ACL welcomes move to fight sexualisation of children

The Australian Christian Lobby has welcomed moves by ACT Greens Party Convener, Meredith Hunter, to introduce a voluntary code of conduct for retailers to help combat the sexualisation of children.

The ACT Greens have also proposed educating students on the dangers of sexualised images on young minds.

The ACL’s ACT Director Nick Jensen said he supported moves for the ACT to become a leader in the fight against the sexualisation of children and welcomed Ms Hunter’s motion calling on the ACT Government to take action on the issue.

'While Ms Hunter’s motion is welcome, it would be great to see her concern extend to Federal Green policies, where there is a push for X-rated material to be sold throughout Australia, support for girls to sell their bodies for sex in prostitution legislation, and opposition to ISP filtering measures to stop child pornography on the internet.'

Abbott & Gillard Christian talks on pay TV tonight

Pay television subscribers will have the chance to view Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott’s messages to the Christian constituency tonight at 6:30pm.

The Australian Christian Channel will screen a 90 minute pre-election special featuring the ACL’s Make it Count event with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace’s recent interview with Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

For those without pay television, you can watch Julia Gillard's interview at Australian Christian Voter and Tony Abbott's June 21 address at Australian Christian Lobby.

Non-government school funding could still be in the balance

In the 2004 election, Mark Latham made the funding of non-government schools a divisive issue and if Labor had been elected, funding for private, church, Christian, Catholic and independent schools would have been hit hard.

Labor lost the 2004 election in a landslide.

Kevin Rudd, and more recently, Julia Gillard have sought to remove this division and despite pressure from unions, have maintained school funding in such a way that parents from a range of backgrounds can consider different schooling options for their children.

Despite this, there are still many policy uncertainties surrounding the funding of non-government schools and one of the biggest is the impact of The Greens holding the balance of power.

Christian Schools Australia is a peak body for community Christian schools in Australia and its Election 2010 web page provides background on many educational and election issues.

Visit the CSA Election 2010 resource.

Day of action leads to poverty policy movement

Micah Challenge and Make Poverty History's national day of action on August 11 has produced some positive commitments from politicians.

Supporters were asked to email  or tweet political leaders including Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, asking if they would remember the poor this election.

Specifically politicians were being asked to commit to increase Australia's international aid budget to 0.7 per cent of GDP, in line with UN millennium goal recommendations and to ask parties to appoint a Minister for International Department which would ensure greater awareness of aid issues and better targeting of funds.

The campaign received an immediate response from the Coalition with deputy leader of the Opposition, Julie Bishop, announcing that the Coalition, if elected, would appoint a Junior Minister for International Development.

And on the day of the poverty question campaign, Prime Minister Julia Gillard released a statement supporting the work of Christian organisation, Micah Challenge.

'Micah Challenge and the Make Poverty History campaign have done an outstanding job in reminding us all of how we can make a difference in the lives of people who have so much less than us.'

In the statement, Ms Gillard stopped short of announcing a minister for international development or increasing aid to 0.7 per cent but did say there would close ministerial attention to the aid budget and that 0.7 per cent would be considered in the future.

The Greens say in their international aid policy document that it is there goal that the aid budget be increased to 0.7 per cent in 2010. With the balance of the power likely to fall to them, they may well face pressure to negotiate hard on this and other issues.

All major parties have now made policy announcements - read them courtesy of Micah Challenge:
ALP aid policy statement
Coalition foreign policy statement
Greens aid policy statement

Will we remember the world's poor this election?

Christian social justice organistion Micah Challenge and Make Poverty History are hoping to mobilise thousands of Australians to help focus politicians attention on the needs of the world's poor during the August 21 election campaign.

On August 11, they are making resources available for thousands of people on one day to ask the same question to the politicians, 'will you remember the world's poor?'

'It seems to me that our political leaders haven't asked themselves that question this election,' said MC national coordinator, John Beckett. 'We think it's an important question. It's a life and death question for millions of people in our world!

'In fact we think it is one of the most important questions that anyone promoting themselves as the potential leader of a large and wealthy nation should be asking themselves. Since they seem to have forgotten to ask themselves this question, we're going to ask it for them,' Mr Beckett said.


He urged people to raise the poverty question in unison this Wedneday, August 11 from 9am by visiting The Poverty Question page and following directions.

Watch Julia Gillards interview with Christian lobby

When Julie Gillard became Prime Minister it was just four days after the national Make it Count webcast in which then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition leader Tony Abbott introduced their policies and answered eight questions from church leaders.

Ms Gillard's rise to Australia's top job was greeted with a rush by voters to discover her values and beliefs and Australian Christian Voter carried numerous stories on these topics.

Now, at a time when the election result appears to be on a knife-edge, Julia Gillard agreed to follow through with a 2005 pledge to engage with the Christian community as as part of that, did an interview with the Australian Christian Lobby, answering the same eight questions as her predecessor.

Watch the video now.


Make it Count 2010 Ms Julia Gillard Questions from Australian Christian Lobby on Vimeo.

Gillard's Christian questions video up tonight

The Australian Christian Lobby will upload footage of its interview with Prime Minister Julia Gillard to its Australia Votes website tonight.

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace yesterday asked Ms Gillard the same questions asked of the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at ACL’s June 21 Make it Count event.

Ms Gillard reaffirmed her and Labor’s commitment to marriage and support for school chaplaincy.

Off course not everyone is happy she chose to meet with the ACL.

Gillard agrees to meet Christians?

Coinciding with media focus on the Christian vote in Queensland and the launch of Australian Christian Lobby's Australia Votes website, media reports have begun circulating that 'questions of faith are set to emerge from the shadows'.

