Evans and McClelland all go leaving Labor campaign in turmoil

News Limited papers and ABC are reporting this morning that Attorney General Nicola Roxon will soon announce that she is standing down from Cabinet and will leave politics at the next election.

This is in addition to reports that Labor Senate leader Chris Evans will announce his retirement as early as today. Senator Evans is also Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research.

And this follows Tuesday's news that ALP Member for Barton Robert McClelland will not contest the next election. Now news has emerged that he is being considered for a judicial post which could force a by-election in his Sydney electorate held by a margin of 6.9per cent.

Who is Mark Dreyfus?
Of interest to many Christian voters and others, will be the effect of the departure of Ms Roxon on the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill currently being debated across the country.

The Attorney General is tipped to be Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change Mark Dreyfus QC, Member for Isaacs. 

To find out more about the man who may become Australia's next Attorney General:
Read Mark Dreyfus's maiden speech
Read a wide-ranging interview
Read transcript of ADHR bill debate


More on today's political turmoil

DLP claims Vic Senate seat as count continues

Possible DLP Senator John Madigan

The sixth and final Senate seat in Victoria is still up in the air with the Democratic Labor Party claiming the seat just ahead of Family First's Steve Fielding and Liberal Julian McGauran.

While the DLP only finished fifth on first preferences, behind Liberal, ALP, Greens and Family First, they do well with preferences from other minor parties, including, crucially, the Christian Democratic Party, who preferenced the DLP ahead of Family First.

However the ABC's Senate calculator is now showing the DLP being eliminated before Family First, with Family First not having enough votes to hold out Senator McGauran.

Despite this the DLP is virtually claiming victory on their website:

'After an extremely successful senate campaign and despite the fact that no one in the electronic or print media gave the DLP so much as a footnote, the people of Victoria have put John Madigan in the position of becoming the first DLP Senator in 35 years. Although the final figures will not be known for up to two weeks John is well placed to take the final Victorian Senate Seat.

'It is a shame that this possible DLP victory will come at the cost of Senators Julian McGauran and Steve Fielding who have given such strong and determined service on behalf of the people of Victoria.'

Mr Madigan is a blacksmith, skills that may well benefit him in the Senate.

Do the new cross bench members carry their cross?

When Julia Gillard became Prime Minister there was massive interest from the Christian community as to whether she believed in God or carried Christian values.

Now that we have a handful of independents holding the balance of power, it will be interesting to see if their religious faith or otherwise receives the same scrutiny.

None of them have clear Christian identification in their publicity material but the rural independents would be well accustomed to visiting church events as part of country life.

At this stage, between four and six members of the House of Representatives will sit on the cross benches - that is, not on the Labor or Liberal side of the house.

They are the independents, Member for New England (NSW) Tony Windsor, Member for Lyne (NSW) Rob Oakeshott and Member for Kennedy (Qld) Bob Katter, all regional or rural electorates. Issues highlighted by these three include help for regional Australia, a departure from the two-party system of government to a more united parliament approach and

Also on the cross benches is Member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, who is a member of The Greens and his policies are those of The Greens. He highlighted gay marriage and a price on carbon as two of his priorities.

A possible fifth is Member for O'Connor (WA) Tony Crook who ran as a National but is reported as saying he will sit on the cross benches as an 'independent WA National'. He is staunchly anti-mining tax and ETS.

And a likely sixth member is independent Andrew Wilkie who appears to have won the seat of Denison in Tasmania. He is contacting independent Senator Nick Xenophon for advice and one of Wilkie's key issues is to combat the spread of poker machines.

Family First answers environment questions

Family First's lead Senate candidate in NSW Greg Swane has responded today to questions about his party's environment policy.

Mr Swane said Family First is committed to tackling issues such as climate change, deforestation and marine sanctuaries as well working to achieving a fair and equable approach to the 'carbon tax issue'.

He said his major concern and focus was how the implementation and size of any carbon tax would affect the Australian family’s ability to survive financially.

'I want to comment on the alarmist focus of The Greens that implies that the environment is collapsing,' Mr Swane said in a statement sent to churches and supporters.

Find a Family First candidate

Family First now has a comprehensive list of candidates available online, state by state. To find a Family First candidate in your state click below:

Family First Victoria
Family First South Australia
Family First Western Australia
Family First Queensland
Family First NSW

Meanwhile, Family First in NSW had a scare when NSW Upper House member, Gordon Moyes, collapsed outside parliament recently. He is reported to have spent three days in hospital with heart-related health issues but is now fully recovered.

Candidate links for the Christian Democratic Party were published recently on Australian Christian Voter

CDP candidate lists available

With less than a week before the federal election on Saturday, the Christian Democratic Party has posted complete lists of candidates for most states in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The CDP is urging Christians to vote for the CDP first before allocating preferences to other parties as a way of highlighting the strength of the Christian vote.

To see lists, and in some cases, profiles of CDP candidates in various states, click on the links below:

CDP NSW
CDP WA
CDP VIC
CDP SA

The other states and territories do not appear to have online lists of candidates.

Disendorsed Liberal now a Senate candidate

Disendorsed former Liberal candidate for the NSW seat of Chifley, David Barker, is now running for the Senate and has attacked the Christian Democratic Party and Family First preference arrangements.