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday afternoon carried an AAP story that Prime Minister Julia Gillard has agreed to meet with the ACL after last night attending a fundraiser for Mary McKillop.

Watch Australian Christian Voter today for more details and read the full AAP story.

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):

Millions to learn of Australian voting website answering Christian concerns

By Glynis Quinlan,

Public Relations Manager
Australian Christian Lobby 

With little more than two weeks to go until the Federal election, the Australian Christian Lobby today launched a website – promoted by a million fliers and booklets sent to churches throughout Australia – informing Christians about the different political party standpoints on key issues they care about.

The Australiavotes website provides the responses of eight political parties, including the Coalition and Labor, to 24 questions on issues of interest to Christians ranging from homelessness and foreign aid to freedom of religion and the sexualisation of children. Tellingly, the Australian Greens only answered six of the questions, choosing to avoid scrutiny on a variety of issues where their policy is unlikely to be well-received by most Christians.

'The failure of the Australian Greens to answer 18 of the 24 questions – even where they have known positions on the issue such as their support for gay marriage and removing school chaplains – can only be seen as a cynical exercise to avoid scrutiny of their more radical policy positions,' ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said.

'But as disturbing as the deception in not declaring their antagonism to faith in society, is the failure to comment on issues like youth unemployment, the funding of private schools and the sexualisation of children – all issues of concern to a broader constituency,' he said.

'This deception and narrow agenda is hardly the stuff of a legitimate third force in politics.'

Brief video report of Christian election issues

Adventists Media's latest Politics in Focus video report is available on Australian Christian Voter's Watching page. It features a brief rundown of Christian issues in the August 21 election campaign with Australian Christian Lobby managing director, Jim Wallace.

Christian voter checklist released

Australian Christian Values Institute has released its checklist for the August 21 election in which major parties are rated on their policy or statements on a range of issues.

The purpose of the checklist is to 'help the Christian community and those who are sympathetic to Christian values make a more informed choice when it comes to voting'.

According to the the Australian Christian Values Institute website, it is 'an initiative of the board of Australian Heart Ministries, a non-profit charity dedicated to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Australian Christian Values Institute has a vision to "renew the Christian vision of Australia for the common good".'

The answers appearing on the checklist from the major parties are prepared from 'party policy statements, public statements, media reports... In some cases the voting record of the parties over the past few years has also been considered'.

Read background about the purpose of the checklist.

Direct link to the checklist as a pdf document

 

Read further background on how checklist responses were developed

 

Aid commitment remains despite $300m cut

The Coalition has affirmed its commitment to increasing overseas aid and development to 0.5 per cent of national income by 2015 despite axing $300 million worth of foreign aid programs designed to mitigate the affects of climate change.

While the cut has been criticised by aid organisations such as Oxfam and Caritas, Opposition's Foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop claims Labor padded the aid budget with the climate funding to garner support for a UN security council seat.

'The Coalition remains committed to increasing the foreign aid budget up to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015. We will be changing the focus, and we will be ensuring that aid is delivered in the main in our region where it can have the most effect,' Ms Bishop said today.

 

But the head of Catholic aid organisation, Caritas is not convinced. 'Countries, like Australia, who have amassed their wealth from the production of greenhouse gasses, cannot simply walk away from their responsibility to assist, as the coalition appears to be doing,' said Caritas CEO Jack De Groot.

 

Australia's aid and development sector for has been calling on politicians to meet the UN's Millennium Goals which include a recommendation for foreign development assistance to rise to 0.7 per cent of GNI by 2015, but both the government and the opposition remain committed to 0.5 per cent.
 
Read Caritas's full media release.
 
Read Fiona Bishop's response. 

Christians should be willing to change voting patterns: Dickson

'Much has been said about the ''Christian vote'', an expression often associated with those nasty-right-wing-religious-nuts imposing their morals on a secular society', writes the Centre for Public Christianity's John Dickson in the Sydney Morning Herald.

'Given that 64 per cent of Australians call themselves Christian, according to the census, it is important to clarify what the Christian vote means.

'Christians should be willing to change voting patterns after Christian reflection on particular policies. A believer who cannot imagine voting for the ''other side'' has either determined that only one party aligns with the will of God or, more likely, is more attached to their cultural context than to the wisdom of scripture.'

Read John Dickson's full article.

Internet filtering briefing linked to Queensland marginal seats

The Australian newspaper has linked a briefing given to the Australian Christian Lobby before the internet filtering announcement with Labor's concerns about marginal seats in Queensland.

The article implies that the briefing, given the day before Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced a delay in implementing internet filtering, was partly motivated by the ACL's strong support base in Queensland.

A spokesperson of the minister said the briefing was part of the normal process of communicating with stakeholders while ACL chief of staff described as rubbish the suggestion the government was only interested in the filtering idea in an attempt to hold on to the Christian vote.

Read the full article in The Australian.

Salt Shakers express concern over Gillard

Christian organisation Salt Shakers has published an extensive comment piece on Julia Gillard, exploring her links with the Socialist Forum and linking to a briefing paper prepared before the 2007 election.

They express concern that 'Miss Gillard is not a social conservative or a Christian. We can expect considerable social engineering towards an even more "tolerant", socially destructive Australia.'

Find the posting about half way down on the home page of their website.

Christian schools welcome PM Gillard

Christian Schools Australia has congratulated Julia Gillard on being sworn in as Australia's 27th Prime Minister, the first woman to occupy this high office.


A statement written by CEO Stephen O'Doherty, says 'Ms Gillard comes to her position after undertaking a significant reform agenda in education, including measures which have greatly benefited Christian schools.

'The new Prime Minister has shown herself to have an enormous capacity for work, and to exercise her many responsibilities with good grace and strong relational skills.

'She comes to her new role having built considerable goodwill within our sector.