Mr Barker was disendorsed by the Liberals last month after posting anti-Muslim comments on Facebook.

Now running as a 'Christian independent', Mr Barker said the allocation of preferences by the Christian Democratic Party has increased the danger of a Greens senator being elected in NSW.

Family First candidate warns church leaders on Greens policies

NSW Family First Senate candidate Greg Swane is urging church leaders to highlight the 'threat to marriage' that would occur if The Greens gain the balance of power in the Senate.
Mr Swane said that while all three Christian-based parties as well as Liberal and Labor uphold the current Marriage Act, Tasmanian Greens Senator Christine Milne said her party would be introducing legislation to make gay marriage legal.

'I recently took part in a short debate on gay marriage (Channel 7’s Good Morning program, Friday, August 6) and you can see that I am not only a passionate defender of the family, but also not afraid to discuss contentious issues publicly in a non-emotive manner,' Mr Swane said.

'My past experience has shown that this achieves more than taking a moralistic, judgemental and confrontational approach. That approach has proved not to work in the Australian culture.'

Mr Swane also highlighted that The Greens had chosen not to answer a range of question in the recent Australian Christian Lobby survey covering family, euthanasia, abortion, chaplaincy in schools, youth unemployment, national curriculum, funding for faith-based and independent schools, marriage, parenting, sexualisation of children, internet safety, freedom of religion, religious security, and fringe benefit tax considerations for churches and faith-based charities.

'Their attitude and policies are a real threat to Australian families. Please compare and analysis our policies. The great attraction of The Greens for many has been their fight for the environment and more recently carbon tax. However their high profile views on these issues has masked their social reform agenda,' he said.

Candidate forums target marginal seats

The Australian Christian Lobby is encouraging Christian voters to attend candidate forums being held in many electorates across the nation. These are meant to be non-confrontational forums to canvass candidates views and are especially targeted at marginal seats.

Watch a short video on candidate forums.

Candidate forum events as of August 5, 2010 (electorate name in block letters):

Newcastle businessman leads Family First's NSW Senate ticket

Family First NSW announced this week the selection of Newcastle businessman, Greg Swane, as its lead Senate candidate.

In announcing the selection, chairman Neville Cox said Mr Swane brings with him extensive experience in small business, including retail, manufacturing and the building industry.

'Greg is passionate about social justice and is totally committed to families influencing government rather than government policy impacting on the family unit unfairly,'  a statement from Mr Cox said.

'Mr Swane attends the Salvation Army, Belmont and shares with them a heart and commitment for those who suffer from life’s injustices. Greg and his wife Julie have been married for 23 years. He has three children David, Elizabeth, Amy, and two grandchildren.

In his first media statement, Mr Swane, questioned the bland showing in the campaign so far of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott.

CDP takes strong stance against Gillard, Greens

The Christian Democratic Party's Rev Red Nile believes the August 21 election is the most important in Australia's history with voters facing a clear choice between 'an atheistic ALP Prime Minister' and an alternate Prime Minister who is 'strongly committed' to the Christian faith.

In his latest press release, Rev Nile describes Prime Minister Julia Gillard as 'a founding member of the pro-abortion Emily's List and is a socialist left-wing supporter of the Fabian Society'.

On the other side, Tony Abbott  is 'strongly committed to the Christian faith, Judeo-Christian moral values and our Commonwealth Constitution as are our CDP House of Representative Candidates', Rev Nile said.

Rev Nile saves his fiercest criticism for The Greens with whom the CDP will battle for influence in the Senate.

'Every voter also faces a clear choice for the federal Senate, between our CDP Senate team led by Mayor Paul Green, who will courageously stand up for our Aussie Christian family values and for one law for all Australians - no Sharia law!

'Or the radical anti-Christian, pagan, Green Party Senate candidates led by Lee Rhiannon a former member of the Stalinist Socialist Party, who actively campaigned in the Upper House for same-sex "marriage", marijuana, x-rated videos, abortion, euthanasia, etc,' Rev Nile continues.


'Your vote is urgently needed, so we can ensure the election of Paul Green and defeat the watermelon (green outside but 'red' inside) Green political party.'

Liberal organisational failure leads to candidate chaos

The disendorsement of a Liberal candidate for making anti-Muslim comments is a story of organisational incompetence.

David Barker became the Liberal candidate for the safe Labor seat of Chifley in Sydney's west because no other candidates could be found. He was endorsed directly by the state office rather than pre-selected by the local Liberal branch.

A Liberal party source was quoted in The Australian  as saying 'Mr Barker was a vulnerable disability pensioner' and the source was 'critical of party officials for failing to predict he would not withstand media scrutiny'.

Identifying himself as a Christian, Mr Barker's comments did not assist serious Christian engagement in the political process. 'When I get in, I will give my votes, all of them, to God who is on the side of the Liberal Right...' is just one example.

This incident has raised questions of due-diligence in candidate selection but it also points to the strain placed on party structures as they seek to run candidates across the nation.

Smaller parties, while hopefully avoiding this kind of mistake, are struggling to not only get candidates up and running but to communicate with the media and the electorate.